Grischuk Wins 3rd World Blitz Title On Dramatic Day 2

Coming from behind, while nobody noticed, Alexander Grischuk won his third World Blitz Championship title as both Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Magnus Carlsen disappointed on a dramatic second day of play.

Photos by Nailya Bikmurzina & Gregor Anthes.

“Can't win them all (apparently),” Magnus Carlsen tweeted after failing to retain his world blitz title on Wednesday. The Norwegian star didn't hide his frustration during the day, and it had become the top story for Norwegian media.

Carlsen started the second day of play in second place, half a point behind Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. After a draw with Vladimir Kramnik, the reigning blitz champ lost a topsy-turvy game against Teimour Radjabov in round 13:

In the next game Carlsen was lost as White against Peter Svidler, but somehow survived. Again with the white pieces he lost his next game to Alexander Grischuk. There was no doubt anymore: Carlsen wasn't playing his best chess.

Meanwhile, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave was still doing fine: after 17 rounds the Frenchman had a 1.5 point lead. Here's another example of his great endgame technique, which helped him to win a drawish-looking position:

In shared second place were Alexander Grischuk, Sergey Karjakin, Vladimir Kramnik and the surprise of the second day, Yuri Vovk. You might remember the latter from his fantastic match with Wei Yi at the World Cup.

In Berlin the Ukrainian grandmaster first shattered Levon Aronian's dreams and then also beat MVL, whose endgame technique failed him this time:

At the press conference Vachier-Lagrave said: “I was 1.5 points ahead and somehow I was thinking: I've not done it yet, but I'm the one who can prevent myself from winning the title and it's exactly what happened. I lost two games in a row and even though I finished with two decent games it was not enough.”

He lost his second game to Vassily Ivanchuk, who played this Closed Sicilian with c3 and Na3 several times:

Vovk continued well with a draw against Carlsen, but fell back with losses in the last two rounds against Vladimir Kramnik and Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Because of Vachier-Lagrave's two straight losses, Carlsen suddenly was back in the tournament but he spoiled his chances once again with a loss against Ivanchuk.

Carlsen was basically outplayed, then he was given a chance to come back into the game but right there he blundered a mate in two.

Ivanchuk jumped on his chair like a seven-year-old when playing Qg1, and left the stage like a goalkeeper who had just stopped a penalty by Ronaldo. Spectators started applauding, to Carlsen's chagrin.

Below is a video by NRK, the Norwegian channel who had bought the rights to film the event and broadcast it live on national TV. It shows the end of this game and other moments of frustration for Carlsen during the day. 

We see the world champion throwing his pen on the table, and even shouting “faen!” (literally “devil,” but better translated as f**k). Later Carlsen stated that was embarrassed for his behavior. 

The video was posted on NRK's Facebook page (with the question “is this OK for chess?”) and is already over 50K views.

With one round to go, two Russians were in shared first place with 14.5 points: Alexander Grischuk and Vladimir Kramnik. Grischuk had been playing very well on the second day, but nobody really noticed! He defeated Boris Gelfand in the last round with a risky opening:

Grischuk signed the form and started watching the game between Ivanchuk and Kramnik. “I could not believe I'm going to win till the end,” he said. “Even after I beat Boris Gelfand and then I just needed that Vladimir does not beat Ivanchuk, because if he won I'm sure that he will beat me on tiebreaks because I started very bad in the tournament.

“And then Ivanchuk had two knights and three pawns against two knights and two pawns so basically he cannot lose normally but there are two knights so you can always just put your king in check and lose like this. This was the moment I was most nervous actually today! But luckily it was OK.”

Here's a highlights video with the entertaining last phase of Ivanchuk-Kramnik and the winner's speech by Grischuk:

At the closing ceremony Carlsen gave a brief speech where he thanked everyone involved. He touched his gold medal for the rapid championship, and said: “Thanks for reminding me that a few days ago was a good day for me since today was not so great.”

Perhaps he was comforted somewhat by Grischuk and Vachier-Lagrave, who both praised Carlsen. Grischuk: I want to congratulate again Magnus. I mean, I can't stress it enough: it's one of the biggest achievements in chess history to win three such tournaments in a row, two last year and the rapid here.

“It's incredibly tough to win one already and to win three is fantastic. Actually at the beginning of the blitz I was afraid he's going to win the fourth one and I started to be somewhat sick of him already!”

Vachier-Lagrave: “Congrats to Sacha for winning it and actually playing extremely well today when it really mattered. Just like him I have to stress that what Magnus did yesterday and last year, winning three world-class events in a row, is just incredible, especially when you know how easy it is to spoil it, especially in blitz.”

The Frenchman leaves Berlin with disappointment. “In general I love to play blitz but yesterday I was kind of in the flow, I mean something that rarely ever happens. This were just going so well for me. Today probably the pressure caught me a bit. 

“In general I should be satisfied but to be completely honest with you it's rarely ever happens that a second place felt this bitter for me.”

Still feels like fiasco when you're having everything under control for so long!

— MVL (@Vachier_Lagrave) October 15, 2015

Grischuk is known to be a big lover of blitz as well. He had won the world blitz championship before in 2006 and 2012.

“I played the whole rapid bad. Yesterday bad as well, but today something changed for me, in me maybe, I don't know. Somehow I was really concentrated, I mean I didn't speak to anyone between the games, to remain concentrated and so on, and I played really well today I think.”

The third player at the press conference was Vladimir Kramnik. The ex-world champion said that he wasn't sure if he wanted to participate. “Blitz is a game for young players, you know! Some good 10, 15 years ago I was a very strong blitz player but with age somehow you start to lose reflexes.”

Kramnik's old rival Garry Kasparov, who happened to be in Berlin on the same day to deliver a speech at the Aspen Institute, disagreed:

Yes, in Berlin but no time to see the chess. Congrats to Magnus for his title defense in rapid & to Grischuk winning another blitz title.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 15, 2015

I admit I was rooting for "old guys", especially the great Vassily, who played some great games. Veterans lack endurance, not quickness!

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 15, 2015

Kramnik said that he was happy to have scored well against all strong blitz players, including Carlsen, MVL, Nepomniachtchi, Radjabov, Karjakin, Ivanchuk and Grischuk. “It's a bit reassuring. It means maybe I can still play chess for a while!”

One name was missing there: Hikaru Nakamura. The American number one had made the right decision to play Millionaire Chess instead, where he won more money that the first prizes of the rapid and blitz (both $40,000) combined.

As a bonus, Nakamura is now also the world number-one blitz player in the live ratings.

Further proof that Nakamura was right not to play in Berlin :) (via @2700chess) #c24live pic.twitter.com/c0IQZvthDp

— chess24.com (@chess24com) October 14, 2015

Really happy to see Alexander Grischuk winning the World Blitz Championship after having such an incredibly rough year in 2015!

— Hikaru Nakamura (@GMHikaru) October 14, 2015

A huge number of games were played in Berlin, and so many famous grandmasters haven't even made it to our news reports. Let's look at one more game, which shows that “lesser” GMs can sometimes beat top GMs convincingly as well:

Exhausted! Great to play against so many big names: Magnus, Levon, Peter, Shak,Teimour..,12.5/21 if only I'd taken @polborta's extra 1/2 pt!

— Gawain Jones (@GMGawain) October 14, 2015

I played good in blitz, had +8, 5 rounds before the end. But then my energy finished. Stupid World Cup)))!

— Sergey Karyakin (@SergeyKaryakin) October 14, 2015

had a great time playing in Berlin despite under-performing quite badly. learned a few lessons #worldchess

— Eric Hansen (@hansenchess) October 14, 2015

Congrats to Grischuk, the first NotMagnusCarlsen to become a world champion! Watching this blitz got me hungry, and I don't mean food. :)

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) October 14, 2015

2015 World Blitz Championship | Final Standings (Top 30)

(Full standings here.)

German readers might want to check out Ulrich Stock's excellent coverage in Die Zeit.