2023 World Rapid & Blitz

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Round 18 sees Duda with White against Carlsen, and Artemiev with White against Indjic. Would expect Artemiev to win. I think Duda has a good record against Carlsen in blitz? May be wrong. Dubov in clear third, that half point behind that he must be regretting more by the minute.

[LawrenceCooper]

Would expect Artemiev to win

Jinxed!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Would expect Artemiev to win

Jinxed!

Well, those drawn rook endgames where you are still drawing against your opponents 2 connected passed pawns(!) are tricky. Apparently it went from lost to drawn and back to lost. Carlsen, meanwhile, bamboozled Duda in a drawn knight and pawns endgame, where Duda eventually blinked and lost.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In the Women's event, Kosteniuk is now only half a point behind after she drew in round 15 and Gunina lost!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Serious question. Does the double-default in round 11 between Dubov and Nepo have an effect on the tie-breaks, and does that advantage or disadvantage Dubov, who is now in clear second place and challenging for first with three rounds to go. Do the regulations cover how to calculate the tie-breaks for two players who have a double-default in their results list?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

r4rk1/pp1bnqp1/3bp2p/5p2/2BP4/2B2N2/PP2QPPP/R2R2K1

White to play and win (move 19). Lovely tactic, and the player of the White pieces found it instantly! So rare to have these killer blows with both armies still in their own halves of the board.

(Don't give it away if you saw it live.)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Kosteniuk-Koneru could go on for a while... KRNB and a lone pawn, vs KQ.

Now in a KNB vs K ending!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Last round pairing in the Women's event:

1 24 GM Gunina, Valentina 2348 13 11 GM Muzychuk, Anna 2447 9
2 33 WGM Kamalidenova, Meruert 2314 11 12½ GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra 2455 7

Could be tense!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Last round pairings in the Open event:

1 6 GM Aronian, Levon 2772 13½ 15½ GM Carlsen, Magnus *) 2887 1
2 8 GM Dubov, Daniil 2763 15 13 GM Andreikin, Dmitry 2741 12
3 3 GM Artemiev, Vladislav 2799 14½ 13 GM Caruana, Fabiano 2815 2
4 11 GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2748 14 13 GM Aravindh, Chithambaram Vr. 2584 62

Let's try again (after the Women's last round was not at all tense: "Could be tense!"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I jinxed that, didn't I? How boring.

[Mick Norris]

Carlsen is amazing

[Christopher Kreuzer]

It is an incredible achievement by Carlsen. He has won the Blitz World Championship 7 times now!

He scored the same in both tournaments as he did last year (10/13 and 16/21).

He first won the Blitz World Championship in 2009 when he was only 19!

Is the gap between 2009 and 2023 (14 years) the largest in chess for world championships?

[Jonathan Rogers]

That struck me as a strange question, but it may be good if you ignore Lasker*, and if you look at the years when the titles were won, and not for how much longer they were held. Botvinnik's first and last world titles were in 1948 and 1961, so he misses out if you discount the fact that he remained world champion until 1963. Similarly Kasparov's first and last titles were in 1985 and 1995. But you would have to decide to exclude Karpov's "official" title wins over Timman (1993) and Kamsky (1996), since his first title was in 1975.

*and perhaps womens' world championships?

[Mick Norris]

Chess Mind has 20 games with some analysis

Christiansen v the Caro-Kann is interesting; there's lots of Carlsen games