Vassily Ivanchuk is new World Champion in Rapid Chess

Excellent performance by Great Vasily Ivanchuk

Well done Chucky! 25 years ago, when he won Linares ahead of Kasparov and won their individual game, it seemed he might be World Champion one day. That never happened, but this World Rapid Championship is well deserved.

Is the tiebreak - average Elo of all opponents, or only of those against whom you have won?

Let fat old men surround me.

I can't believe it!!!!!!!!!!! IVanchuck aged 40+ beated the fresh boys!

Can you imagine Ivanchuck was loosing alot of games on time trouble in the past...crazy

@Petrarlsen thank you for letting me know.

Ukrainians won both sections. Proud of Ukraine :)

how could carlsen blunder in a simple position against korobov? seems his play is going down as he ages.

"using ELO as tie-break is simply wrong and unfair since it discriminates against higher rated players."

One way to avoid this is to include player's own rating in the average. Don't know if that was done.

I think the whole concept of using rating to decide tournament win and placings, including qualifier spots, is misconceived.

Vassily Ivanchuk is not even the same Ivanchuk of the '90's. He is one of the most imaginative players in the planet. Congratulations for winning an elusive title.

Ivanchuk deserves his win here - but using ELO as tie-break is simply wrong and unfair since it discriminates against higher rated players. Realistically Magnus will very rarely have a chance in such a tie-break because he cannot play himself.

This is no way to handle a world championship. Whatever system is chosen it has to put all players on equal footing from the get-go.

@ GrayDuck : I quite agree - it is quite a pity that the Rapid and Blitz World Championships are so short. And that they are organized in the form of a Swiss System tournament - it isn't (rather obviously, in my opinion) at all an adequate system for such an important event (normally) as a World Championship. (This being said, Ivanchuk had a really beautiful tournament, and his victory is really well-deserved - and it isn't obviously at all his fault if the present Rapid World Championship system isn't the most adequate to such an event...)

I think indeed that the whole organization should be completely reconsidered.

Theoretically, it would for example be possible to organize a 36 players double round-robin, or a 8 players decuple round-robin (in both cases, this would amount to 70 rounds - with 5 rounds a day, this would make for a 14 days tournament ; the equivalent, for example, of a Candidates Tournament in length). But I think that, organized in this "traditional" way (that is, in this case, in the same way as what is used in "classical games" tournaments), this would probably be somewhat monotonous to follow.

Personally, the solution that I would found for the moment the most interesting would be to use the framework of a "classical games" single round-robin tournament (with, for example, 14 or 16 participants, to have a total duration approximately equal to the duration of a Candidates Tournament or the duration of the 2007 Classical World Championship Tournament), and to replace each of the daily games between two players by a 6-games match (6 - for an even number) between the two same players.

For example, if one of the matches of a given day is played between Carlsen and Nakamura, if Carlsen wins 2 games, loses 1 game, and draws 3 games, he will be considered the "winner of the match", and counted as such for the global round-robin tournament (in the same way as an isolated game would be counted in a "classical games" round robin tournament) ; if Nakamura wins 3 games, loses 2, and draws 1 game, he will be the "winner of the match" ; and if Carlsen and Nakamura win two games each and draw the two remaining games, the match will be counted as a "drawn match" (in the same manner as a draw would be counted in a "classical games" round robin tournament).

This would make the event more interesting to follow, in my opinion, because it would avoid the feeling to have "always the same thing each day" (endless series of games between all the participants of the World Championship). There would be real long confrontations for each pair of players (one isolated rapid - or, even more, blitz... - game isn't a real confrontation between two players per se, in my opinion : it is too short and the result isn't sufficiently significant, isolately, for this to be felt as a real confrontation between two given players), and this would, in my opinion, make it realistically possible to have, with this system, a tournament of a comparable length to a "classical games" tournament while keeping the interest day after day.

This because, each day, we would be interested to follow the daily confrontations between several pairs of well-known players - this way, each day would give something new to follow, and, thus, keep the interest for the event alive...

@ Raymond Labelle : What you say about Elo rating would be the most logical... but, to the best of my belief, nearly everywhere (including on FIDE's own website, on multiple pages - to be sure of it, I checked this point just now...), "Elo rating" means what you would (very logically !) call "Classical Elo rating", Rapid rating what you would call (still quite logically...) "Rapid Elo Rating", and Blitz rating what you would call "Blitz Elo rating". So, if everyone including FIDE use the phrase "Elo Rating" for "Classical Elo rating", it isn't possible to use this phrase in another meaning without, at least, making it clear what you mean by it. So, for me, when this article uses the phrase "Elo rating", it is at the very least unclear what is exactly meant by that phrase...

Elo is a mathematical system that can be used in any type of competition implying games between two enteritis (two individuals or two teams). For determining the chess ratings, there are different ratings for Classical, Rapid and Blitz chess. For the tiebreak system of this competition, it is the average Elo rating of the opponents for Rapid chess which is used. Elo is the family name of the mathematician who invented this system. Thought it was useful reminding this having read some comments.

This appears fair, as Elo reflects quite objectively the strength of the different players (at least, their past performances). In this particular case, if the first tiebreak would have been the result of the game between the different players, Ivanchuk would still have passed before Carlsen, as he won his game against Carlsen.

Ivanchuk often plays extraordinary chess; it is nice that he gets a title in his already long career. Carlsen and Grishuk still had a very honourable performance.

Those who played in the London Chess Classic had a more difficult time. Maybe too much chess in too little time.

After the World Championship, some people argued that the World Championship should only use classical time controls because the existence of the World Championship, somehow, excused the failure of that contest to reflect how chess is actually played in this era. However, this tournament is, clearly, no substitute for a World Championship that uses sensible time controls. If this tournament was twenty days long--like the World Championship--, the result would likely have been different.

I'm so happy for Ivanchuk.

Dig up Fischer, and he'd probably go undefeated in this.

Onya Chuck, he has wound back the clock and obliterated Carlsen in their one on one match up as well. He deserved the title. He has a habit of troubling Carlsen in the faster formats. Mind you Carlsen has been out of sorts in my view.

Chuckster has a large standard deviation - one day he defeats the best of the best, and the next day he loses to a nobody.

Seems odd that at fast time controls there is no playoff. If there is a similar tiebreak system for the blitz event, it will be all the more ill-conceived.

"The tie-break had to decide - in this case, the Elo-average of the opponents."

I suppose that it was the Rapid rating and not the Elo rating that was used for this purpose ?

If this was the case, this tiebreak seems to me to be quite logical ; if you played against stronger players than the other players with whom you are tied, you demonstrated (comparatively) a little more than them. So, for me, this isn't a problem that Ivanchuk won this title due to this tiebreaking system.

Many congratulations to Ivanchuk for this splendid result ! All the 2800+ (in rapid) players where there, and Ivanchuk managed to beat them all !! A more than convincing result !

@ lajosarpad : If you happen to stumble on this post, I have answered (terribly lately, I must admit !...) to your last posts under the Maurice Ashley article. I mention it, because I'm so late that I'm not at all sure that you still follow the commentaries under this page !

I understand some people may be upset that there was no playoff but Vasil did beat Magnus in round 7 and everyone who joined the tournament knew the rules for tiebreakers. Sure. I would have also preferred a playoff instead of using a formula to decide the winner. Anyway. It was very exciting chess but it's not over. Next is blitz! :)

Congrats Gm Ivanchuk. Fortunately GM So and GM Caruana did not join. It could have been more exciting. Congrats to world champion Carlsen and Grischuck.

all ukranian player have managed to beat carlsen ...good for such countries in which chess is not worshiped

Congratulations Chucky! A deserving champion. The tiebreak, however, was not fair to Magnus. They should have played a play off instead.

This entire event was a great show. Congrats to Vassily. It is a true pleasure to see him in top form.

It is also notable how what has generally been regarded as a lackluster and disappointing performance by Magnus somehow yielded him a 3-way tie for first on the scoreboard, with 11 points.

Congrats Chucky, impressive performance and well deserved title

VVI look up the definition of compatriot, lol

:-D

ivanchuk proving he is still one of the best.great show!

"The tie-break had to decide - in this case, the Elo-average of the opponents."

The ELO, not the rapid rating?

On Planet Chucky you can be world champion even if nobody saw you coming. Even if people expect somebody else to win! Even if you have the same score as the old champion. This was great to see, Ivanchuck was his old self this week, best in the world, and Magnus doesn't really need the extra hardware.

Magnus has said he likes tournaments for championships, now I'm wondering if tiebreaks will affect his opinion. Do tournaments have to have the right tiebreaks to be better than matches? Or is he happy with the result and just planning to win more games next time?

@VVI: If you draw a bunch of games, you might not be having a good tournament and you might not really "need a win" so much as you need another draw if you can get it, but you'll try again the next time either way.

If you're his fan, you should like him more and support him in what he does, and if you're not his fan, why worry about his crosstable position?

Fantastic Performance by Ivanchuk! It was a treat to watch.
One of his compatriots - Vishy Anand played like a Jackass; drawing most of the initial games and finally losing / drawing when he really needed to win.

Hail Ivanchuk! May you continue to play beautiful chess for many years to come.