World Blitz: Triple Crown Achieved!

The FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships take place in Dubai, from June 15th (opening ceremony) to June 21st, 2014. The Rapid event will be played from June 16th-18th over 15 rounds, at a time control of 15m+10s. The Blitz runs from June 19th-20th and lasts 21 rounds at 3m+2s. The total prize fund for the tournament is US$400 thousand with $40 thousand for the winner of each championship. There are 122 entries with nearly every elite player playing such as leading players: Magnus Carlsen, Aronian Levon, Alexander Grischuk, Viswanathan Anand, Fabiano Caruana, Nakamura Hikaru, Sergey Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Peter Svidler, etc. Rounds are at 1pm Paris time each day or 8am New York time.

Blitz Day Two

The day started off well for Carlsen as he beat Meier with black. Likewise Nepomniachtchi vanquished Lu Shanglei but the American Nakamura was only able to draw Sargissian.

Lu Shanglei didn't give any amazing surprises as he did against Carlsen, but he did have a spectacular tournament anyways

Meier was unable to keep his form from day one

Rounds thirteen and fourteen didn't bring any surprises with the favorites at least drawing in the top boards, and the race for first place really narrowed down to three players: Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen. Mamedyarov, Aronian and Anand were strong in the chasing pack but they had yet to play the top players.

Nepomniachtchi was quickly one of the only three people that were fighting for the title. Here he is wearing his Dota 2 t-shirt, a videogame he famously plays quite well

On round fifteen both Nepo and Carlsen shared the lead. The Russian player won a very important game against Mamedyarov while the Norwegian drew Aronian who was quickly making a comeback from a less than stellar day one of the blitz. The big surprise of the round was Sergei Yudin's victory over Hikaru Nakamura, overcoming a 300 point rating difference!

Le Quang Liem tried valiantly to defend his title but it was not to be

This left Nepomniachtchi half a point ahead of Carlsen and playing Yudin. Nepo did not waste his opportunity and took a full point. Carlsen did the same with Dreev while Nakamura bounced back by beating Aronian, but he was already two points behind Nepo with only five rounds to go.

Nakamura's unexpected loss to Yudin was a huge blow to him in the standings

Round eighteen was a wash at the top two boards; Mamedov and Nepomniachtchi was a relatively quick draw while Carlsen had a very interesting draw against Morozevich. Nakamura tried to catch up with the leaders by beating Anand.

You're supposed to let your opponent finish his move before moving yourself, but aren't rules made to be broken?

Nepomniachtchi still held a half point lead going into round 19, but it was lost when he drew Korobov and Carlsen beat Mamedov in a complex position where at some point surely Carlsen was completely lost. Nakamura kept up the pressure by beating Morozevich while no one else was truly close to them; actually fourth place was a full point and a half behind Nakamura.

Polgar always hovered around the top boards without having any real shot at the title, but definitely one at the podium

Anand drew Carlsen but his loss to Nakamura left him out of real chances of winning

The fateful round was definitely the 20th as Levon Aronian, who had no chance at the title mathematically, tried his hardest to beat Nepomniachtchi from a very difficult to win position... and he achieved it! Carlsen meanwhile beat Yudin who was still being pulled to the top boards by the top seeds as most of them had already played each other, not that it was a clean win:

Nakamura went on an absolute tear near the end winning against Aronian, Anand, Morozevich, Korobov and Dreev in a row, but it was not enough to catch Carlsen; he started the day not as well with only 50% after five rounds including a draw against Mamedyarov.

In the last round the top three players were clear: Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen and Nakamura. The only thing that could change was their order in the podium. Since all of them won their games Carlsen won a full point ahead of the other two while Nepomniachtchi edged the American by only three points on the average rating of opponents.

Closing Ceremony

Caruana and Anand don't seem too excited for finishing second and third respectively on the rapid!

Carlsen on the other hand is pretty happy with his two trophies

And two medals, don't forget the two medals

Young girls in traditional attire present the winners with flowers and their prizes

The closing ceremony was very formal

Blitz winners: Nakamura, Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov took a flight from Georgia for this event.

The live ratings have been updated and Carlsen leads in two out of three as Caruana keeps his first place in Rapid. Being the number on rated player in rapid is basically all he has left... other than repeating his feat next year!

Video Impressions by Vjiay Kumar

Day 1:

Day2:

Final Standings

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Pictures from the official site by Anastasiya Karlovich and Fiona Steil-Antoni

Links Official tournament site All Rapid games in PGN The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.