World Blitz Chess Championship 2021, Warshaw, Chess.com: The Armenian who recently joined the USA was clear first with 10/12 points. Bassem Amin is second and Parham is third.
The top-rated players were seen struggling while the lower-rated excelled. Whether due to a boom in online chess blitz-play over the pandemic, as players were unable to participate in over-the-board events, or as a response to Carlsen’s statement that he wishes to only defend his title against the next generation.
GM Magnus Carlsen, who peaked at a 2900 blitz-rating at the beginning of the day (his peak was 2986 in December 2017), lost three games and ended with 8.5/12.
Carlsen, who lost the opportunity to win the rapid world title, was four out of four but Bartosz Socko defeated him in the fifth round. It was a Catalan middlegame where Carlsen blundered with 29…Qxe4??.Although Socko was the last player with a perfect score and led sole first on 5/5 later, he went on to lose four games.
In the very next round, Magnus Carlsen wore another defeat this time against Vladimir Fedoseev. The Russian forged a lethal counterattack with the white pieces. Fedoseev had a decent ending to the day, considering how things are going for top players, with 8.5/12. He is at the same points as Magnus.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov was the third GM to beat the World Champion and it was described as “one of the worst games we have seen today” by Hammer, with Krush adding it was “not the kind of game that you would expect from those players.” Both super-grandmasters made mistakes starting on move six and continued to make some minor errors until Carlsen slipped with a serious blunder on move 25.
Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who had just won the world rapid title the day prior, was unrecognizable on Wednesday as he lost no fewer than five games. The disaster started with and only snowballed after his loss to Bosnian GM Denis Kadric, who won in only 22 moves. Despite even having a chance to beat Nakamura later, but failing to win with an extra piece in round eight, Kadric finished the day with 6.5 points.
Aronian, the ultimate leader of the open section, took down many big names including Grischuk in round eight, Jan-Krzysztof Duda in round nine, Fedoseev in round 10, and Daniil Dubov in round 12.
While all impressive, the flashiest game had to be his against the Polish number-one, where castling turned out to be a blunder for the latter, and Aronian was able to trade his queen for three minor pieces and a decisive attack.
Amin, who will play Aronian with the white pieces in the first round tomorrow, earned his highest scalp today against French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, receiving a surprising blunder-gift.
