Vachier-Lagrave Wins World Blitz Championship in a Playoff vs. Duda; Firouzja Third

As with the Rapid, so with the Blitz: the event finished in a tie with more than two players, and so the "extra" players - or in this case, extra player, singular - was left out of the playoff. Alireza Firouzja was the unfortunate third wheel this time, while Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda went to battle for the title of World Blitz Champion (and perhaps unofficially, the title of the strongest player with a hyphenated name).

The playoff began with a pair of blitz games: both drawn. In many events the next stage is an Armageddon battle, but not here. Instead, the players were to contest as many games as needed until one of them won a single game; in other words: "sudden death". That places a significant premium on luck: if one is fortunate enough to win the toss to get the white pieces first, they may very well win their white game without the opponent's getting a chance for his own white game. And that's just what happened: MVL got White, won, and that was it.

Having skipped to the end of the story, let's go back to its beginning - at least the beginning of the day's goings-on. The first noteworthy event was a non-event: Hikaru Nakamura no-showed against Daniil Dubov, self-quarantining after testing positive for COVID. As for the players who did participate, the day 1 leader, Levon Aronian, started off in terrific form and increased his lead. He defeated Bassem Amin in round 13 (the first round of the day), and after draws with Arjun Erigaisi and Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Anish Giri in good style. With five rounds to go he was in the driver's seat, leading Dubov by a full point and everyone else by even more, but then everything went awry. He lost a clearly won game against Vachier-Lagrave, and while he remained in clear first by half a point things got worse. He overpressed against Haik Martirosyan and lost, and then lost to Vladislav Artemiev as well. Remarkably, a win over the very young, very talented Javokhir Sindarov put him into a six-way tie for first entering the last round, but he lost to Firouzja.

As for Firouzja, he came on like a mac truck at the end, winning his last five games and seven of his last eight, but his slow start left him in trouble when it came to tiebreaks.

Another player who entered the last round tied for first was Dubov, who had in fact been leading going into the penultimate round, when he lost with white to Firouzja. In the last round he again had White, against Giri (who was a point behind), but incredibly offered him a draw after eight moves, which was accepted. As for Giri, he was in good shape after defeating Magnus Carlsen in round 15, but then he lost to Aronian in round 16 and then drew his last five games.

Carlsen was not part of the tie; he was half a point back entering the last round. That was impressive, considering that he started the day a point and a half out of first and started today's action rather poorly. He began with a win over Parham Maghsoodloo, but then drew with Martirosyan and then lost twice, first to Giri and then to Alexander Grischuk. At that point he was three points back, but that was when Aronian started losing. Carlsen scored 3.5 out of his next 4, capped by a win against Nepomniachtchi. In the last round, he was defeating MVL - which would have meant a playoff between Firouzja and Duda - but he slipped on one last banana peel, allowing his desperate opponent to force mate.

Duda was of course part of the tie for first entering the last round, as was his opponent, Vladislav Artemiev. If anything, Artemiev had an even worse start in the event than Firouzja, beginning with just half a point out of three. He righted the ship on day with a run of 7/8, and was undefeated today heading into the last-round game with Duda. Unfortunately for the young Russian, that final game was a bit of a disaster, and Duda - who won his last three games and seven of his last eight - made it into the playoff.

Finally, MVL. He got off to a decent score in the early rounds, going +4 from his first eight games, but then he lost in rounds 9 and 10 to Amin and Maghsoodloo, respectively. From then on he went undefeated. He won his last two games on day one, and then mostly alternated wins and draws today. He beat Boris Gelfand in round 13, drew Giri in round 14, beat Sindarov in round 15, drew with Martyn Kravtsiv in round 16, beat Aronian and Erigaisi in rounds 17 and 18, drew Dubov and Artemiev in rounds 19 and 20, and then won - swindled! - Carlsen in that critical last round battle.

Congrats then to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for winning the blitz world championship, to Nodirbek Abdusattorov for winning the rapid world championship, and to Magnus Carlsen for not having persuaded anyone to join him in devaluing the classical world championship. (At least not to the extent that anyone would consider Abdusattorov or MVL some sort of co-champion.) Thus despite his best rhetorical efforts, 99.99+% of the world still considers him the world chess champion, and rightly so.

World Blitz Championship, Day 1: Aronian Leads

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.

Abdusattorov Wins World Rapid Championship in Playoff vs. Nepomniachtchi **UPDATED**

A gigantic follow-up post on the event will show up later today or tomorrow, but for now, the basic results: 17-year-old Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the 2021 World Rapid Championship in a blitz playoff over Ian Nepomniachtchi, who is now the runner-up of two world championship contests. The event finished in a four-way tie between those players, Magnus Carlsen, and Fabiano Caruana, but the two cars weren't fast enough to make it to the playoff, which was unfortunately limited to the two players with the best tiebreak scores. (A dumb rule, to be sure.)

It was an insanely great performance by Abdusattorov, who defeated, among others, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Boris Gelfand along the way. I think some of us might half-seriously consider retiring after such a performance, as it's almost impossible to top such an achievement. Of course this isn't going to happen. Indeed, I assume he will play tomorrow, when the World Blitz Championship gets underway.

It was a great event for Nepo as well, who was the only player - at least the only one of the winners - to get through the entire event (not counting the playoff) undefeated. (Abdusattorov lost to Anton Korobov in round 6.) He was rarely in trouble, either, while Abdusattorov was living on the edge in several rounds. He deserved his place in the final, but Abdusattorov was clearly doing the pushing in the playoff and deserved to win it.

Carlsen had a terrific start with 6/7, and if he had played for the draw in his round 10 game with Abdusattorov instead of unwarrantedly playing for a win in the endgame, he might have won the event. Even at the end he was close, pressing hard against Hikaru Nakamura in a pawn-up rook ending in the final round. He he won the game, he'd have won the tournament.

As for Caruana, his round 3 loss to Abdusattorov left him playing catch-up, which in turn meant that his tiebreak scores were always going to be a problem. It's possible that he didn't realize that tiebreaks were a factor, as he drew with Nepo in the last round, with White, in just six moves. Folks, you've GOT to know the rules, and Caruana's shocking ignorance (or that of his second or seconds, if any, if he put them in charge of telling him such things) cost him not only a chance for first but even a place on the podium.

Full results here.

**UPDATE** The first sentence proved false: Trying to get everything done while on vacation and trying to keep up with the blitz proved a bit too much. The large post is still in the works and I intend to see it through, but further patience will be required, unfortunately.

2021 World Rapid Chess Championships, Starting Now **UPDATED**

The World Rapid & Blitz Championships get underway, starting today, in Warsaw Poland. It's always a great way for the chess and calendar year to come to an end, and it features most of the usual suspects - Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, etc. The two most prominent absentees that come to mind are Alireza Firouzja and Wesley So. It's a pity not to have them there, but it's still immensely strong and a great way for chess fans to ride out 2021.

**UPDATE** Happy to report that I was mistaken about Firouzja; he is playing.