2023 World Rapid and Blitz - Day 4

 Day 4 of the 2023 World Rapid and Blitz turned out to be pretty wild. The big news story was the game between Nepomniachtchi and Dubov in Round 13. They agreed to a draw after dancing their knights around the board for 12 moves, reaching the starting position (with the knights have swapped starting squares). The Fairplay team immediately alerted the Chief Arbiter, who scored the game 0-0. An appeal was lodged, but at 2:15 am it was rejected.

There was another appeal earlier in the tournament, around whether a clock was pressed, or whether it was faulty. This took an hour to resolve, throwing out the schedule considerably. And finally there was a technical issue with the pairings in the later rounds, resulting incorrect results being recorded on some lower boards (NB This was my responsibility as the tournament pairings officer to avoid, which I did not, and fix, which I did).

There was even some chess, with the day ending with 6 players tied for 1st on 9/12. Day 5 sees 9 rounds played in the Open (and 8 in the Women's), so an eventual winner may take some time to determine.

2023 World Rapid and Blitz - Day 3

 Magnus Carlsen emerged as the winner of the 2023 World Rapid Championship, after 13 rounds of very tough play. His last day could be described as an exercise in tournament management, as he started with 2 wins (including beating his closest rival Vladimir Fedoseev) before finishing with 2 draws. With the final round games on the top boards also being drawn, he finished on 10/13, half a point ahead of Fedoseev. Behind the top two were 12 players on 9 points, with Yangyi Yu finishing with the Bronze Medal on tie-break.

The Women's Rapid saw a three way tie at the top, which necessitated a playoff match between the top two finishers on tie-break. After the initial 2 games, Anastasia Bodnaruk and Humpy Koneru were tied 1-1. The next game (sudden death) was drawn, but Bodnaruk won game 4 and the title. 

GM Anton Smirnov had a solid finish, scoring 2/4 on the last day to finish the event with 7/13 (+5=4-4). Felix Xie (NZ) finished with 3.5, and will no doubt benefit from the experience.

Today is the first day of the World Blitz Championship. There will be 11 rounds today, and 10 tomorrow.

2023 World Rapid and Blitz - Day 2

 Day 2 once again saw a number of upsets in the Rapid section of the 2023 World Rapid and Blitz. Magnus Carlsen started with another win, before slowing down with draws in the next 3 rounds. This allowed Vladimir Fedoseev and Yangyi Yu to catch him on 7/9. There is now a large pack of 13 players half a point off the lead.

One player who bounced back strongly after a slow start was GM Anton Smirnov. After score 1.5/5 on  day 1, he reeled of 3 straight wins  and a round 9 draw to end day 2 on 5 points. New Zealand representative Felix Xie would also be pleased with his second day results, scoring 2/4 to move up to 2.5/9.

Today is the final day of the Rapid, with 4 rounds to be played. In the case of a tie for 1st place, there will be playoffs arranged, which may involve up to 8(!) players.

2023 World Rapind and Blitz - Starting day 2

 Day 2 of the 2023 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz is starting shortly. Day 1 went well (at least from my perspective), with lots of exciting chess, and no major incidents. There were a number of upsets on the first day, with a number of very strong GM's suffering at the hands of some younger talents. Given the faster time limit, it was no surprise that the top boards saw a number of players outside the top 50 take their turn in the spotlight of the top boards. 

There will be 4 rounds today in both sections, starting at 9pm Canberra time. There has been a lot of effort put into the live coverage of the games, so you are pretty much spoiled for choice when it comes to watching the event. Below is one of the games that attracted my attention while I was checking the game results.

 

That did not start that badly

 Round 2 of the 2023 World Rapid and Blitz has begun, after the 1st round saw a number of upset results. The top 4 boards were all drawn, with Lev Aronian being the highest seeded player to collect the full point. This also the other top seeds disappear into mid-tables, with the exception of Magnus Carlsen, who gets to play on board 1 regardless of his score.

As for my job as Pairings Officer, things went quite smoothly. Everyone turned up, which is quite remarkable for an event of this size, and the first round results were processed both efficiently and accurately. The only delay was caused by displaying the next round pairings, which relied on getting the giant TV's in the playing hall to work, which did take some time.

2023 World Rapid and Blitz - starts today

 I've arrived in Samarkand for the 2023 World Rapid and Blitz, but there has been very little time for me to post an update. I spent around 36 hours traveling (mainly due to long lay overs between connections), before catching a few hours sleep on my arrival. The it was straight into the work of preparing for the tournament, which starts on the 26th.

As with all these events, the first major task is seeing who has/hasn't arrived. With 320+ players across both sections, there is always a chance that some players do not make it. In some cases it is visa issues, while in at least one case, trying to by tickets at the last minute failed due to no seats left on the planes. So while the expected field has been posted, nothing is official until 10am Samarkand time. 

If I do my job correctly (as the Pairings Officer for the Open section) play will begin at 3pm local time, which is 9pm Canberra time. The first day will see 5 rounds of the rapid, followed by 4 rounds on each of the next two days. I can tell you that Magnus Carlsen drew the white pieces at the opening ceremony, but who his first round opponent will be won't be known for a number of hours.

On the road

 I am heading off later today to be a Pairings Officer at the World Rapid and Blitz Championship. Eschewing the traditional method of travelling to Samarkand, I will still be in transit for the next 36 hours. To pass the time a little light reading, in the form of the decisions made by FIDE Council at its most recent meeting https://fide.com/news/2815