World Rapid: Miraculous Carlsen

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.

Rounds eleven to fifteen

Fressinet finished with 8.5/15 and can be happy with his tournament

Polgar has always been a strong rapid player but she did not shine this time around

Waiting is tiring by itself! Waiting for the next round is even worse.

Things were difficult from the get-go for Carlsen as his first game of the day against Aronian was close to losing, however the position was too complicated for the Armenian and he let his victory slip away:

"Levon [Aronian] played a very good interesting game and I
had to use all my powers just to stay alive." - Carlsen

Caruana, Tomashevsky, Svidler and Yu Yangyi won their games to join Aronian with 8.0/11 in hot pursuit of Carlsen, who was ahead by only half a point.

With these results the World Champion had a chance to face his future Challenge in presumably Sochi:

With this victory it was Anand that took the lead of the tournament!

Carlsen realizing he has blundered the game away, and the lead!

"There's basically no way I can lose that position except for blundering a piece in one move." - Carlsen

He wasn't alone, however, as Caruana took out Tomashevsky and tied with him at 9.0/12. Radjabov, Yu Yangyi and Aronian followed with 8.5/12

On round thirteen Anand-Caruana finished in a draw while Carlsen won a do-or-die game against Yu Yangyi with relative ease. Aronian drew Radjabov allowing Grischuk, Karjakin and Bacrot to catch up with them in 9.0/13.

Anand definitely made a statement by beating Carlsen

The three leaders on 9.5/13 (Caruana, Carlsen, Anand) had already played each other, thus round 14 was a crucial one. Caruana faced Aronian with white on board one. Despite being down a pawn, the Italian played had a considerable advantage. However he misplayed his hand and a series of mistakes in the end of the game (mainly pushing the e-pawn for no reason) allowed Aronian to pushed his powerful h-pawn to victory. On board three Anand drew Radjabov with black, while the following happened on board two:

A huge chance for Grischuk came for him in round fourteen, but it was not meant to be

And with this result Carlsen jumped into a half-point lead yet again.

Leading by half a point meant that drawing would make Carlsen rely on the tiebreak system (first tiebreak being average rating of opponents). Aronian hadn't started the tournament with the best results (he lost his first game and had to fight his way back in) while Anand also had not won his first game. Karjakin on the other hand was a real threat as his rating average was very high.

Carlsen drew Radjabov without any problems and the following happened on board two:

Meanwhile on board three Morozevich played a very clean game and beat Karjakin on the black side of a sharp French.

Karjakin had good chances to medal, but Morozevich took care of them

Caruana meanwhile won a very important tgame on board four against Le Quang Liem to take the silver medal. Anand's tiebreak was superior to Aronian's and Morozevich's and he came out with the bronze.

Anand miraculously held a draw against Aronian and the Armenian was not able to catch Carlsen

Aronian missed two key chances today: one against Carlsen and one against Anand

Carlsen giving his first press conference as World Rapid Champion

Nakamura (above) is no longer the top rated rapid player in the World after this event, but he is still edging out Carlsen on the blitz rating by a whopping two points. The Norway Blitz tournament was finally FIDE rated and for now Carlsen is up 40 rating points, taking him from 2837 to 2877, two less than Nakamura's 2879. However everything will be defined in the next few days as the World Blitz Championship will start! Can the American make a comeback from a shineless rapid event?

Replay rounds eleven to fifteen

Select games from the dropdown menu above the board

Final Standings

Pictures from the official site by Anastasiya Karlovich

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.