Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura and Alireza Firouzja are in action as the chess world’s favourite Christmas tradition, the World Rapid and Blitz Championship, starts Sunday, December 26th. The $1 million tournament will see Magnus attempt to retain his triple crown as World Champion in blitz, rapid and classical chess, but the competition is fierce, with only Ding Liren and Wesley So missing from the Top 10. Humpy Koneru and Kateryna Lagno are also back to defend their titles, while Jan Gustafsson and Peter Leko lead commentary here on chess24!
While Magnus Carlsen was playing the final stages of the World Chess Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi he admitted his thoughts had already turned to the World Rapid and Blitz Championship. The traditional end of year event had to be cancelled due to the pandemic in 2020, but it’s back this year with almost all of the world’s best players in action! Here’s all you need to know.
The World Rapid & Blitz Championship was initially supposed to be played in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, but it had to be cancelled after quarantine requirements would have prevented many players from taking part.
The event was saved by the last-minute intervention of Polish organisers, with the tournament now taking place in the Polish national football stadium in the capital city of Warsaw.
The players are staying in the iconic Marriott Hotel that towers over the modern centre of the city.
There’s an icy low temperature of -12 degrees celsius predicted for the first day of the event, but that’s positively balmy compared to -23 in Nur-Sultan!
The action kicks off at 15:00 CET on Sunday December 26th, with three days of rapid chess followed by two days of blitz.
Glory aside, there’s a $1 million prize fund up for grabs in the five-day event, with top prizes of $60,000 for the Open events and $40,000 for the Women’s.
We have three days of rapid chess at a time control of 15 minutes per player for all moves, with a 10-second increment added after each move.
That’s followed by two days, and 21 rounds, of 3+2 blitz chess.
The one twist this year is that the rapid event has been cut from 15 rounds to 13, meaning the 2nd and 3rd days of the event will be a little shorter.
With the late change of venue and COVID restrictions it’s not surprising this year’s line-ups are a little shorter, but almost all the heavyweight stars of world chess are in action. Heading the field is, of course, Magnus Carlsen, but the rivalry is set to be intense. For instance…
World Championship Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi decided not to skip the event after all.
18-year-old Alireza Firouzja is back and plays for the first time since becoming not just world no. 2 but the man who can motivate Magnus to play another World Championship match!
Hikaru Nakamura is finally playing a major international tournament after a couple of years devoted to streaming and thwarted by travel restrictions — no-one but Magnus has won more medals in Rapid and Blitz events, yet gold has so far eluded him.
Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda, fresh from winning the European Blitz Championship, will be hoping to put on a show for home fans. Until his recent World Cup victory, Duda’s most impressive tournament was perhaps the 2018 World Blitz Championship, when he won 11 of his last 13 games and almost hunted down Magnus.
The list of course goes on and on, with the current Top 10 (by rapid ratings) as follows — the Russian players are competing under the flag of the Russian Chess Federation.
Out of the classical Top 10, only Wesley So and Ding Liren are missing, with Fabiano Caruana also coming into the event on a high.
The absence of the Chinese stars is particularly noteworthy in the Women’s section, where 2017 and 2018 World Rapid Champion Ju Wenjun is missing, as well as medalists last time round, Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi. Otherwise, however, all the previous winners are in action, including Kateryna Lagno, Humpy Koneru and Anna Muzychuk.
As we’ve had a two-year gap, it’s perhaps worth taking a quick look at the modern history of the World Rapid and Blitz Championship events since 2012. Here are the winners.
In 2014 and 2019 Magnus Carlsen won both titles which, combined with the classical World Championship title he’s held since 2013, meant he held (and holds) the so-called triple crown. Can he hang onto it again?
In the last event in 2019, Magnus Carlsen won the rapid comfortably with an unbeaten +8 score, though Hikaru Nakamura could have forced a tiebreak if he’d beaten Magnus in the final round. Alireza Firouzja took silver.
In the women’s event Humpy Koneru only clinched gold after a tiebreak match against Lei Tingjie.
The blitz was more spectacular, including a dramatic win for Magnus against Firouzja with four games to go, from a position where Alireza could only lose in the way he did… on time! He made an appeal more in frustration than any realistic hope of changing the outcome.
Carlsen-Firouzja featured huge chess and non-chess drama | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website
This time we did get a Carlsen vs. Nakamura playoff, with chances for Hikaru before Magnus finally pulled off a victory and celebrated in style.
One of the secrets of Magnus Carlsen's success is that it still means as much to him | photo: Lennart Ootes, official website
The other huge story was a bronze medal for retired Vladimir Kramnik — unfortunately Big Vlad is not playing this time round.
In the women’s section Kateryna Lagno won her 2nd title in a row, so she’ll be aiming for a hat-trick this year.
There may be some tension in the tournament if Magnus Carlsen second Daniil Dubov and Ian Nepomniachtchi second Sergey Karjakin meet, while our commentary team on chess24 is going to feature Carlsen-second Jan Gustafsson and Nepo-second Peter Leko! They’ll be together in Hamburg from Day 2 onwards, with Surya Ganguly joining Peter for the first day.
It should be a huge amount of fun, and we’ll have live video of the players, so why not celebrate the holidays in the best possible way by tuning into chess24 from 15:00 CET on Sunday 26th December! The rapid pairings will appear below when they're out.
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