Magnus Carlsen won the title of the World Blitz Champion and from today all three World Champion titles in competitions with different time controls are in the same hands!

The second day of the blitz championship was marked with a tough competition between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Russian player won 6 games at the start and after 18 rounds became a sole leader half a point ahead of Carlsen.

World Champion said at the final press conference: “At that point it was certainly in Ian’s hands”. The critical moment came in 19th round when Nepomniachtchi drew with Anton Korobov and Carlsen managed to win a dramatic game against Rauf Mamedov. Therefore the struggle between Norwegian and Russian players has continued.

While Magnus Carlsen showed a perfect result in the last 2 rounds, Nepomniachtchi failed in the game against Aronian and the victory in the last round over his compatriot Alexander Morozevich guaranteed him only the silver medal in the championship. Hikaru Nakamura won five last games and got the bronze medal.

The heroes of the first day Lu Shanglei and Georg Meier left the top boards but there was another dark horse – Russian GM Sergey Yudin, who showed 2789 performance, won 129 elo points and climbed from 86th place of starting list to the 12th.

On the second day Judit Polgar continued to fight against top players and defeated Fabiano Caruana and Evgeny Tomashevsky. Unfortunately, in the last six rounds she scored only 2 out of 6 and finished on 26th place.

The awarding ceremony took place on 9 pm in Dubai Chess Club. It was attended by Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nehayan President of Asian Chess Federation, Kirsan Iljumzhinov FIDE President, Mr. Khaled Zayed Organizing Committee Chairman, Geoffery Borg FIDE CEO, Jamal Modfa General Secretary of UAE Chess Federation, Abdul Aziz Khoury Deputy President of UAE Chess Federation and other officials.


FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov and Wolrd Champion Magnus Carlsen.

The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship was organized by the aegis of FIDE. The championships took place from 16 to 20 June 2014 in the Chess Club of Dubai.

See the final Ranking

See the closing Ceremony photo album

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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