2015 World Rapid Day 1: Karjakin early leader

Watch it live on Playchess!

The top board drew the eyes of all with Magnus Carlsen ready to defend his title and possibly even take advantage of the absence of some of his rivals to leap frog their rating. It is important to realize that in rapid games Magnus Carlsen may be the world champion title holder, but he is not the towering Elo giant as in classical games. Not only is he actually world no.2 with 2847 FIDE, behind Hikaru Nakamura with 2850, but in third, just one single Elo point behind is Alexander Grischuk with 2846. All this really means is that there are no easy bets on who will win the championship. Still, fifteen rounds is plenty to give everyone a fair shot, and even recover from any early mishaps.

The opening saw officials, dignitaries, and on the far right Boris Spassky

Here are the latest top FIDE Rapid ratings for the record:

Click for complete ratings

The Prize Fund for both Championships to be shared by the players totals $400,000. Both Rapid and Blitz Championships will be Swiss pairings tournaments and will be held over three days for Rapid and two days for Blitz. The Rapid will be fifteen rounds, with a single game for each round. The Blitz will have 21 rounds, with a single game for each round.

The big star was obviously the world champion Magnus Carlsen, but the title promises to
be just as hard as the previous year, and just as hard-fought

Here is a fine finish by Carlsen taking advantage of a seemingly innocuous oversight:

Francisco Vallejo Pons - Magnus Carlsen

Vishy Anand suffered through a few difficult moments, losing a game to Russian talent Daniil
Dubov, and having to find precise moves against Salem Saleh

Salem Saleh caught Anand off-guard with the following shots, but the Indian champion kept his cool and found all the right moves:

Vishy Anand - Salem Saleh

The biggest surprise of day one however was GM Vidit Gujrathi, who
defeated no. 2 seed Alexander Girschuk and held Ian Nepomniachtchi
and Peter Leko to a draw. This placed him in second place ahead of
16 others by virtue of his tiebreak.

Watch this superb game by the young Indian as he defeated one of the world's best:

Alexander Girschuk - Vidit Gujrathi (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)

The champion of the day was Sergey Karjakin who cashed in on his energizing win at the
World Cup, and stormed through the field with 4.5/5, making him sole leader. Here he is
congratulated by his old friend Kateryna Lahno. Allow us to take you down memory lane...

Here is an image published in ChessBase in 2003 when both were 13 years old

Yasser Seirawan had a solid run on day one, with 3.0/5. Here he beat IM Lars Thiede in round one.

Teimour Radjabov had a subpar start with 3.0/5, losing to American Alexander Onischuk in round four

Most spectators were thrilled to watch the best in this adrenaline packed day....

... but not all.

The large sumptuous playing hall and quality organization was complimented by the players

The Russian brigade: Ian Nepomniachtchi, Sergey Karjakin, Sergey Rublevsky, and Vladimir Kramnik

Needless to say, if you were watching on Playchess you could watch as many boards as you wanted

Watch it live on Playchess!

If you'd like to see it live in your browser, including the multiple boards, or on a smartphone, the click on the link above. Clicking on the above link will take you to our live broadcast of the World Rapid championship in Berlin. If the game has not yet started you will see the previous two games:

Note that the appearance will adapt according to the device you are watching it on. If you open the link on your smartphone, then it might look like this:

Don't miss out on the action!

Standings after five rounds

Click for complete standings

Photos by Gregor Anthes, Nailya Bikmurzina, and Elena Kashirskaya for official site.

Links Official tournament site All 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 13 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.