Vishy Anand beats Magnus Carlsen in World Rapid & Blitz championship

Chess tournaments, for better or worse, don't usually command international headlines. Do you remember those matches in 2013  ~ it was the World Chess Championship between reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen, to determine the 2013 World Chess Champion, held from 9 to 22 Nov 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspices of FIDE (the World Chess Federation).  Carlsen won the match 6½–3½ after ten of the twelve scheduled games, becoming the new world chess champion.

The 2017 King Salman FIDE World Rapid Championship is a 15-round Swiss open taking place in the Apex Convention Centre in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh from 26-28 December. The prize fund is $750,000, with $250,000 for 1st place. The time control is 15 minutes per player for all moves, with a 10-second increment from move 1. The  Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has become the focus of debates this week on Israeli-Saudi relations and women's rights in the country. On Saturday, one of the best women's chess players in the world, Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine, said she and her sister would skip the tournament as a protest of the country's treatment of women as "secondary creature(s)."  Separately, Israeli officials criticized Saudi Arabia and the World Chess Federation, known as FIDE, on Tuesday after seven Israeli competitors were not granted visas to attend the tournament.

Saudi Arabia and FIDE agreed to loosen the dress code for the event and allow women to wear high-necked white blouses rather than a hijab or abaya, a loose-fitting robe worn by some Muslim women. That dress code was a first for any sporting event in Saudi Arabia, the organization said. FIDE also said that it had made "ground-breaking special arrangements" to issue visas to chess players from Iran and Qatar, two countries at odds with Saudi Arabia politically. The statement did not mention Israel, however.

Ukraine's grandmaster Anna Muzychuk won  two gold medals in the FIDE World Chess Rapid & Blitz Championships 2016, in the Qatari capital Doha.  The World Blitz Chess Championship is a tournament held to determine the world champion in chess played under blitz time controls. Since 2012, FIDE has held an annual joint rapid and blitz chess tournament and billed it as the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. The current world blitz champion is Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin.  Time controls for each player in a game of blitz chess are, according to FIDE, 10 minutes or less per player

The happy news is that Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand stunned World No 1 Magnus Carlsen in the ongoing World Rapid and Blitz Championship  yesterday.  Anand and Carlsen met in round nine of the championship with the Indian on an unbeaten run. Starting with black pieces, Anand began with an aggressive approach. Carlsen was caught off-guard with his approach and faltered to give Anand the advantage.

The Indian finished off the match in 34 moves to remain unbeaten in the tournament after nine games. Anand has drawn four games and won five. Before facing Carlsen, Anand drew his match against Russia’s Vladmir Fedoseev.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

28^th Dec 2017.