Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, began badly on Wall Street this weekend as the Norwegian, 34, defends his World Rapid and Blitz crowns in New York against a host of ambitious US and international challengers.
Carlsen had only a 50% score, 2.5/5, after a series of draws and a fifth-round defeat. His only win so far was in round two, where he overwhelmed his Montenegrin opponent.
After five of the 13 rounds, the leading quartet on 4.5/5 includes the US commentator Daniel Naroditsky and Russia’s 18-year-old Volodar Murzin, who beat the No 2 seed and US champion, Fabiano Caruana.
The early rounds of the 11-round Women’s World Rapid have been a triumph for the rising US star Alice Lee, 15, who won all her four games and is the sole leader. Lee, who burst into prominence last year, will face the top seed and reigning women’s world champion, China’s Ju Wenjun, who is half a point behind, in a crucial fifth-round pairing on Friday.
The field of 182 for the World Rapid/Blitz includes 30 Americans and the USA’s world Nos 2 and 3, Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, are sure to be prominent, with France’s Alireza Firouzja, Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and India’s Arjun Erigaisi leading the new generation. China has the top three seeds in the Women’s World Rapid/Blitz, which has 113 entries. The total prize fund is $1m for the open Rapid and Blitz, with $428,500 for the two women’s events.
This will be the first time that the popular speed world championships have been staged on American soil, let alone at the epicentre of international finance. Rapid is defined as 15 minutes per player per game, plus an increment of 10 seconds a move from move one, while Blitz is three minutes per player per game, plus a two seconds per move increment.
Carlsen has already won five world rapids and seven world blitzes in his illustrious career, and captured both titles in 2022 and 2023. The list of his lifetime victories is impressively long, and underlines the task ahead for the new classical world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, as the Indian 18-year-old, who is not competing in New York, aims to match the Norwegian’s achievements.
Carlsen’s chess curriculum vitae above lists 64 major titles, all but nine of them over the board. Gukesh so far has just six – one world championship, one Candidates, three Olympiad golds, and one Fide Circuit, albeit with a 16-year age advantage.
Rapid is now Carlsen’s favourite format, and he scored again in last week’s Champions Tour, where most events were held online while the eight-player final pool was staged across the board in Oslo.
It ended up with a final between Carlsen and his old rival Ian Nepomniachtchi, who he defeated in their 2021 world title match, where their 136-move sixth game was the longest in world championship history. This time there was a much faster outcome, as Carlsen won 4-1 including a 23-move crush in the final game.
Carlsen is always alert to new developments, and his 7 a3 repeated Gukesh’s novelty against Ding Liren from game 13 of the Fide world title match in Singapore, a drawn encounter where the teenager overlooked a win.
Nepomniachtchi varied from Ding by early castling, but he missed the power of the rook lift 17 Rh3! This is an ancient and strong strategy against the French, which I recall the shock of experiencing as Black at London 1948 against Oliver Penrose. Here, White’s attack on the king quickly proved the irrelevance of the Russian queen excursion on the opposite flank, and Carlsen’s final 23 Qg6! created the unanswerable threat of Ng5 and Qh7 mate.
A major threat to Carlsen in New York is likely to be the many ambitious Americans who are well aware of their nation’s strong historical record in speed events. The first modern US champion Samuel Reshevsky, and his contemporary, Reuben Fine, were both skilled blitz players, while Bobby Fischer won an unofficial world blitz championship in 1970 ahead of the Soviet elite. In recent years the popular streamer Nakamura has been Carlsen’s near equal in fast play.
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The World Rapid started on Thursday, and continues at 7pm GMT on Friday and Saturday. You can watch free, with grandmaster and computer commentary and assessments, on lichess.org and other major chess sites.
In between the three-day, 13-round Rapid on 26-28 December and the two-day Blitz on 30-31 December, Fide has organised the Wall Street Gambit, a conference to explore the fusion between chess and finance.
Its highlight will be a keynote address by the renowned economist and GM Kenneth Rogoff, who will speak on chess, AI, and economics. Carlsen. Caruana, and India’s former world champion Vishy Anand will be present. Standard tickets cost $1,000, while VIP tickets at $5,000, which include a blitz game and selfies with Carlsen, are already sold out.
No UK players have travelled to the World Rapid/Blitz due to the high cost and the low chances of a prize. For England’s experts, the annual £10,000 Caplin Hastings Masters from 28 December to 5 January is the event of the moment. More than 100 entries range from at least seven 2500+ grandmasters to a long tail where over half the field are rated below 2000.
England’s youngest ever GM, 15-year-old Shreyas Royal, is the top home seed, while a likely candidate for an international title is 21-year-old FM Alex Golding, who already has two IM norms and a 2400+ rating and has just won the traditional Richmond pre-Christmas blitz at Orleans Park School from an entry of over 100.
3952: 1 Nh6+ Kf8 2 Nf5! (threat 3 Rh8 mate) g6 3 Qh6+ Kg8 4 Qh7+ Kf8 5 Qh8+! Bxh8 6 Rxh8 mate. Black can sacrifice his bishops and queen at g2 and f2, but this only delays mate.
