Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, visited Central London last weekend and won the chess.com speed championship for the fourth time in a row. The Norwegian, 35, defeated France’s Alireza Firouzja, 22, by 15-12 after a three-hour struggle. Last year in Paris the same two players met, but Carlsen’s winning margin was a much wider 23.5-7.5.
The format for speed chess is 90 minutes of five minutes blitz, 60 minutes of three minutes blitz, and 30 minutes of one minute bullet. All the segments had additional increments of one second per move.
Carlsen won the five-minute segment, the three-minute was tied, then Carlsen edged the one-minute bullet, Firouzja’s speciality, by 5-4. In game nine, Carlsen’s white rook and two bishops dominated Firouzja’s black queen. Carlsen said: “I felt as though I just outlasted him in the end.”
The event, which had a $250,000 prize fund, is highly valued among grandmasters. In its 10 years of competition, it has only ever been won by the world Nos 1 and 2, Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen has only ever lost two matches.
The semi-finals and final of the 2025-26 event were staged before a packed live audience at 180 Studios, The Strand, with a further 30,000 watching on the web. Although the players were physically present at the venue, the games were played online with headphones on onsite computers in an esports style format. The live audience could cheer its favourites, although calling out moves was not permitted. During his victory speech, Carlsen complained that the crowd favoured Firouzja.
Before the finals, a chess.com all-stars team led by GM David Howell crushed the UK Parliamentary Chess Club 14-2, while Carlsen played a friendly game against England’s 10-year-old UK women’s blitz champion Bodhana Sivanandan. The No 1 won in 37 moves, but the youngster, who called it “a valuable experience, even though I lost” put up strong resistance.
Quick GuideBodhana Sivanandan v Magnus Carlsen
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White: Sivanandan. Black: Carlsen. 1 e4 c6 2 Nc3 d5 3 d4 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 5 Nxf6+ exf6 6 Nf3 Bd6 7 Bd3 O-O 8 O-O Re8 9 h3 Nd7 10 Be3 Nf8 11 c4 Bd7 12 a3 Qc7 13 b4 Rad8 14 Rc1 Ng6 15 Qd2 Qc8 16 Bxg6 hxg6 17 Bf4 Bf8 18 d5 g5 19 Bg3 g4 20 hxg4 Bxg4 21 d6 Bxf3 22 gxf3 c5 23 Rfd1 Re6 24 d7 Qc6 25 Qd5 Re7 26 b5 Qxd5 27 Rxd5 Rexd7 28 Rxd7 Rxd7 29 Bb8 a6 30 Re1 f5 31 Re8 f6 32 Ba7 Kf7 33 Rc8 axb5 34 cxb5 Be7 35 Bxc5 Rd1+ 36 Kg2 Rc1 0-1.
The semi-finals again featured the three dominant stars of internet speed chess: Carlsen, Nakamura, and their much younger French rival Firouzja. The fourth qualifier was a little-known 19-year-old from Belarus, Denis Lazavik, who had eliminated the US’s Hans Niemann in his quarter-final.
Lazavik lost 9-17 to Carlsen, but fought hard all the way, and had the consolation of winning the best attack of the match. Afterwards he said that he could hear the screams of the crowd through his headphones before playing 28 Rxe5!! and “I understood that there was something”.
The Nakamura v Firouzja match was much closer, and the lead changed hands several times before Firouzja equalised in the final minutes, then won the four-game tiebreak for a final score of 15-13. The first overtime game was the killer as Nakamura lost an ending with rook and three pawns against rook and one.
In the third place match on Sunday, there was a shock. Lazavik defeated Nakamura 13.5-12.5, taking a clear lead in the 3+1 section and retaining it in the US grandmaster’s bullet speciality. It was the first time in a decade of speed championships that Nakamura had ever lost a match to anyone bar Carlsen and Firouzja.
This weekend the action moves to the German Baltic Sea resort of Weissenhaus, where the first official Fide Freestyle World Championship will be staged over three days. As a reminder, Freestyle, also known as Chess 960 and Fischer Random, involves random placing of the pieces on the back rows of the board.
The eight competitors are Carlsen (Norway), Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian and Hans Niemann (all US), Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Javokhir Sindarov (both Uzbekistan), Arjun Erigaisi (India) and Vincent Keymer (Germany). There will be a round robin on Friday (start 12.30pm GMT) semi-finals on Saturday, and finals on Sunday, (both 1.30pm GMT) with all final positions from first to eighth being decided over the board. Games can be followed on lichess.
Nakamura, the reigning Fide Fischer Random world champion, declined his invitation and issued this statement: “Instead of the tour that was planned, Freestyle have joined forces with Fide and are now calling it a world championship. I think it might hold the record for the most rushed world championship in history … The prize fund is less than a third of what it was originally, and now it’s attached to Fide, which isn’t a positive development in my opinion. I have decided to decline my slot in this event. I have an important tournament at the end of March [the world title Candidates] and that is where my attention will be.”
Freestyle and its founder and chief executive, Jan Henric Buettner, received substantial financing, said to be $12m, for their first tour from the venture firm Left Lane Capital, but finding local partners has proved difficult, hence the downsized programme.
After six of the 11 rounds of the 4NCL, Britain’s national league, the leaders Wood Green have a maximum 12 match points (36 game points) ahead of The Sharks 10 (32), Wood Green Youth and CSC/Kingston both 9 (31), White Rose 8 (25.5). England international GM Gawain Maroroa Jones, top board for White Rose, won one of the best games of the weekend.
Jones is top seeded for the £5,000 Isle of Wight Masters, which starts at Ryde School on Monday and which will have daily coverage on lichess. There is a strong overseas entry, but England’s Shreyas Royal, Matthew Wadsworth, Peter Roberson, and the Hastings winner Alex Golding should all do well.
4011: 1…Qd6! 2 Rb1 (2 Rxd6? Rf1 mate) Qxd7 and Black wins with his extra piece. Byrne chose 1…Qd4?? when White won by 2 Qxh7+! Kxh7 3 Nxf8+ and 4 Rxd4.
