Magnus Carlsen’s achievements are so many that it is hard for the Norwegian to surprise fans any more, but the No 1’s crushing online blitz victory against Fabiano Caruana on Tuesday was remarkable.
Caruana is the reigning US champion, and had scored an even 6-6 in his classical games against Carlsen in their 2018 world title match in London. This week, they were paired in a quarter-final of the annual $100,000 Chess.com speed championship, whose format of 90 minutes play at 5/1 (five minutes per player per game plus one second per move increment), 60 minutes at 3/1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1/1 bullet, is a searching test of endurance, creativity, and fast reactions over a marathon course of around 25-30 games in three hours.
Carlsen’s victory was expected, but it was his overwhelming margin, 22-4, which stole the show. Caruana failed to win a single game, and the scoreline of 18 wins and eight draws included a sequence where Carlsen won 11 games in a row, the final four at 3/1 blitz and the first seven at 1/1 bullet.
Ten wins in succession is known in speed chess as “adopting” your opponent, and to rub it in, the 10th in the series, a 1/1 bullet, was one of the most visual games of the match, where Caruana’s white army was rendered completely passive before he was checkmated.
Hikaru Nakamura once crushed Hou Yifan 27.5-2.5 without losing a single game, but “it certainly hasn’t been done against anybody as strong as Fabi,” said Carlsen, who added: “I’m happiest about the fact that I never lost on time. I was close a lot of times, but I felt I was quite good at using the one second increment. Very often when we got into scrambles he would make quick, obvious moves that were often wrong when actually he had a little bit of time to think.”
On his openings: “ I just wanted to be solid as Black. I played fairly serious openings. This Marshall stuff is fairly similar to what I played against Ian [Nepomniachtchi] last year, so I definitely took the match seriously in that sense. I wanted to be sure I didn’t lose in the openings, because I thought as long as I survive the openings then I’m a huge favourite.
“As White I was trying to play fairly simple positions, relatively technical, often symmetrical positions. I thought these would suit me well, because he’s often pretty good in complicated positions where he can use his calculating ability.”
Game seven of the match pleased Carlsen most. “I was very happy with the Petroff where I got knight against bishop as well as queen and rook, a very symmetrical position,” he said. “I think I played that game very well. Normally I’m not happy with games, but that’s one that I was really satisfied with.”
Carlsen’s semi-final against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave will be live and free to watch on chess.com and chess24.com, starting at 6pm GMT on Friday. Hikaru Nakamura, who has won the last four Speed Championships and is currently ranked world No 1 in blitz, defeated India’s Nihai Sahin, 18, by 14.5-10.5 in the first semi-final on Thursday evening. The final will be on Sunday 18 December, (7pm GMT start) and if Carlsen gets there it promises to be an epic.
Carlsen’s next event is the $1m World Rapid and Blitz in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which opens on Christmas Day and lasts until 30 December. In the decade since 2012, he has won three rapid and four blitz crowns, more than anybody else. Nakamura may be his main rival. The five-time US champion and streamer with more than a million followers has a 2900+ blitz rating, Carlsen’s elusive target in classical. There will also be a generational threat from several fast improving teenagers.
On Friday the 22-round European Blitz Championship is staged in Katowice, Poland, where England’s Michael Adams is top seeded among a massive entry of more than a thousand players. The Cornishman, 51, has a Fide blitz rating of 2742, a handy 66 points ahead of his closest rival, David Navara of the Czech Republic. There will be live coverage on chess24.com, and Adams’s round-by-round progress can be followed on chess-results.com.
China is set to continue its dominance of the women’s world championship, which has already lasted 30 years, during the next few months. Both the 2023 Candidates final and the ensuing world title match will be a Beijing monopoly, as Tan Zhongyi, 31, and Lei Tingjie, 25, meet for the right to challenge the holder Ju Wenjun, 31.
To complete the clean sweep, the semi-retired world No 1 and all-time No 2, Hou Yifan, 28, is also Chinese. Hou held the crown on and off for six years, but preferred an academic career, taking her Master of Public Policy degree at Oxford before becoming Shenzhen University’s youngest professor.
In chess women can compete in open events, including the world championship, against men, while there are also separate competitions for women. This reflects the fact that, over a long period and for whatever reasons, men have performed at top level on average around 200 rating points higher. The official Fide women’s grandmaster title is based on 2300 points, the full grandmaster title (for which both men and women can compete) on 2500.
The 2022 Candidates was split between Monaco and Uzbekistan so as to postpone any meetings between Russians, playing under the Fide flag, and Ukrainians, until the final match. In the event, Lei defeated both Ukraine’s Muzychuk sisters (Anna and Mariya) while Tan eliminated Fide/Russia’s Kateryna Lagno and Aleksandra Goryachkina.
Tan’s win after three draws against Goryachkina was the decisive encounter, not just for these two players but for the wider rivalry between the Chinese and Russian queens. For four decades in the 20th century the Soviet players were the dominant force in women’s chess, led by Georgia’s Nona Gaprindashvili of Netflix lawsuit fame. Now China is in the process of compiling an equally long stretch, with no sign of it ending.
Goryachkina was the clear pre-tournament favourite to win the 2022 Candidates, as she had been close to defeating Ju in their 2020 world title match, and had performed well in open tournaments. Tan was world champion in 2017-18, but has shown variable form since.
For their crunch game, Goryachkina chose the rare Cambridge Springs defence to the Queen’s Gambit: 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 Nc3 e6 5 Bg5 Nbd7 6 e3 Qa5. It was planned as a surprise, but Tan was ready. The Russian had played the Cambridge Springs three times previously, the latest in 2020.
Just out of the opening, Goryachkina blundered with 17…Rac8? allowing 18 c5! with the intention of Bxd3 19 Qxd3 followed by Nc4 winning a piece. Black sacrificed a piece for two pawns, missed a late chance to survive by 32…Qe6! and resigned eight moves later.
3846 1 Nd6+! Rxd6 2 Re7+ Kg8 3 Re8+ Kg7 4 R1e7+ Kh6 5 Rh8+ Kg5 6 h4 mate. Black can avoid mate by 1...Kg7, but 2 Nxf5+ gxf5 3 Re7+ Rxe7 4 Rxe7+ Kg8 5 Rxb7 is hopeless.
