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World Blitz 2015: Grischuk wins third title

by Albert Silver
10/14/2015 After his crushing victory in the World Rapid championship, it seemed as if Magnus Carlsen was going to pull
off a three-peat by securing all three titles a second straight year. However, during the last day of the World Blitz, the world
no. 1 suffered a meltdown that opened the way for the others, and suddenly the title was wide open. It was pure excitement
until the end.

C h e s s B a s e

1 3

D o w n l o a d

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10/15/2015 Did you ever

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Victor Bologan shows from

blacks point of view all AntiBerlin setups as well as how
to gain advantage in the
Berlin Defence.

Saint Louis and Biel classical analyses + videos

by King, Vachier-Lagrave,
Kasimdzhanov, Williams.
Tactics, Strategy and
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Players came from all over the world for the chance to collect some scalps from the elite.
Eric Hansen is a well known aficionado and came from Canada.

counter-play.

The odd-looking move

5.Qe7 is an ideal surprise
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Pentala Harikrishna, fresh from his victory at the Isle of Man, also flew in for the fun
To be fair, it didn't start in a dramatic way, and by all means it seemed as if this report would be all about YACV (Yet Another
Carlsen Victory) for everyone to bask in and admire his brilliance. Consider that after ten rounds, Magnus Carlsen and
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave stood alone with 9.0/10, a full 1.5 points ahead of everyone else. Granted there were still eleven
rounds to go the next day, but the way he had dominated the rapids, and was speeding ahead in the blitz, what else was
one to predict?
Magnus Carlsen - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)

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The young Spaniard David Anton Guijarro

Mamedyarov had an average performance, about his rating, with 13.5/21

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Maxim Dlugy and Yasser Seirawan enjoy a few laughs

Alexander Riazantsev finished with 11.5/21

Ian Nepomniachtchi was unable to reproduce his World Rapid silver medal performance,
though he did finish in fifth place with 14.5/21
However, somehow the World Champion hit a dry patch no one saw coming, with a loss to Karjakin in the last game of the
day.
Magnus Carlsen - Sergey Karjakin (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)

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[Event "World Blitz-ch 2015"] [Site "Berlin"] [Date "2015.10.13"] [Round "11.1"] [White "Carlsen, Magnus"] [Black "Karjakin,
Sergey"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A45"] [WhiteElo "2850"] [BlackElo "2762"] [Annotator "Sagar Shah"] [PlyCount "94"] [EventDate
"2015.??.??"] [EventCountry "GER"] {After a streak of 25 unbeaten games, Magnus Carlsen finally lost a game and who
was his vanquisher? Of course, the 2015 World Cup winner!} 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 {The London system has gained a lot of
prominence in this tournament with many of top players like Carlsen and Kramnik essaying it.} d5 3. e3 e6 4. Nf3 c5 5. c3
Nc6 6. Nbd2 Bd6 {Karjakin goes for the most solid set up not trying to do anything outlandish.} 7. Bg3 O-O 8. Bb5 a6 9. Bxc6
bxc6 10. Ne5 Qc7 11. Nd3 c4 12. Bxd6 Qxd6 13. Nc5 e5 {White might have a nice knight on c5 but he hasn't 0-0 yet and
Black has more center control.} 14. b3 cxb3 15. axb3 Re8 16. O-O Ng4 $1 17. g3 (17. h3 exd4 18. hxg4 dxe3 $1 19. Nde4
Qe7 20. fxe3 dxe4 $15 { Gives Black a small edge.}) 17... Qh6 18. h4 Ra7 19. Kg2 (19. Nf3 e4 20. Nh2 $14) 19... Rae7 20.
Nf3 e4 21. Nh2 $6 (21. Ne1 {was much better.}) 21... Nxh2 22. Kxh2 g5 $1 {Karjakin doesn't miss an opportunity like this.}
23. Rh1 (23. h5 f5 $36) 23... gxh4 24. Kg1 (24. Kg2 h3+ $17) 24... h3 25. Nxa6 Ra7 $1 26. Nc5 Rxa1 27. Qxa1 Bg4 28. Kh2
Qf6 29. Qb2 $2 (29. Qe1 $17 {and White is still fighting, although Black is clearly better.}) 29... Qf3 30. Rg1 Ra8 31. c4 {
Diagram [#] Black has an absolute killer here! Can you find it?} Kg7 $6 (31... Ra1 $3 {This theme of deflection will end up in
many beginner's books of tactics. Extremely thematic.} 32. Rxa1 (32. Qxa1 Qxf2+ 33. Kh1 Bf3+) 32... Qg2# ) 32. cxd5 cxd5
33. b4 Rb8 (33... Ra1 $1) 34. Na6 Rb6 35. Nc7 Rxb4 36. Qa2 Ra4 (36... Rb1 $1 {with the same idea as shown in the
variation with 31...Ra1.}) 37. Qb2 Ra5 38. Ne8+ Kg6 39. Nc7 h5 40. Qc2 Kh7 41. Qb2 Qf6 42. Rc1 Qf3 43. Rg1 Qf5 44. Rc1
Ra7 45. Ne8 Qf3 46. Rg1 Ra6 47. Qc2 Re6 {The knight is trapped as Nc7 can be met with Rc6. Sergey didn't find this rook
to the first rank win on many occasions but his position was so good that he could still beat the World Champion.} 0-1

19-year-old Daniil Dubov had a good event with a 2763 performance

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Lazaro Bruzon from Cuba

Magnus Carlsen watches the last moments of Aronian's game

The following day, he appeared to wake on the wrong side of the bed, and nothing seemed to go his way. It started with a
draw against Kramnik and then he lost again in round thirteen, this time to Radjabov. It was hard to know what to make of it
since Carlsen has been known to have these chess blackouts even in standard games, with a strong record of miracle
recoveries. When he lost for the third time in six games, now against Alexander Grischuk, it became quite clear the gap
was quickly becoming too large to make up.

Loek Van Wely finished with 9.0/21

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Christian Bauer from France finished with +2 at 11.5/21

Where did this leave the title then if not Magnus? Maxime Vachier Lagrave had not been suffering from the same meltdown,
but nor was he racking up the points with the same speed he had the previous day. In the first six games he was only able
to win one, while drawing five. While he continued in the lead, that lead was shrinking and he definitely had challengers. By
round 16, his lead was only a half point over Karjakin with 12.5/16, one point over Aronian who had 11.5/16, and a pack of
wolves at 11.0/16. With five rounds to go, nothing could be less clear.
Anton Korobov - Tirgan Petrosian (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)

[Event "World Blitz-ch 2015"] [Site "Berlin"] [Date "2015.10.13"] [Round "9.4"] [White "Korobov, Anton"] [Black "Petrosian,
Tigran L"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A41"] [WhiteElo "2700"] [BlackElo "2625"] [Annotator "Sagar Shah"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN
"8/8/3b4/8/8/2K5/4k1n1/8 w - - 0 95"] [PlyCount "64"] [EventDate "2015.??.??"] [EventCountry "GER"] {The first day of the blitz
saw surprisingly high number of games ending with the material balance that we have on the board. Strong GMs like
Sethuraman and Motylev unable to execute the mate with very little time on the clock. It was nice to see Petrosian having
absolutely no problems in mating his opponent. Let's learn from the Armenian.} 95. Kc4 Ke3 96. Kd5 Bg3 97. Kc4 Nf4 98.
Kc5 Ke4 99. Kc6 Bf2 {It always makes sense to place your knight and bishop on the same coloured squares so that they
can control different colours.} 100. Kd6 Kd4 101. Kc6 Nd5 102. Kd6 Bg3+ 103. Kc6 Nb4+ 104. Kb5 Bd6 105. Kb6 Kc4 106.
Kb7 { Korobov does the right thing trying to go towards the wrong coloured corner square.} Kc5 107. Ka8 (107. Kc8 Kc6
108. Kd8 Nd5 $1 {The knight is on the right circuit. The way I remember this circuit is - the a8 square can only be controlled
by a knight and the best square for it to do that is c7. From c7, as we have read in numerous books the right movement is to
move in W shape i.e c7-d5-e7-f5.} 109. Ke8 Ne7 110. Kf7 Kd7 111. Kf6 Bf4 {And this is a typical way to lock the opponent's
king.}) 107... Kc6 (107... Kb6 {would be painful!}) 108. Ka7 Nd5 109. Ka8 Nb6+ {Now Petrosian will push his king to the a1
square. From this point onwards you should remember the mating pattern.} 110. Ka7 Bc7 { A waiting move to push the king
to a6 and then control the a7 square with Bb8.} 111. Ka6 Bb8 112. Ka5 Nd5 {The knight moves in the W circuit. Now the b4
square is controlled. This is essentially the forking of roads. Beginners are most afraid of Ka4 as then it seems the king
runs away. In the game Korobov went for the other option with Ka6.} 113. Ka6 (113. Ka4 {It seems the king is running away
to freedom but looks how the knight and bishop will co-ordinate to lock the white king.} Kc5 114. Kb3 Nb4 {Taking control of
the important c2 square and staying on the W circuit.} 115. Kc3 {c2 and d3 are controlled. We only need to protect d2.} Bf4
$1 {This is the formation that you must engrave in your head. The knight and bishop control all the squares and White king
has to retreat.} 116. Kb2 Bd2 {The cage is made smaller.} 117. Kb3 Kb5 118. Ka3 Kc4 119. Ka4 Nd3 120. Ka3 Bb4+ 121.
Ka2 (121. Ka4 Nb2#) 121... Kc3 122. Kb1 Kb3 123. Ka1 Kc2 124. Ka2 Nc1+ 125. Ka1 Bc3#) 113... Nb4+ 114. Ka5 Kc5 115.
Ka4 Kc4 $1 116. Ka5 Bc7+ {There is no escape. Once again this is a typical move not letting the king get away.} 117. Ka4
Bb6 (117... Nd3 {continuing the circuit leads to a similar line as in the game.} 118. Ka3 Bb6 {a waiting move.} 119. Ka4
(119. Ka2 Kb4 120. Kb1 Kb3 121. Ka1 Kc2 122. Ka2 Bc5 {and the king is boxed in.}) 119... Nb2+ {The final move in the W.}
120. Ka3 Kc3 121. Ka2 Kc2 122. Ka3 Bc5+ {The same pattern.} 123. Ka2 Nd3 124. Ka1 Bd6 {A waiting move} 125. Ka2
Nc1+ 126. Ka1 Be5#) 118. Ka3 Nd3 119. Ka4 Nb2+ {Tigran has perfectly executed the W manoeuvre.} 120. Ka3 Kc3 121.
Ka2 Kc2 122. Ka3 Bc5+ {The same theme of king above the knight and bishop checking to push the white king.} 123. Ka2
Nd3 124. Ka1 Bf8 {A waiting move.} 125. Ka2 Nc1+ 126. Ka1 Bg7# {Great play by Tigran Petrosian who made it look very
easy!} 0-1

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Boris Gelfand was certainly no slouch, and ended with 13.5/21 and a 2795 performance
Sergey Karjakin - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (annotated by IM Sagar Shah)

[Event "World Blitz-ch 2015"] [Site "Berlin"] [Date "2015.10.13"] [Round "9.2"] [White "Karjakin, Sergey"] [Black "VachierLagrave, Maxime"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A05"] [WhiteElo "2762"] [BlackElo "2758"] [Annotator "Sagar Shah"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN
"4r3/pp5k/1np1r1qp/7p/4R3/2N2P1Q/PP4P1/3R2K1 w - - 0 30"] [PlyCount "2"] [EventDate "2015.??.??"] [EventCountry
"GER"] {A game of blitz can make you do many illogical things for which you would have no explanation. For example, in this
perfectly fine position, one of the best blitz players of our generation blunders an entire rook.} 30. Rd6 $4 {But why?} Rxd6
{There is just no reason. Maybe he thought the e8 rook was undefended or he just saw that Rxe4 was not possible
because the queen would be hanging. Such oversights happen all the time in blitz.} 0-1
Then it was the Frenchman's turn to falter, and two losses in rounds 18 and 19 saw him caught up by Yuri Vovk, the
surprise of the tournament, Vladimir Kramnik, and Alexander Grischuk, all sharing 13.5/19. Magnus seemed poised to
stage a comeback as he was now at 13.0/19, and anything could happen in the last two rounds. Unfortunately for the
Norwegian's fans, that is exactly what took place, and he lost a crucial game to Vassily Ivanchuk when he fell into the
Ukrainian's preparation. He was now officially out of the running.

Vassily Ivanchuk had a superb event, knocking out Carlsen for good in round 20, and coming
in fourth place with a 2827 performance
Entering the final round, the top four spots were quite surprisingly dominated by the older generation of players with
Kramnik and Grischuk at 14.5/20 and MVL and Ivanchuk at 14.0/20. It was all decided in the last game, when Grischuk
overcame Gelfand, while Kramnik was forced to save his game against Ivanchuk.
As a result, Alexander Grischuk won his third World Blitz title, in sole first with 15.5/21, while MVL was silver with 15.0/21,
edging out Kramnik who came in third, on tiebreak.

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The three medalists of the World Rapid: Teimour Radjabov (third), Ian Nepomniachtchi (second)
and Magnus Carlsen (first)

Alexander Grischuk receives the gold medal for his World Blitz title from Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

A close-up of the medal

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The three top finishers in the World Blitz: Vladimir Kramnik (third), Alexander Grischuk (first),
and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (second)

Final standings after 21 rounds

Rk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

SNo Ti.
Name
5 GM Grischuk Alexander
2 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime
15 GM Kramnik Vladimir
10 GM Ivanchuk Vassily
3 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian
1 GM Carlsen Magnus
25 GM Svidler Peter
7 GM Navara David
113 GM Vovk Yuri
66 GM Kasimdzhanov Rustam
4 GM Aronian Levon
18 GM Gelfand Boris
28 GM Dominguez Perez Leinier
12 GM Mamedov Rauf
17 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar
54 GM Ponkratov Pavel
16 GM Karjakin Sergey
59 GM Vitiugov Nikita
37 GM Tomashevsky Evgeny
31 GM Korobov Anton
11 GM Andreikin Dmitry
9 GM Anand Viswanathan
36 GM Fressinet Laurent
14 GM Fedoseev Vladimir
23 GM Alekseev Evgeny
30 GM Malakhov Vladimir
78 GM Petrosian Tigran L.
6 GM Radjabov Teimour
137 GM Gajewski Grzegorz
121 GM Swiercz Dariusz

FED Rtg
RUS 2814
FRA 2854
RUS 2763
UKR 2789
RUS 2831
NOR 2914
RUS 2726
CZE 2806
UKR 2566
UZB 2641
ARM 2817
ISR 2743
CUB 2717
AZE 2777
AZE 2749
RUS 2666
RUS 2759
RUS 2655
RUS 2694
UKR 2705
RUS 2781
IND 2791
FRA 2699
RUS 2765
RUS 2729
RUS 2707
ARM 2630
AZE 2808
POL 2520
POL 2555

Pts
15,5
15,0
15,0
14,5
14,5
14,0
14,0
14,0
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,5
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
13,0
12,5
12,5
12,5
12,5

TB
2699
2727
2705
2691
2642
2720
2691
2646
2742
2720
2710
2700
2687
2659
2648
2608
2720
2711
2683
2663
2663
2658
2647
2644
2633
2596
2745
2730
2704
2666

Perf
2876
2877
2856
2827
2775
2837
2810
2767
2827
2810
2805
2795
2781
2757
2744
2694
2800
2774
2761
2744
2734
2739
2727
2728
2717
2679
2798
2794
2773
2718

Click for complete standings

Photos by Pascal Simon

Links
Official tournament site
All Rapid games in PGN
All Blitz games in PGN
The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess
server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free
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Albert Silver
Born in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was champion of Rio de Janeiro with a peak rating of 2240, and was a key designer
of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News.
Feedback and mail to our news service
Please use this account if you want to contribute to or comment on our news page service
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Topics
Berlin, 2015 World Blitz

See also

World Rapid 2015: Magnus Carlsen retains his title

10/13/2015 It was an exciting finish to the World Rapid championship, with many thrilling
battles. For some, the event never really took off, while others rose and fell, but Magnus
Carlsen gave a vintage performance as he scored a 11.5/15, a full point ahead of the field,
and taking the no.1 spot to boot. In second was Ian Nepomniachtchi, and third was
Dominguez. Report and analysis. [Discuss]

2015 World Rapid Day 2: Carlsen rises to the top

10/11/2015 Day two of the World Rapid Championship lived up to the expectations with
action galore on all fronts. Sergey Karjakin fell from grace after a great start, while Magnus
Carlsen rose steadily to the top, but to end the tale there would be to miss the surprises
such as Sergei Zhigalko sharing first or Igor Kovalenkos brilliant attack and miracle save.
[Discuss]

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Logos 11 hours ago
A very exciting event. I followed some of the games live - pure entertainment! As always, it was
impressive to see how well these guys play with so little time.
Last but not least, Jan Gustafsson's commentary was priceless.

Congratulations Maguns and Alexander.

Wodzu 9 hours ago
Rustam Kasimdzhanov has shown very good results in both of time controls!

horius 8 hours ago

Congrats to Grishuk!! Although i find it funny that in his classical games he usually gets in severe
timetrouble

Bertman 4 hours ago

@Cyric The link has been fixed.

Catastrophe 2 hours ago

Depressnyak!

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Denix 2 hours ago

Grischuk beat Carlsen so there is no complaint I could make.

algorithmy 1 hour ago

Great event and very entertaining commentary by Jan Gustafsson, really the best commentator.

Raymond Labelle 53 minutes ago

As mentioned by horius, it is an interesting paradox that a regular winner of blitz championships is often
in time trouble in classical games.
Maybe it is a false paradox. Maybe, in a classical game, Alexander is confident that he will find the right
move even if he has not much time left?

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