Magnus Carlsen and Nana Dzagnidze are World Blitz champions

The final chapter of the chess year in 2017 was written today, and the headline screams: MAGNUS WINS AGAIN! What a great performance it was. Carlsen started off with four wins, including a resounding victory over the Day One leader Sergey Karjakin, then he took one draw against Vachier-Lagrave, and then another 4-game winning streak secured him the 2017 World Blitz Championship title with one round to spare. The quick last-round draw with Aronian was just a formality.

Magnus' tally of 16/21, however, cost him 20 rating points, which goes to show how far ahead he really is ahead of everyone else in the Blitz rating list. The 3000 mark remains to be conquered.

What's his secret? Carlsen didn't do anything special, he played his usual chess, only much faster than yesterday. It seemed he was at least a minute ahead on the clock in every game. People tried to resist, but eventually they would blunder in the face of the relentless pressure from the board and the clock.

Magnus Carlsen was imperial on the last day | Photo: Anastasia Karlovich

Scary is the word, and 'scary good' describes Carlsen's blitz skills well.

Carlsen at his scary best

A World Champion's Repertoire against the Queen's Gambit Declined

This DVD offers a complete repertoire for handling this solid opening, often featuring a dynamic approach to pose the opponent more practical problems. Both of the main continuations 3...Nf6 and 3...Be7 are covered in two separate parts.

While Magnus was just warming up, Sergey was tentative. His three draws at the start of Day Two left an impression of him trying to coast to the finish. That little hesitation proved costly. Before Sergey knew it Magnus was hot on his heels. The following encounter in Round 15 completed the tournament turnaround.

Magnus Carlsen 1-0 Sergey Karjakin

Clearly, Karjakin came to this critical game ice cold. In blitz it's all about the momentum, that's why we often witness winning and losing streaks. Speaking of the former, Carlsen just kept on mowing down his opposition. His only dangerous moment came against Tigran Petrosian.

Nine out of ten against the best players in the world – a feat worthy of a king.

Magnus Carlsen discusses his delight at winning the World Blitz | Source: ChessCast

Tricks & Traps Vol. 3 - In the Flank Openings

Tricks and traps, especially in the opening, are a dangerous reality of competitive chess. All sorts of surprises await the unwary player, from devastating sacrifices to cunning move order ploys. A knowledge of such ideas is essential if a player wants to be the hunter rather than the victim.

A question remains, why can't Carlsen translate his dominance in blitz, and to a lesser extent in rapid, into regaining his supremacy in classical chess. My theory is that while Carlsen maintains a decent level of performance no matter how little time he has, others experience a sharp drop-off, particularly in blitz. When it comes down to following one's instincts and avoiding blunders nobody comes close to Carlsen. When in his comfort zone Magnus makes practically no errors. In longer time controls there's a chance of creating a more complex situation on the board, which may induce some errors from the Champ.

Sergey Karjakin lost his lead but fought back to silver | Photo: Anastasia Karlovich

Coming back to the "also-rans", I'd first give credit to Karjakin, who answered the call after losing his leading position. His play was not on Carlsen's level, but Sergey fought hard and won some games when he had his chances. Both Mamedyarov and Grischuk went down against Karjakin after trying semi-correct sacrifices, but I liked the following game more:

Sergey Karjakin 1-0 Anton Korobov

There were more heroes today. Vishy Anand once again defied his doubters by putting up a solid performance of 5 wins and 5 draws. True to himself, Vishy didn't push his luck, he just let his game flow and accepted the outcome of any given game whatever it might come. Good things happen when he plays like this.

Anand's run to bronze

After winning the World Rapid title, Vishy Anand came in third in the World Blitz. What a run! | Photo: riyadh.fide.com

The critical win came in the last round when Anand became the grateful recipient of MVL’s huge blunder.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0-1 Vishy Anand

My Career Vol. 1

The first DVD with videos from Anand's chess career reflects the very beginning of that career and goes as far as 1999. It starts with his memories of how he first learned chess and shows his first great games (including those from the 1984 WCh for juniors). The high point of his early developmental phase was the winning of the 1987 WCh for juniors. After that, things continue in quick succession: the first victories over Kasparov, WCh candidate in both the FIDE and PCA cycles and the high point of the WCh match against Kasparov in 1995.
Running time: 3:48 hours

Afterwards, Anand spoke to ChessBase India about his experience in Riyadh:

"I just feel so happy. It's very very hard to even describe it. I showed in Dubai that I am capable of good performances. In all the previous World Rapid and Blitz that I played I hadn't come close to a first place. It didn't look like something that's going to get easier either. 
 
First two days of rapid I had done extremely well, on the third day somehow in the beginning I started to go more slowly and I drew three games. Magnus had started winning games and it felt like slipping out of my grasp. In fact I was even wondering if I was going to have a podium finish. Luckily in the Grischuk game I was able to get a very good advantage and press. This meant that I could break free of the pack and join Magnus for the first place.
 
Bu (Xiangzhi) played ultra solid with white and took his draw. So this meant that I had to wait for Magnus. But I was philosophical about it. If Magnus won then he deserved to win, but I was trying to get ready for the tiebreak. After successive changes, first I thought I was going to play Magnus, very soon I understood that it would need a blunder from Grischuk for Magnus to win. First Nepomniachtchi and then Fedoseev caught up and I realized that my tiebreak opponent would actually be Fedoseev.
 
It all went very fast. The arbiter tell you that you have to play, you have a few minutes to compose yourself. It's all very chaotic. You cannot do much work. I played the two blitz games and I played them quite well. In the second game, when I was a piece up, I didn't need to give it back. But luckily my position was so good that even after that I was safe and I had my cushion. Just relieved and happy and this is a very nice way to enter 2018... Yeah! I am just very happy!"

The second-best performance of Day Two belonged to Levon Aronian, who shook off a horrible 5.5/11 on the first day and went 8.5/10! Levon has the chops to play strong blitz, as he proved this summer by winning the St. Louis stage of the Grand Chess Tour.

Aronian shows his stuff

For the rest of the field it was a hit or miss day. Clearly, fatigue was the issue for many combatants. Come to think of it, five days filled with non-stop chess is very taxing. I believe an off-day between the rapid and blitz parts should be mandated. Blunders galore to follow.

Blunders!

This last example makes me wonder about the proper place for blitz events in the future of our beloved game. While I'm all for promoting Rapid Chess, Blitz is a whole different animal. How many illogical results can we tolerate? When do we finally get sick of blunders?

Typical mistakes by 1600-1900 players

Some mistakes repeat themselves often in amateur games. With themes such as "Miscalculating Forcing Lines", "Being Too Materialistic" and "King Safety" Nick Pert shows you how to avoid making typical mistakes.

I can praise Carlsen for making the best out of what is given to him, which is three minute per game. He can avoid blunders while still playing something that resembles his regular chess, but what about other styles of play? Creativity is severely punished in blitz. Maybe not in every game, but over the course of a long tournament it will be.

In my personal experience I knew two applications for blitz. One is a relaxing form of entertainment when played between friends over some drinks and harmless banter. I still wouldn't mind doing this, if I had a chance, but the tense tournament schedule of this day and age doesn't allow much time.

The other side of blitz is the dark side. It has always been there in the back rooms of coffeehouses and on park benches found all over the world. It's called chess hustling and that's what it really is. All sorts of cheating occurs there, it's a dog eat dog world, and it's not pretty. Trust me, I have done my share of diving into it, when — how to put it — let me use the beat up excuse "I was young and I needed the money".

An attempt to blend the two in form of high-profile blitz tournaments inevitably creates conflicts, and the more money is thrown into the pot, the uglier it will become. Witness the Inarkiev incident yesterday. To me it's clear he cheated, and what his punishment was, forfeiting an already lost game? With that kind of incentive I wonder what comes next.

We already had Kasparov taking back a move against Judit Polgar, Nakamura's repetitious j'adoube, the Canadian Championship won by GM Sambuev's clever hiding of the queen behind his back as his opponent was about to promote his pawn and many more of the kind. As to the hidden queen, I have seen this trick done so many times that I knew guys who carried spare queens, white and black, in their pocket when playing "street chess".

In short, playing blitz for high stakes brings out the worst in us. Let's keep it where it belongs, and not use the deserving rise of faster time control chess, i.e. 25+10 or slightly lower, as a vehicle to promote blitz events alongside.

To conclude my excessively long report I'll mention that on the women's side the Cinderella story of Pia Cramling sadly came to an end when the venerable veteran simply ran out of gas. Only the first round game went her way on Day 2, and it was all downhill from there. Pia lost her last three games to finish in 5th place.

Pia Cramling had a brilliant first day, but a dismal second one, and finished 5th | Photo: Anastasia Karlovich

Pia runs out of gas

In the end, it was Nana Dzagnidze who persevered and outlasted everyone else. I want to apologize for not being able to present a better example of her wins, but it is certainly the most striking one.

In the end, Nana Dzagnidze took gold with a round to spare, followed by Valentina Gunina with silver (right), and Ju Wenjun, who had an identical run to Anand: gold in the Rapid and bronze in the Blitz. | Photo: riyadh.fide.com

Nana Dzagnidze is interviewed by Anastasia Karlovich after winning the title | Source: ChessCast

Nana Dzagnidze 1-0 Klaudia Kulon

Congratulations to the winners, and Happy New Year to everyone reading these words.

Video summary of the last day | Source: ChessCast

Final standings in Open

Final standings in Women

Replay all Open games

Replay all Women games

Links

• Official site
• Twitter channel
• Facebook page
• Watch live
• Day 3: Anand and Ju Wenjun are 2017 World Rapid Chess champions
• Day 2: Fedoseev and Ju Wenjun lead the pack
• Day 1: Fedoseev, Jobava, and Ju Wenjun
• FIDE's Riyadh Gambit