World Blitz Championship, Day 2 - Carlsen Wins Again
Nakamura falls to second, squeaking past Martirosyan on tiebreaks.
Both Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura lost two games on day two of the World Blitz Championship; the difference was that Nakamura also drew four games while Carlsen drew…none. This let him leapfrog Nakamura, who started the day a point ahead of Carlsen, Haik Martirosyan, Anish Giri, Daniil Dubov and Richard Rapport. In the end, Carlsen finished a point ahead of Nakamura and Martirosyan, with Giri, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Dubov, and Alexey Sarana (who defeated Nakamura and Carlsen in successive rounds!) another half a point behind.
The excitement started right away, as Carlsen came out of the chute winning while Nakamura had a difficult time getting started. Carlsen defeated Martirosyan convincingly in round 13, while Nakamura was stuck with a draw against Rapport in the Qe4+/Qd4/Qe4+ repetition in the 7.a4 Berlin. Dubov-Giri was a draw, so Nakamura maintained a full point lead over Dubov, Giri, and Rapport, extended his lead over Martirosyan to a point and a half, but only led Carlsen by half a point.
Round 14 was full of drama, as Carlsen barely swindled out a win from a lost position against Rapport to catch Nakamura, who again drew quickly with Black, this time against Ian Nepomniachtchi. (Or maybe it wasn’t so quick. The organizers had difficulties with the DGT boards throughout the event, and it was especially bad in round 14. So far all I know the game went far longer than the 17 moves given in the database.) Dubov and Giri won their games, so they closed to within half a point of Nakamura, who was now the joint leader with Carlsen.
In round 15 the Carlsen Express derailed, as Nepo defeated him with White (on time, I think, though Nepo was better in the final position). With the white pieces, at last, Nakamura had the chance to reclaim clear first, but he also lost, to Vladislav Artemiev. Had Dubov or Giri won, they’d have taken the clear lead, but Dubov lost with White to Martirosyan while Giri drew with Pentala Harikrishna. There were now five co-leaders: Nakamura, Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, Martirosyan, and Giri, with Duda, Vladimir Fedoseev, Dubov, and Artemiev half a point behind. (So much for my thought in yesterday’s post that Nakamara’s only competition might be Carlsen.)
In round 16 three of the leaders won: Carlsen (over Keymer, who was a full point behind at the start of the round), Nakamura (over Grischuk, also a full point back before the game), and Martirosyan (who defeated Fedoseev). Giri and Nepo drew, falling half a point behind the leaders, where they were joined by Dubov (who defeated Duda, with Black) and Artemiev (who beat Yu Yangyi with White).
Round 17 saw the triumvirate lose a member. Carlsen defeated Fabiano Caruana (with Black) and Nakamura recovered from a lost position to defeat Dmitry Andreikin (also with Black), but Martirosyan could only draw with Nepomniachtchi. None of the players who started the round half a point behind the leaders managed to win, so Carlsen and Nakamura led everyone but Martirosyan by a full point or more.
Carlsen finally grabbed the lead in round 18, for the first time since round 5, defeating 16-year-old Uzbeki IM Mukhiddin Madaminov, clearly a rising star. Nakamura lost to Alexey Sarana, falling into a tie for 2nd-3rd with Martirosyan, who drew with Artemiev.
In round 19 it was Carlsen’s turn to lose to Sarana. He played a dodgy opening, to put it mildly, and when he was given a single chance to get back into the game on move 21 he blundered, missing that after 21…Qxa2?? 22.Rxb7 Qa3 (bishop moves would be met by 23.Rfxf7, winning) 23.Qxa3 Bxa3 24.Ra1 his bishop was trapped, so that was the immediate end of the game. Had Nakamura or Martirosyan won their games they would have made it back into a tie for first, but Nakamura drew with difficulty against Aleksandr Shimanov, despite have the white pieces and facing the Scandinavian, while Martirosyan lost (on time? The position was not clearly lost where the game score ends) to Duda.
With two rounds to go, Carlsen led Nakamura, Duda, and Sarana by half a point, with Martirosyan, Duda, Giri, Artemiev, and Nepomniachtchi another half a point behind. In theory, anything could happen; in reality, Carlsen won his last two games to slam the door on the field. In round 20 he defeated Shimanov, whose 39th move lost the game. (Instead of 39.fxe3?, 39.Kf1! exf2 40.Ne4, and White is in time to stop the …Bc1, …a4, …Bxb2! idea that won the game, e.g. 40…Be3 41.Nxf2 a4 42.Nd3 with a likely draw.) Nakamura stayed within half a point by defeating Keymer with Black (though he was losing for a brief stretch), and Duda also kept in the tie for second by defeating Andreikin with Black. Sarana, however, lost to Martirosyan, and fell out of contention. A pity for him after his wins over Nakamura and Carlsen, but it’s a brutally tough tournament.
In the last round, Carlsen clinched tournament victory with a very convincing win over Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and so the race was for second place. Duda lost with White to Sarana - an impressive rebound for Sarana, who had been lost at one point but hung on and then ground out victory in 101 moves. That was nothing compared to Nakamura, though; he played on until move 179 against Pentala Harikrishna before the game was declared drawn in a rook and knight vs. rook ending. The draw allowed Martirosyan to catch him in points, after he came back from a lost position to defeat Caruana. Nevertheless, Nakamura still wound up with the silver medal, thanks to his better tiebreak scores.
Carlsen was the deserved victor, and has all three official world championship titles, at least until the end of the Ian Nepomniachtchi-Ding Liren match this coming year. It was yet another very impressive performance by the Norwegian, who showed yet again why he is almost certainly the greatest player of all time.