2017 World Blitz Championship, Day 2: Carlsen Massacres the Field
Magnus Carlsen started the day two points out of first place, and heading into the last round, he had already clinched clear first with a two point lead. He steamrolled his opposition over that nine-game stretch, scoring eight and a half points. The only player to hold him to a draw was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and while he had a little bit of luck here and there (and received a gift from Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, who was so determined to squeeze something out of nothing he self-destructed), but overall Carlsen's play was extremely impressive. After a shaky first day, today's performance was magisterial. A draw with Levon Aronian in the last round allowed the field to make up half a point, but they were still eating his dust.
Carlsen scored 16/21, and Sergey Karjakin (who started the day with that two point lead) and Viswanathan Anand tied for second and third with 14.5/21. Karjakin had the better tiebreaks and took the silver; Anand the bronze. A further half a point back were Wang Hao and Aronian. Aronian was almost as hot as Carlsen scoring 8.5/10 on the day. If his first day hadn't been so terrible - 50% - who knows how things would have turned out for him.
In the women's section, Pia Cramling had a fantastic first day, but faltered badly on day two to finish out of the medal hunt. Nana Dzagnidze played strongly both days, and did even better than Carlsen, finishing with 16.5/21. (Though not against the same opposition, obviously.) The ever-tricky Valentina Gunina came up half a point short, winning silver with 16 points, and then there was a two point gap to the third-fourth place finishers, Ju Wenjun and Kateryna Lagno. Ju had the better tiebreaks and won the bronze. Five players finished a further half a point behind, including Cramling, who had the best tiebreaks of that group.
There were lots of interesting games, but as I'm still working through them please come back tomorrow/later today when I'll update this post, and finish off the year with a last post or two.
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