Chess (#1047)

Several blitz and rapid events occupied last week. There were the World Blitz+ World Rapid Championships in Khanty Mansiysk. There was the Sberbank Rapids in Kiev and then the Tal Memorial Blitz in Moscow. The internet coverage of all these events was excellent with moves and times broadcast in real time, along with embedded engine analysis.

The most popular controls are 3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment per move for blitz and 25 minutes plus 10 seconds increment for rapid. The World Blitz+Rapids offered over $400,000. The Sherbank had appearance fees as well as good prize money. The Tal Memorial blitz placings were the pairing numbers for the 10-player round-robin main event. The top five placers get five whites each. The blitz also carried Euro 15,000 in prize money.

Shakhriyar Mamedaryov won the World Blitz, a 15-round Swiss with 58 players. He scored 11.5 from 15, ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi (11), Alexander Grischuk (10.5) and Le Quang Liem (10). Liem won the following blitz championships, formatted as a 16 round Swiss with each round a mini-match. Liem scored 20.5 from 32, with Grischuk, Nepomniachtchi and Ruslan Ponomariov in 2-4, scoring 20 each.

Sergey Karjakin won the Sberbank, a 10-player round robin. He scored 6.5 ahead of Veselin Topalov (6) and Peter Leko (5). It was a strong event - the lowest rated player was a 62-year-old retiree, Anatoly Karpov (2619), playing his first event in two years.

The Tal Memorial Blitz saw Hikaru Nakamura in first, with 7 from 9. He was followed by Viswanathan Anand (6.5) with Vladimir Kramnik (5.5), Boris Gelfand (4.5) and Magnus Carlsen (4.5) making up the top half. The tournament proper started on Thursday evening. The rest of the field is Fabiano Caruana, Alexander Morozevich, Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedaryov and Dmitry Andreikin for a category 22, (average 2777 ). Andreikin at 2713 is the lowest rated.

Obviously, Carlsen, who's just won his fourth consecutive Oscar for 2012, must be the favourite. But this is a field with many ambitious players and some wild cards like Andreikin, Mamedaryov, Nakamura and Morozevich, who are all prone to wild form swings.

The DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY (Nepomniachtchi Vs Grischuk World Rapids 2013) is an interesting example of how random rapid play can become. Two very strong players make several consecutive errors.

Black's winning but 29.f5 Nf4?! Directly 29...Bh6 30.fxg6+ fxg6 31.Qxg3 Bxc1 is easy. 30.Nxf4 Bh6 31.Qxg3 Bxf4 32.Rxf4! exf4 33.Qxf4 Qe5? 34.Qf2? Instead 34.Qh4+ Kg8 35.c4! (threat Bc3) is strong for white. 34...Kg8? Black should play 34.-- gxf5! first for 35. c4 Qf6 36. Bc3 Qg6. White misses the c4-Bc3 idea again with 35.Re1? Re8 36.Qd2 d5 37.fxg6 fxg6 38.Rd1 dxe4 39.Qh6 Qh5! 40.Qxh5 gxh5. Finally black reaches a winning endgame (0-1 in 62 moves)

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player