World Blitz: Carlsen clinches triple crown, Assaubayeva defends her title

No draws for the champ

Magnus Carlsen kicked off the second day of the World Blitz Championship in Almaty a full point behind sole leader Hikaru Nakamura. After scoring 7/9 points in Friday’s rounds, the Norwegian grabbed a second world title in three days at the Kazakh metropolis. Since he is still the classical world champion, Carlsen once again managed to get the ‘triple crown’, a feat he has achieved, incredibly, for a third time in his career.

Despite not having a great final day, Nakamura ended the tournament in second place. Much like Carlsen, the US grandmaster lost twice on Friday, but he also drew four times — unlike the eventual champion, who won all seven of his remaining games, ending the day with no draws to his name. Referring to Nakamura, a much respected colleague of his, Carlsen noted:

While he is used to winning tournaments, he’s never won this one. When he started a bit shaky, then I knew I had a chance.

Third place went to Haik Martirosyan from Armenia, who scored as many points as Nakamura but had an inferior tiebreak score. Remarkably, the 22-year-old defeated Alexey Sarana and Fabiano Caruana in the final two rounds of the event!

Replay all available games of the open section at Live.ChessBase.com

Final standings

...176 players

Assaubayeva wins on home soil

Bibisara Assaubayeva had shocked the world last year by winning the Women’s World Blitz Championship at 17. Now, with an astounding final sprint of five consecutive wins, the girl from Taraz successfully defended her title on home soil. The youngster confessed:

I am very delighted that I won in my home country. I felt I had a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. Unfortunately, I got sick after the first day of the rapid, so I wanted to show all my strength in the blitz.

Going into the final round, Assaubayeva was sharing first place with Tan Zhongyi. While the eventual winner of the event managed to beat Harika Dronavalli with black, Tan was defeated by Humpy Koneru, giving Assaubayeva outright victory without a need for tiebreaks. Koneru finished in sole second place, a mere half point behind the champion.

Polina Shuvalova took home the bronze. The Russian star had been leading the standings until round 15 (the women’s event lasted 17 rounds), but a loss to Humpy and a draw with Olga Badelka prevented her from getting a higher spot on the podium.

Replay all available games of the women’s section at Live.ChessBase.com

Final standings

...99 players

The World Blitz Championship are Swiss opens (21 rounds in the open and 17 rounds in the women’s) with a time control of 3 minutes for the entire game, plus a 2-second increment starting from move one. A tie for first place will be decided by two 3+2 blitz games. If still tied, more 3+2 games will be played until finding a winner.

Schedule

• December 29: Rounds 1-12 (open); Rounds 1-9 (women’s)
• December 30: Rounds 13-21 (open): Rounds 10-17 (women’s)

Useful links

• Full pairings and results: Open | Women’s
• Glorious opening ceremony at World Rapid and Blitz 2022

Games

Open - Round 21

Women’s - Round 17

Sicilian Dragon: The Real Deal! Part 1-3

In this first part, the emphasis is on themes and ideas whereas Part 2 and 3 focus on theoretical knowledge!

Commentary by Peter Leko & Jan Gustafsson

Commentary by GM Alexander Shabalov & WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili

Links

• Official site
• A chess highlight at the end of the year in Almaty