For my taste, the games in the Blitz haven't been as interesting as those in the Rapid, but still: it's a world championship and many of the world's best players are participating. So there's plenty of interest and drama. Some of the greats who have been around are showing their prowess, while others are struggling. And there are plenty of fresh faces who are making their presence known in a powerful way. We saw this especially in the Rapid, which was won by the 17-year-old Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, but while he's struggling a bit in the Blitz plenty of other youngsters are shining. Arjun Erigaisi (18), Parham Maghsoodloo (21 - not that new a quantity, but still a player in the up-and-coming category), Velimir Ivic (19), Luca Moroni (21), Haik Martirosyan (21), Javokhir Sindarov (16!), Alireza Firouzja (of course - he's 18), Hans Niemann (18), Nihal Sarin (17) - and on and on it goes.
Yesterday's heroes (the four players who tied for first in the Rapid event) haven't fared as well as they did yesterday. Abdusattorov lost five games today, including his last two. He's still at +1, having won six of the other seven games, but even if he goes 9-0 on Thursday - an unlikely proposition - he's still unlikely to win or even medal. Fabiano Caruana is only doing a touch better, with 7/12. He too will need a fantastic final day to have a reasonable chance at making the podium.
Ian Nepomniachtchi and Magnus Carlsen aren't in bad shape; both have 8.5/12, leaving them 1.5 points behind the leader. Remarkably, Nepo has gone undefeated - in fact, his only loss in the two events thus far was the second tiebreak game with Abdusattorov yesterday! - but seven draws is still a lot. As for Carlsen, he started off 4-0 but then lost convincingly to Bartlomiej Socko and then Vladimir Fedoseev. He bounced back with a couple of wins, but then lost again, to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Two further wins ensued, and then he drew with Erigaisi. That was an exceptional defensive effort by his opponent, who was under pressure on the board and living off the increment for many moves, but held on nevertheless.
While Carlsen and Nepo are part of a big tie at 8.5, in a group of 12 players that includes Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Fedoseev, Erigaisi, Daniil Dubov, Anish Giri, and Vladislav Artemiev, and the subsequent score groups are also well-populated, it turns out the score groups ahead of them are perfectly stratified. One player has 10 points, one player has 9.5 points, and one player has 9: Levon Aronian, Bassem Amin(!!), and Parham Maghsoodloo, respectively.
That Aronian would be in first isn't a huge surprise. He lost to a considerably lower-rated player in round 5, but after that went on a tear, scoring 6.5/7 the rest of the way with wins over great players like Maxim Matlakov, Alexander Grischuk, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Vladimir Fedoseev, and Daniil Dubov.
Amin's second place, by contrast, is amazing. He isn't known as a blitz specialist, and he started with 2.5/4 against lesser opposition. But then he caught fire, scoring 7 points in the remaining 8 games, drawing with Nepo and Duda while beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and everyone else that got in his way. Still, with many of the top players yet to go the odds are that he'll fall back to the pack.
As for Maghsoodloo, he finished the day with an impressive 4-0 run over Merab Gagunashvili, MVL, Rauf Mamedov, and Duda.
Highlights...will have to wait, alas. But I'd certainly recommend checking out the games of the leaders and of the promising youngsters mentioned above.