London Chess Classic, Playoff Final: Carlsen Defeats Vachier-Lagrave to Win London and the Grand Chess Tour

And then there were two. The champion's title at the London Chess Classic would be decided in a two-game rapid match (with an Armaggedon blitz game to follow, if necessary) between Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. This final match would also decide overall victory in the Grand Chess Tour - but only if Carlsen won. If Vachier-Lagrave were to win, then they would finish the Tour in a tie and would (incredibly) have to play another rapid match on Monday to decide that title.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of drama in the match, but there was one critical moment. Carlsen easily outplayed Vachier-Lagrave in game one, but only up to a point. Carlsen squandered a huge advantage, and Vachier-Lagrave was on the verge of saving the game. Carlsen did a nice job of posing a few last problems for his opponent, and MVL finally stumbled on the last hurdle. The sequence 51...h2! 52.Re2 Ra1! 53.Rxh2 Ra8! 54.Re2 Rh8+ saves the game with a nice series of rook moves (alas, the next move isn't ...Rh1). Black's rook has sufficient distance and White's pawn hasn't crossed the Rubicon, and the try 55.Kg5 Rg8+ 56.Kf4 Rf8+ 57.Kg3 Rg8 58.Re4 it's crucial that Black has 58...Ke5!, not allowing White's king to march back up the board with the g-pawn safely protected. Vachier-Lagrave missed this, and Carlsen went on to win a few moves later.

The second game was an anti-climax. Vachier-Lagrave got nothing from the opening and was clearly worse early in the middlegame. The only question was whether Carlsen would win, and the answer was a kind of yes-and-no: he built his advantage into a decisive one, but allowed his opponent to save some face with a charity repetition at the end. (The games, with my notes, are here.)

As mentioned above, victory in the tournament also gave Carlsen victory in the first edition of the Grand Chess Tour and a cool $75,000 bonus. Deservedly so? Stay tuned for another post, which will address the Tour's absurd tiebreak system.

London Chess Classic, Playoff Semi-Final: Vachier-Lagrave Defeats Giri

And then there were three. A fair playoff would have been something like a double round-robin with Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, but very little about the organization of the Grand Chess Tour has had much to do with fairness. Therefore Carlsen got to sit back, relax and prepare a little while (and be guaranteed at least second place in the London Chess Classic) Giri and Vachier-Lagrave bashed heads over a three hour period for the right to play him. The unfairness, of course, isn't because it was Carlsen, who had the privilege of waiting because of his better Sonneborn-Berger score; it would have been an absurd privilege no matter who was the recipient.

Giri went undefeated in all three events of the Tour, a pretty remarkable performance, and his solid play continued in the first of the two rapid games in the playoff. Giri essayed the Berlin (the semi-official opening of the tournament) and won a remarkably clean game (for a rapid time control), blockading White's kingside majority and convincingly demonstrating the superiority of his light-squared bishop to MVL's knight.

All Giri needed was to draw with the white pieces, and unfortunately for him that's how he played in game 2. There are three classic psychological mistakes practically everyone makes at some point in their lives, and some people never seem to learn the lesson: (1) rushing in the opponent's time trouble; (2) assuming a winning position will automatically result in a win; (3) playing for a draw when one needs/wants a draw. Giri committed the third error, in spades. Rather than playing the position and making the best moves, Giri repeatedly called off the dogs whenever he could grab an advantage, trying cynically to make the position dull and achieve a draw. Vachier-Lagrave kept scrapping, never allowing the position to completely resolve itself, and Giri's situation grew worse and worse. In the end, the game was decided by time trouble, with the evaluation fluctuating between a serious advantage for MVL and a draw for Giri. Up until the last move, Giri could have survived - 59.Rh7 is still a draw, but 59.Rh8?? blundered a piece to the elementary 59...Rxe5. (Of course, it's elementary when one isn't running out of time, exhausted by a long day at the end of a tough tournament and in a press-filled situation.)

That forced Armaggedon, and Vachier-Lagrave took the option to have Black in the last game. (White gets six minutes, Black 5 + draw odds, with no increments until after move 60, when the players get three seconds per move.) The level of play wasn't very high in this game, with both players surely exhausted by then, but MVL remained in control most of the way and won after Giri declined a charity repetition in a dead lost position.

The games, with my comments are here; stay tuned for a post on the Carlsen vs. Vachier-Lagrave final.

London Chess Classic, Round 7: Three Wins and No Berlins

It took a while, but in round 7 of the London Chess Classic the drawing glut finally abated, and three games finished with a winner. Up to this point in the tournament only five games had been decisive, with Veselin Topalov losing three and Viswanathan Anand losing two. The bad news for their fans is that they constituted two of the day's three victims, losing to Levon Aronian (very badly) and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (thanks mainly to a one-move blunder). The third victim was Hikaru Nakamura, who lost to Magnus Carlsen for the 12th(!) time in classical chess without a single win to his credit. (He has of course drawn plenty of games with Carlsen, and beaten him at faster time controls.)

The day's other games saw well-played draws between Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri and between Michael Adams and Alexander Grischuk. All of the games, with my annotations, can be replayed here.

Vachier-Lagrave is the sole leader with two rounds to go, while Grischuk, Aronian, Carlsen and Giri are just half a point behind and Caruana, Adams and Nakamura are just another half a point back. 80% of the field is still in the running for first place! Here are the pairings for round 8:

• Giri (4) - Nakamura (3.5)
• Topalov (1.5) - Carlsen (4)
• Grischuk (4) - Aronian (4)
• Vachier-Lagrave (4.5) - Adams (3.5)
• Caruana (3.5) - Anand (2.5)

An aside: on the Live Rating list it's a bit like old times: Carlsen is in first (of course), but Kramnik is in second and Aronian has fought all the way back to third, and is one win from taking over the #2 spot. Aronian's selection as the wildcard for next year's Candidates' is a great choice, but it's a pity Kramnik won't be participating as well.

World Blitz Championship Concludes: Grischuk Takes His Third Blitz Title

It was a day full of surprises, with great runs and remarkable collapses at the World Blitz Championship. Those who prospered on day 1 didn't necessarily enjoy continued success today while some who didn't race off to a great start played brilliantly on day 2.

As you may recall, with one round to go in the first day's action, Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave tore out of the gate with identical scores of 9/10. They were slowed a little at the end, with Carlsen losing a tough game to Karjakin and MVL giving up a draw, but it was reasonable to expect their run of good form would continue the next day. For Carlsen, this definitely was not the case, and he opened with a winless 1.5/5, and was fortunate to save a couple of those draws. He played a bit better after that, but never managed to fully get back on top of things. After a little run leading up to the penultimate round, he lost to Vassily Ivanchuk and finished well out of the running.

For Vachier-Lagrave, however, the day started quite well, and after 17 of the 21 rounds he was a point and a half clear of the field. And then: collapse. He lost two straight games - with White to Yuri Vovk and with Black to Vassily Ivanchuk - and found himself tied for first entering the last two rounds. After a draw with Ian Nepomniachtchi in the penultimate round his fate was no longer in his own hands. Still, he bounced back with a win, and tied for 2nd-3rd, taking the silver on tiebreak.

Two of the mighty comeback stories belong to players already mentioned, Nepomniachtchi and Ivanchuk. "Nepo" had a catastrophically bad first day, starting with 4.5/10. But then he turned things around. He won the finale of day 1 and scored 7.5/8 to start the second. He only manged to draw with MVL in the penultimate round, however, and was mathematically eliminated from the race for first. Still, a last round victory over Vovk left him tied for 4th-5th with Ivanchuk, a point out of first.

Ivanchuk, as we've already seen, played a huge role as a spoiler in the tournament. He had a decent but not great first day, scoring 6.5/11 before going crazy with an undefeated 8-2 score on day two. Had he won his last round against Vladimir Kramnik, he would have taken the bronze; as it was, he took the saddest spot - 4th - on tiebreaks. (Not so sad in terms of the prize fund, though!) He definitely put plenty of pressure on Kramnik, who was also trying very hard to win, but the game ended peacefully.

It was Kramnik who finished with the bronze, but had he managed to defeat Chuky in that last round he would have taken first on tiebreaks. Kramnik started the event slowly with 2.5/5, but went undefeated the rest of the way. He was already in good shape at the end of day 1 with 8/11, even if that put him a point and a half behind the streaking Vachier-Lagrave. He came very close to beating Carlsen in the first game of day 2, but only drew, and for a while he seemed to be in a drawing rut, getting through round 16 with only one win (on day 2) under his belt. Finally, things picked up in round 17. He beat Sergey Karjakin, who up until then had been very much in the race for first place, beat Levon Aronian in round 18, drew with Alexander Grischuk in round 19 and beat Vovk in round 20 to enter the last round tied for first with Grischuk. Had he won he would have had a better tiebreak score (opponents' average rating, which implies a higher TPR) than Grischuk, but his draw left him tied for second with MVL, and MVL had the highest tiebreak score of the event thanks to his great start.

So it was Grischuk who was the big winner, acquiring his third world blitz championship title. (He previously won in 2006 and 2012.) His day 1 score wasn't especially good - 7.5 points - and he started day 2 with a loss to Teimour Radjabov. And then he woke up, going 8/9 the rest of the way. He beat Pavel Eljanov, Dmitry Bocharov, Magnus Carlsen (with the black pieces), drew with MVL, beat Hrant Melkumyan and Sergey Karjakin, drew with Kramnik and then finished with wins over Evgeny Tomashevsky and Boris Gelfand (who made a great run on the second day) - in both cases with Black! He was a deserved winner.

World Blitz Championship, Day 1: Vachier-Lagrave Leads With 9.5/11

It was a very exciting first day of the World Blitz Championship, and through ten rounds it was a two-horse race between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Magnus Carlsen. Both players won their first four games, and then Carlsen was held to a draw by Tigran Petrosian in round 5. MVL won his fifth in a row, but then Carlsen defeated him in their head-to-head match-up in round 6. Carlsen drew in round 7 with Aronian while Vachier-Lagrave won again, so they were tied at 6/7 and kept winning through round 10. Finally, both players experienced a bit of kryptonite in the last round of the day. Carlsen was beaten in good style by Sergey Karjakin, while Vachier-Lagrave was held to a draw by Teimour Radjabov - and he was fortunate not to lose.

There are ten more rounds to be played today (Wednesday), and here are the current standings at the top:

• 1. Vachier-Lagrave 9.5
• 2. Carlsen 9
• 3-4. Karjakin, Dominguez 8.5
• 5-7. Aronian, Radjabov, Kramnik 8
• 9-25. Too many to list, all with 7.5

World Cup 2015: Round 4, Day 2 - Four Match Winners, Four Tiebreaks Tomorrow

After yesterday's games four players were one draw away from advancing to the quarter-final round of the 2015 World Cup: Peter Svidler, Hikaru Nakamura, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Ding Liren, who defeated Veselin Topalov, Michael Adams, Fabiano Caruana and Wei Yi, respectively. After today's games, four players have indeed qualified for the quarters, but only three of the four come from the aforementioned quartet.

Svidler was getting outplayed by Topalov in an Anti-Marshall, but shortly before the time control Topalov let the advantage slip. Worse still for the Bulgarian's fans, his first two moves in the second time control were serious errors, and only the fact that there was still one line at the end where Topalov could at least cause a tiny bit of trouble - a rook down - if Svidler declined the draw offer prompted the Russian to settle for a 1.5-.5 match win.

Nakamura's troubles, by contrast, were pretty mild. Maybe there was a move or two where Adams had a tiny something in a Berlin ending, but its solidity held up and Nakamura coasted into the 5th round.

Mamedyarov had a more serious disadvantage on the black side of an Open Ruy against Caruana, but the American's 24th and 25th moves turned out to too accommodating. With 25...Bd5 and especially 26...a5!! Mamedyarov obtained enough counterplay to save the game. Caruana may have thought he would enjoy a big advantage after 26.Bxb5 axb4 27.e6 fxe6 28.Bxc6 Bxc6 29.Ne5, but the ice-cold 29...Bd6! 30.Reg3 Rd7! held everything together. After that the only player with an edge was Mamedyarov, but the draw sufficed and the players repeated moves until splitting the point at the time control.

That leaves Ding Liren, and the obvious implication that he was defeated in the second game of his match with Wei Yi. Wei Yi outplayed his opponent in another Anti-Marshall (by transposition) and won a pawn, but converting it proved to be exceedingly difficult. Once they reached a rook ending, both players - Wei Yi especially - were quite short of time, and as it was a complex ending both players made errors that could have cost first one and then the other half a point. Ultimately, the practical task facing Ding Liren was too difficult, and his 72nd move lost by force. I suspect that his position was practically hopeless in any case, at least without a lot of time on the clock. Tomorrow, both he and his opponent will have even less time if and when they reach a similar ending; they're headed to tiebreaks.

Someone who is not headed to tiebreaks: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. (Also his opponent, for that matter.) MVL found himself in a lousy position out of the opening, but Wesley So came up with a very clever combination that was, sadly, too clever by half. The tactical sequence that began with 22.Bxd5? (and was perhaps envisioned on the previous move, which was also inaccurate) came a-cropper when Vachier-Lagrave played 26...Bc6. After that So fought long and hard for a draw, but couldn't quite pull it off. (The subtle 41.Ra7 was his last, best chance to save half a point, with the idea that if Black takes on f2 a series of checks will eventually force Black to cough up his g-pawn. Instead, 41.Rf6 allowed Black to lock up his remaining kingside pawns in a way that guaranteed that the h-pawn would survive and that Black could swap off the rooks.)

The other three matches saw draws and will see tiebreaks. Radoslaw Wojtaszek had an advantage against Anish Giri, but didn't manage to turn his space advantage into something more tangible. Pavel Eljanov played 60 moves against Dmitry Jakovenko, enjoying a slight advantage the whole time, but never came even a little close to getting anything serious. Finally, Sergey Karjakin and Dmitry Andreikin played on a little longer than they did yesterday, but it was always clear that they were headed for a short day and tomorrow's tiebreaks.

Interestingly, none of the round 5 matches are settled, as all of the round 4 winners must wait for tomorrow's tiebreakers to determine their opponents.

Events Here and There

We've got to hold on for another three weeks before the 2800 crowd is in action again, at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, but if you're the sort of person who can be satisfied with chess played by mere 2700s then you're in luck. Biel just finished, and both the British Championship and another Russia vs. China event are underway.

1. Biel: This finished earlier today, and was won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. MVL had been having a really lousy year, dropping down to something like #26 in the world after having been in the top 10, but he bounced back here. His score of 6.5/10 was good enough for first place, half a point ahead of Radoslaw Wojtaszek and a point ahead of David Navara and Mickey Adams, and boosted his rating by 13 points. That put him back to #16 in the world and well on the road to recovery. A lot of crazy chess was played in the tournament, so it's worth replaying the games if you haven't already.

2. British Championship: This is a monster event by contemporary standards, with 11 rounds, and after 4 of those rounds there is a 7-way tie for first with 3.5 points apiece. One of the leaders is the top seed and new member of the 2700 club, David Howell.

3. China-Russia Challenge Match: This is a strangely formatted event which will apparently stop on August 1 and then be resumed at some point in December. Players here include Sergey Karjakin on the Russian side and Ding Liren on the Chinese team; the latter, notably, has had a series of great events and is now #10 in the world at 2770.4, ahead of Levon Aronian and on the verge of passing Alexander Grischuk. Very impressive, and he's only 22 years old.

4. Caruana's Birthday: Today (Thursday) marked the end of Fabiano Caruana's tenure as the world's strongest 22-year-old; he is now 23. Happy birthday!

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Final Round Recap: Carlsen Finishes First, Four Follow Half a Point Behind

It wasn't quite the London Candidates in 2013, but the last round of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee had more drama than one might have expected. Entering the round Magnus Carlsen led Anish Giri by half a point, with three other players - Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren - another half a point behind. There was the potential for a five-way tie for first, but that couldn't happen, could it? It almost did.

One of the first games to finish was Radoslaw Wojtaszek vs. Giri, and there was never any question of Giri's winning that battle. Wojtaszek had a slight edge against Giri's Gruenfeld, and if anything he could have made his opponent sweat more than he did.

In the meantime, his three pursuers all won their games and caught up with him. Wesley So demolished Loek van Wely, but it seems to me that was more van Wely's doing than So's. The latter's plan from moves 16 to 18 surrendered his trumps while practically begging So to go on the attack. So did, and it was very effective.

Vachier-Lagrave had a bigger fish to fry, the (now barely) world's #2 player Fabiano Caruana. MVL played a Najdorf and found a nice pawn sac against the 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2 system, and it worked like a charm. A couple of years ago Caruana lost something like five games in a row to the Najdorf, and it would seem from this game that he hasn't quite gotten it figured out just yet.

The third member of the triumvirate, Ding Liren, also won, also with Black against the previous (pre-Caruana) world's #2 player, Levon Aronian. Aronian used the trendy Makagonov against the King's Indian, but this time the Makagonov had gone off the rails. White was losing before move 20, and while Aronian played it out for a long time he never came close to saving it.

So that left only the world champion. With a draw (or of course, a win) against Ivan Saric he would win the tournament, and with the white pieces against a rival rated 200 points below him how hard could this be? As it turned out, surprisingly hard. Saric was comfortably better well into the game and had some advantage even past move 30, but figuring out to make a serious dent in Carlsen's defense proved too difficult. Eventually Carlsen reached safety and briefly had an advantage of his own. Both players were a little inaccurate near the end of the time control, and a couple of moves later the draw was obvious. It was an excellent tournament for Carlsen: he won, he gained rating points, and had a six-game winning streak that included victories over Caruana and Aronian. But with four players just half a point behind - and three of the four younger than him (MVL is a month older) - there's reason to hope that there will be a fight for the #1 spot in the world in the not-too-distant future.

In the other games, Hou Yifan and Vasil Ivanchuk drew uneventfully, while the game that I thought would be an uneventful draw turned out to be anything but. Baadur Jobava outfought and finally defeated Teimour Radjabov on the white side of a King's Indian that turned into a sort of Benko Gambit. Early on Radjabov stood better and may have been winning at one moment, but once Black allowed White's a-pawn to start moving it was Jobava who enjoyed the better chances. I'm impressed that Jobava had the gumption to fight his way to victory - not many players would have a lot of heart after losing nine games out of 12.

The games, with my comments, are here, and these are the final standings:

• 1. Carlsen 9 (out of 13)
• 2-5. Vachier-Lagrave, Giri, So, Ding Liren 8.5
• 6. Ivanchuk 7.5
• 7. Caruana 7
• 8. Radjabov 6
• 9-10. Wojtaszek, Aronian 5.5
• 11. Hou Yifan 5
• 12. Saric 4.5
• 13. van Wely 4
• 14. Jobava 3

In the Challengers' group Wei Yi entered the last round a point ahead of David Navara, but with the black pieces against fellow GM Salem Saleh, who was riding a three-game winning streak, he was by no means assured of tournament victory. Indeed, Navara won quickly against David Klein, while Saleh had an edge against the tournament leader. Like Carlsen against Saric, Wei Yi defended well and didn't allow things to get out of control, and eventually he managed to hold a draw and claim clear first. That means he will be invited to the top group next year, and given his current rate of improvement who knows how strong he'll be by then!

By defeating Anne Haast Sam Shankland took clear third in the tournament with 9/13, a point behind Navara and a point and a half behind Wei Yi. For Carlsen, nine points was enough to win the top section; here, incredibly, it made Shankland almost an afterthought, despite his outstanding performance. Robin van Kampen defeated Valentina Gunina to take fourth with 8.5, Sam Sevian beat Jan Timman (who again played some bizarre chess) to tie with Saleh for fifth-sixth with 7.5, and the day's other winner was Erwin l'Ami (against Ari Dale).

Wijk aan Zee 2015, Round 8 Recap: Carlsen Wins 5th in a Row and Leads by Half a Point (Updated)

There is no pending draw death taking place before our eyes in Wijk aan Zee. Going into the round almost 50% of the games (24 out of 49) finished with a winner, and in round 8 today only one game in seven finished in a draw - and it took 55 moves. There has been lots of fire and blood on board, which is just what we the fans like to see.

The tournament leader is Magnus Carlsen, who won his fifth game in a row to reach unshared first with five rounds remaining. His victim today was Baadur Jobava, who has been many players' victim in this event, despite winning in the previous round. Jobava trotted out 1.b3, which is one of his signature openings, only to find himself slightly worse in the opening. With resourceful play Jobava managed to equalize and probably would have drawn if the time control had come a move sooner. In the last moves prior to the control Jobava played rather passively, culminating in 40.Qc1. Maybe Jobava could have drawn with 45.Qf2, but it wouldn't have been easy. Instead he swapped down to a queen ending, and that couldn't be saved as White's king was too weak.

Vasil Ivanchuk shared first coming into the round, but lost a very mysterious game to Wesley So. Ivanchuk had White and followed the Viswanathan Anand - Levon Aronian game from round 1 of the 2014 Candidates; a good idea if all you know is the result of that game, but a terrible idea if you know that a humongous opening improvement was found for Aronian that very day. It was published all around the web and in print, and there have even been a couple of games in the database showing the improvement. (Those games featured very decent players, like Jan Gustafsson.) Somehow Ivanchuk missed all the possible sources showing and even detailing the move, and walked right into it. So was ready, played well, and crushed him. Ivanchuk thus fell a full point behind Carlsen, while So moved into (a tie for) second, half a point behind Carlsen. (He also moved up to #6 on the Live Rating List.)

Another player in (the tie for) second is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who crushed Anish Giri in a 4.d3 (Anti-) Berlin. Giri's decision to head for a position where MVL would have an isolated d-pawn doesn't seem to have been a good one, as the enemy bishops received too much scope. From there Vachier-Lagrave turned his attention to Black's kingside, and while Giri managed to hold off the attack it came at the price of a lost rook ending.

Ding Liren also won his game and thereby joined the tie for second. His victim was Ivan Saric, whose decision to play 22...Qxc6 was probably based on a miscalculation. My guess is that he missed the nice tactical trick 27.Nxd5, which netted not only an important pawn but the exchange as well.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek had been tied for first going into the previous round, but with a second straight defeat he's almost surely out of the running. He lost with Black in a 6.h3 Najdorf to Teimour Radjabov after sacrificing a pawn but failing to get enough counterplay in return.

Fabiano Caruana started the tournament with two wins but had gone -2 since then. He badly needed a win, and he got one at Loek van Wely's expense. A win over van Wely turned Carlsen's tournament around; who knows, maybe the same will be true for Caruana. Van Wely started coughing up pawns with White in a sort of Hedgehog, and eventually Caruana managed to convert his material advantage into a win.

Finally, Hou Yifan drew with Levon Aronian in an old-fashioned line of the Giuoco Piano. Aronian tried a little too hard to win, and if White had played 42.Rd6+ she might have had good chances for a win. After Hou's 42.Rxd4 her advantage was too small to win, and Aronian held pretty easily after that.

The games, with my comments, are here. Tomorrow is a rest day, and on Tuesday we'll see these pairings for round 9:

• Saric (2.5) - van Wely (2)
• Giri (4) - Ding Liren (5.5)
• So (5.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (5.5)
• Wojtaszek (4) - Ivanchuk (5)
• Carlsen (6) - Radjabov (4.5)
• Aronian (3) - Jobava (1.5)
• Caruana (4.5) - Hou Yifan (2.5)

In the Challengers' group, it was a bloodbath as usual, though there were "only" five decisive games there today as compared to six in the A-group. Haast beat Gunina (in a surprise), Saleh beat Dale, Navara beat Michiels, Wei Yi beat Klein and van Kampen beat Timman. Navara and 15-year-old Wei Yi are running away with the event, sharing first with 6.5/8; Shankland and van Kampen are next with 5 points apiece.

Update: The game score of the Jobava-Carlsen game was corrupted by an arbiter's error at the end; I've updated and uploaded the correct version in the revised link above.

Grischuk Wins World Mind Games Rapid & Blitz; Gunina & Hou Yifan Split the Women's Titles

The SportAccord World Mind Games is 2/3 of the way in, and so far it has been a success for two men and two women. Alexander Grischuk won both the rapid and the blitz competitions, with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave coming in second in both events. On the ladies' side Valentina Gunina won the rapid event while Hou Yifan came in second, and they switched positions in the blitz. Next up for the last two days, the "Basque" competition, wherein the competitors play two simultaneous games with their partners, one with each color.