The 2019 World Rapid and Blitz recap: How will the event be remembered?
The 2019 King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championships, held in Moscow December 26-30, were one of the most notable chess events of the year. The tournaments brought together many of the strongest chess players, including the World Champion in classical chess who took the crown in rapid and blitz thus simultaneously holding all three titles. The players and the games As noted by GM Peter Leko, who was the commentator in the live broadcast from the Moscow event, the rapid and blitz tournaments were “very tricky and tough, as they demand from the players to adapt quickly and swiftly shift between gears”. Several participants of this event really stand out from the rest. The 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja (rated 2614 in rapid), who participated in the tournament under the flag of FIDE after leaving the Iranian chess federation, turned in an incredible performance, taking second place in the Rapid Championship just behind the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and playing a great blitz tournament. In the first event, he scored eight wins, five draws and had just two losses. The 16-year-old Alireza defeated such heavyweights as the former contender for the title of world champion, Sergey Karjakin, the Isle of Man winner and one of the participants of the Candidates tournament, Wang Hao and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. His overall performance rating in the rapid reached spectacular 2835 points! Firouzja continued his blast in the Blitz section, where he finished sixth, on 13.5 points out of 21. As the blitz tournament was drawing to a close, Firouzja had all the chances to be in the fight for the first place had he won his game against Carlsen in Round 19 where he lost on time. Given his young age, it can’t but impress that Firouzja managed not just to keep pace with experienced players but also outperform many of them in both Rapid and Blitz competitions. The final (second) day of the Blitz saw some controversy in the 19th round game between Firouzja and Carlsen. Alireza managed to take control and was two pawns up. The game progressed to an endgame with opposite-colored bishops, with Firouzja creating a passed pawn on the b-file. In the final position, Carlsen had just a bishop, while Firouzja had (the opposite-colored) bishop and three pawns, with both players having seconds on their clock. However, Firouzja ran out of time in a winning position. He was clearly unhappy and there was a debate in the hall among the players and the arbiters whether the game should be declared a draw or not. Firouzja then filed a complaint but not about the result. Rather, he claimed that Carlsen was speaking in Norwegian and disturbed him in the final seconds (which does not appear on the available video footage of the game). The complaint was rejected. While the Firouzja-Carlsen game got the most attention in chess media, there was also another issue on board eight in the same round, where Anish Giri was playing Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. While no formal complaints have been filed in this case, it was claimed that Giri misplayed a move – putting the piece on one square and then deciding to move it on another just as he was releasing or have released it from his hand. Giri said he wasn’t aware that this happened, adding he would “feel really bad” had he done it. Giri, Mamedyarov and several other players then checked the video footage, but the issue did not escalate further and the game was confirmed as a draw in the scoresheet. Tense situations happen when players are in time trouble which is often the case in both the rapid and the blitz tournaments. However, according to the arbiters in Moscow, this event was one of the cleanest so far in terms of fair play, which was to be expected given the high profile of the participants. The nature of the event demanded high-security procedures – both for the players but also for the audience. As spectators had a chance to come close to the boards, they were constantly monitored by the arbiters and reminded of not using their phones close to the boards. Overall, it could be said that this event also showed good coordination between the arbiters and the staff in terms of managing the audience. The victory of Magnus Carlsen in both events marked an important milestone in chess history as the Norwegian now holds the crown in all three categories – classic, rapid and blitz. This “triple crown” has only been accomplished two times before: by Susan Polgar in women’s events back in 1996, and by Magnus Carlsen himself, in 2014. With these two victories the Norwegian breaks yet another record, having won 10 major events over the past year. It would be safe to say that no other sportsman in the world had a better 2019 than Carlsen. In fact, Magnus could claim the top spot on a list of the “best sportsman” of the decade, with 11 World Championship titles under his belt: 4 Classical World Championship titles, 3 in rapid, and 4 titles in blitz (the last three, consecutive). Two more players delivered a strong performance in the rapid and blitz open events. The 15-year-old Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov faced very strong competition in both the rapid and the blitz. He finished on 7.5/15 in the rapid, having played opponents rated at least 100 points higher his 2418. Abdusattorov took a very good start in the Blitz tournament scoring 5/5 before holding Magnus Carlsen to a draw in Round 6. The World Champion missed a crucial move at the end and – according to Abdusattorov – “said a bad word”, but the Uzbek did not make anything of it. The performance of Abdusattorov reminds that of Firouzja in the previous World Rapid & Blitz, where the Iranian-born player started brilliantly but then slowed down. As GM Peter Leko noted, at such a young age and without sufficient experience, it is difficult to play every game against very strong players successfully. However, in the 2019 event Firouzja managed to