World Blitz Championship day two: Carlsen takes over

World Blitz Championship

This event is being held on November 16, 17 and 18 in the showroom of the Red Square mall GUM. Time controls are three minutes for the whole game + two seconds increment per move.

The event is a 22-player double round-robin, i.e. it has a total of 42 rounds, which are played on three days. The participants include the players from the Tal Memorial, plus twelve invitees.

Second Day report

The second day of the World Blitz Championship was all about Magnus Carlsen, who the spectators on the Playchess server decided was "on fire". Of the 14 games Magnus drew none (he has draw two of 28 games so far). He won eleven games with white and lost three with black. That took him to the top of the table, a full point ahead of Vishy Anand, who had a "bad" day with five wins, three losses and six draws. But that was enough to stay a point and a half above the third placed Sergey Karjakin – and 3.5 points ahead the rest of the field.

There is a discrepancy in the results and games provided by the organisers. All official tables put Karjakin at 18.5 points, while the games provided give him just 18 points. The error appears to be a wrong result in his round 22 games against Alexandra Kosteniuk, which the games file gives as a draw in a totally winning position. We have changed the result so that the games now match the official results.

Cross tables after 28 (of 42) rounds

Current standings as a conventional table

Standings after 28 rounds

Statistics

Of the 308 games played so far only 76 were drawn, i.e. 24% of the games. White won 125 games = 41% and Black 107 games = 35%. The longest game was Mamedyarov vs Dominguez in round 27 (draw in 99 moves), the shortest apparently – we suspect we may be missing some moves – Jakovenko vs Kramnik in round six (draw in 11 moves). The player with the least number of draws was Magnus Carlsen, wo won 20 games, lost six and drew just two. Karjakin and Kramnik drew five games each, Svidler seven, and Anand drew ten games (and lost just three).

With regard to performance Magnus Carlsen is now at 2902, Anand at 2871, Karjakin at 2827, Kramnik at 2786, Svidler at 2775. Veteran Anatoly Karpov is playing at a 2717 level, almost 100 points above his nominal rating, while Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk is playing at a 2652 level, 135 points higher than her FIDE rating.

Here are some (manually compiled, i.e. error prone) statistics that might interest you:

The World Blitz Championship round two covered on the official site's web cam. You will spot Karpov vs Anand (0-1), Ponomariov vs Kramnik (0-1) and Carlsen vs Naiditsch (Carlsen won) in the pictures.

Links Official tournament site (Russian) All games in PGN + all results 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 the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!