Carlsen Leads WR Chess To World Blitz Team Championship Gold
GM Magnus Carlsen-led WR Chess Team beat GM Arjun Erigaisi's Team MGD1 in the Final to win the 2024 World Blitz Team Championship. WR Chess won all seven matches in the group stages and cruised into the Quarterfinals. There they defeated GMHans.com, with GM Hans Niemann facing GM Ian Nepomniachtchi as Carlsen again sat out the match. Chessy, led by Richard Rapport, were the last obstacle on the path to the Final.
- Pools: Favorites Cruise As Pang Bo Makes It 16/16
- Knockout, Quarterfinals: End Of The Road For Decade Team China
- Semifinals: Al-Ain Denied Double Gold
- Final: Redemption For Carlsen As WR Chess Take Title
The last day of the World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships in Astana featured the inaugural event of its kind in Blitz. The time control was three minutes for all moves, with a two-second increment after each move. The 40 teams were first divided into five pools of eight teams before the 16 best qualified for a knockout. It was a long day filled with technical issues but also a lot of fun!
Pools: Favorites Cruise As Pang Bo Makes It 16/16
It was a 3.5-hour earlier start on the final day in Astana, but for the top teams the stakes weren't initially high. After playing each other in their pool once, three teams would qualify for the knockout, and there were no more than two of the best teams in each group.
The players could warm up and get to play some opponents they wouldn't usually face! For instance, Carlsen took on 10 or 11-year-old 1784-rated Nurassyl Primbetov from Kazakhstan. How the game began...
...and how it ended.
Carlsen scored 5/5, teammate GMs Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu scored 4/4, while Nepomniachtchi played all rounds and scored 7/7. Other MVPs with 7/7 were GMs Wei Yi, Peter Svidler, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
The most memorable top scorer, however, was China's "recreational player" Pang Bo, who scored 5/5, making it 16/16 across the Rapid and Blitz. You might think it was a walk in the park, and he was taking things easy, but nothing of the sort!
This is just too wholesome 😊 Board 6 of China Decade Team Pang Bo is on an impressive 16/16 streak, gets very excited and celebrates another win with his captain Ni Hua pic.twitter.com/6IiSpjlBgK
— PhotoChess (@photochess) August 5, 2024
As GM Anish Giri wrote on X: "Rating 0 | Strength 2500 | Celebration rating 2890."
The weaker teams had got to play the stars, but now it was time to switch to the day's real action.
16 teams qualify for the knockout stage!🔥
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) August 5, 2024
Pool A: WR Chess Team, https://t.co/afor07EPii, Rookies
Pool B: Team MGD1, 3Al-Ain ACMG UAE, Teniz Kazakhstan
Pool C: Decade China Team, Royal Chess, Greco
Pool D: Chessy, Ashdod Chess Club, Astana-2
Pool E: Kazchess, Astana-1, Q4Rail… pic.twitter.com/UARxTVWj5e
Knockout, Quarterfinals: End Of The Road For Decade Team China
The knockout saw 16 teams compete in clashes that were decided over two mini-matches, with extra tiebreak matches to be played if the scores remained equal. The top teams continued to dominate the Round-of-16, with the favorites all winning without the need for tiebreaks. The real action began in the Quarterfinals.
FIDE World Blitz Team Championship Bracket (Last 8)
Full games and standings: Pools | Knockout
Three matches were again decided without the need for tiebreaks, but big names bowed out. For instance, Kazchess GMs Svidler, Mamedyarov, and Alexander Grischuk were knocked out by Chessy, while GMHans.com fell to their nemesis WR Chess.
They'd been paired in the Pools as well, with WR Chess winning three mini-matches in total, while Carlsen sat out for all of them. Nepomniachtchi won the head-to-head with Niemann 2-1, with all three games decisive.
The main story of the Quarterfinals, however, was Rapid gold medalists Al-Ain beating Rapid silver medalists Decade China Team 3.5-2.5 in a tiebreak match after both their first matches ended 3-3. It would have been different if Pang Bo had kept on winning, but he suddenly lost his Midas touch in the knockout.
That wasn't the full story, of course, with one game that impacted the tiebreak being a stunning bounceback win for GM Daniil Dubov, who unleashed some fearsome opening prep on World Champion Ding Liren. Dubov had 15 seconds more than he started with when he played the bamboozling 17...Rc8!.
It meant a lot.
Al-Ain ACMG clinches victory over Decade China Team in a thrilling tie-breaker, advancing to the FIDE World Blitz Team Championship 2024 semi-finals! 🌟 pic.twitter.com/InlZiOXFdf
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) August 5, 2024
Semifinals: Al-Ain Denied Double Gold
In the Semifinals, WR Chess marched on, again without the need for tiebreaks, as Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi, and Praggnanandhaa beat GMs Rapport, Haik Martirosyan, and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, respectively, to win the first mini-match 4.5-1.5, before a draw in the second clinched a spot in the final.
Al-Ain, meanwhile, was hunting a second gold, with GM Parham Maghsoodloo having explained before the day began that the team had cut their celebrations short the day before.
He commented:
We went to a really nice restaurant last night, but unfortunately we couldn’t stay for so long because today is very important, this tournament, and we are not satisfied yet, we want to win Blitz also... If we win Blitz it will be a great night tonight!
It wasn't quite to be, as again, they drew their first two mini-matches before India's MGD1 took the match in the tiebreak.
Maghsoodloo made an unfortunate blunder, while Shah Mihir scored a crucial win on the bottom board. There's been a campaign to rehabilitate him after a viral video in which he seemed to be mocking his blundering opponent.
Guys, I spoke with Mihir and he is an extremely nice guy.. He is also passionate about chess & that’s why he was upset to win due to a blunder rather than with a good game. I was wrong to judge a book by its cover!
— Vidit Gujrathi (@viditchess) August 5, 2024
Also, Mihir, Congrats on the great performance in blitz!pic.twitter.com/NvpjactLOP
Mihir would win both games against that same opponent in the Final, but as we'll see, it wouldn't be enough!
Final: Redemption For Carlsen As WR Chess Take Title
The final clash in Astana was incredibly close and hard-fought, with just one draw over 10 games.
Carlsen was worse out of the opening and smoothly outplayed by Arjun in the first game, needing to rely on his teammates to save him. They did, with Nepomniachtchi, Duda, and GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov combining to claim a win. Carlsen was asked how he felt after the tournament was over:
Honestly, I’m a bit exhausted. This was a really, really tough match and I’ve been struggling a bit here, coming from a big time difference. I haven’t really been able to sleep much so today I was really running on fumes, but my teammates helped me out when I failed against Arjun in the first game. And then, in the second game, I messed up the opening, and I sort of had to repeat moves, but I felt like I had to win somehow, and it turned out great. I think at that point adrenaline took over and I was really, really focussed and then I managed to play I think a pretty good game considering the circumstances.
I was really running on fumes, but my teammates helped me out when I failed against Arjun in the first game.
—Magnus Carlsen
That second game is our Game of the Day, which has been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.
During the game Carlsen got a boost when Nepomniachtchi, sitting next to him, suddenly won after GM Raunak Sadhwani played 33.fxg4?, allowing the piece-winning 33...Ne4+!.
A win for GM Alexandra Kosteniuk and gold medals were guaranteed.
Two-time World Championship challenger Nepomniachtchi's celebratory tweet echoed what he'd tweeted a year ago when winning the FIDE World Rapid Team Championship.
Became world champion in Astana. Not quite the way I imagined pic.twitter.com/nDms0WflaK
— Ian Nepomniachtchi (@lachesisq) August 5, 2024
No I in team🥇 https://t.co/8DEBC7X8Cg
— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) August 5, 2024
Team captain GM Jan Gustafsson was asked what they'd done differently before the Blitz: "Nothing! They played even more bughouse last night, so that seems to be the secret to success...".
He did note that it helped that team owner Wadim Rosenstein was better at Blitz than Rapid: "I’m happy. I can’t say I contributed very much. If you have so many world-class players and pick a bunch of them and hope for the best it’s a pretty good recipe!"
If you have so many world-class players and pick a bunch of them and hope for the best it's a pretty good recipe!
—Jan Gustafsson
All that was left was to lift the trophy.
That's all for the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships, though there's not long to wait for more Blitz action, with the Speed Chess Championship Quarterfinals taking place this week, including a Carlsen vs. Arjun repeat of their final clash in Astana!
How to rewatch?
The live broadcast was hosted by GMs Peter Leko, Irina Krush, and Evgenij Miroshnichenko.
The 2024 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships ran August 2-5 in Astana, Kazakhstan, with 40 teams of six players competing. Each team must feature at least one female player and one "recreational player," never rated 2000+. The Rapid is a 12-round Swiss with a time control of 15 minutes for all moves, plus a 10-second increment per move. The Blitz (3+2) begins with teams playing a round-robin in pools, before the top 16 play a knockout, where each clash features two mini-matches.
Previous coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
