A recap from the World Rapid Championships 2021
Following the conclusion of the Classical World Championship, chess fans are treated with another two World Championships in short order. The first of these, the Rapid Chess World Championship, began on Sunday.
The Blitz Chess World Championship began today (Wednesday 29th December, 1400 UTC), which can be viewed live on Lichess.
The December Lichess Bullet Titled Arena was won by world champion GM Magnus Carlsen, who, ahead of the World Blitz and Rapid championships, was looking to add a (the?) bullet title to his name. The usual bulleteers, GM Daniel Naroditsky and GM Andrew Tang, finished in second and third place, respectively. GM David Paravyan and GM Arseniy Nesterov finished in the money in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Carlsen was clearly coming in his DrDrunkenstein form as he was streaming on his channel while drinking a copious amount of alcohol. Still, the hydroxyls were not going to stop the world champion from showing off his bullet skills. About 7 minutes into the tournament, Carlsen had already won three games, one of which was very shaky. At that point, reigning Crazyhouse World Champion, NM Jasugi99 was leading the tournament with 12 points. Carlsen would then face Jasugi99, in a game where Carlsen won in swashbuckling style. Carlsen then lost the very next game to GM Dmitry Andreikin, who uncorked a bullet trick against the world champion.
Magnus Carlsen defends World Championship title for the 4th time
Round 11 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round eleven’s game annotations can be found below.
10th Round of 14 in the World Championships
Round 10 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round ten’s game annotations can be found below.
9th Round of 14 in the World Championships
Round 9 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round nine’s game annotations can be found below. Apologies for the delay in posting this one; our external content management system had issues due to AWS being down.
8th Round of 14 in the World Championships
Round 8 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
(title image - FIDE / Eric Rosen)
7th round of 14 in the World Championships - and Lichess Titled Arena results
Round 7 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
(title image - FIDE / Niki Riga) Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round seven’s game annotations can be found below. After such a gruelling game in Round 6 - stretching on for several hours and setting a new record in terms of move number - both players understandably appeared to be fatigued during Round 7. Nepomniachtchi, with the white pieces, again opened 1. e4, and both players again opted for a closed Ruy Lopez. This was the fourth time a closed Ruy Lopez was played, with slightly different move orders distinguishing it from games 1, 3 and 5.
A new record for longest World Championship game in the 6th of 14 clashes between Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi
Round 6 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. Lichess is providing a broadcast of the moves being played in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is providing game annotations and insights on the games daily. Round six’s game annotations can be found below. Carlsen, playing with White, went for another Catalan, with echoes of the second game he had played against Nepomniachtchi. Carlsen was again the first to vary the opening, again by offering a pawn for greater piece activity. Although Nepomniachtchi seemed to be taken by surprise, using up 30 minutes of his time by move 10, he appeared confident in handling Carlsen’s opening.
https://lichess.org/study/RoBvWqfx/0IsLRqJa Nepomniachtchi’s position even seemed to be more comfortable for him, and Carlsen began using up his time to consider his next moves. On move 26 Carlsen traded his queen for both of Nepomniachtchi’s rooks. This is considered a slightly favourable trade for the player who keeps both rooks at the elite level of the game. The imbalance in material brought some indications Carlsen may be trying to eke out the grinding victories from small imbalances he has made his characteristic technique, but to most commentators the advantages appeared microscopic.
Do chess players dream of electric fish?
After round 3 of the FIDE World Championship 2021 came to a draw between GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, the Lichess broadcast chat immediately pounced upon the incredible accuracy the two players displayed.
The broadcast chat can occasionally get a bit... excitable (particularly with what it thinks are blunders), but we decided to check it out. For various reasons, some of our team know the lifetime average centipawn loss (ACPL) of some top players throughout history, and of previous FIDE World Championship matches. So we immediately knew that the accuracy as determined by computer analysis did indeed seem to be really quite low, even by super-GM standards: 2 ACPL for Magnus Carlsen, and 3 ACPL for Ian Nepomniachtchi.
The 5th of 14 clashes between Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi
Round 5 of the FIDE World Championship was played today between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.
(title image - FIDE / Niki Riga)