TODAY: NEWS FROM CHESS.COM - Ray Robson Wins Puzzle Battle World Championship

GM Ray Robson won the Puzzle Battle World Championship on Friday. The 26-year-old U.S. grandmaster clinched the $8,000 first prize in an eight-player, winner-takes-all elimination bracket where players faced each other in three-minute Puzzle Battle.

Robson (@spicycaterpillar on Chess.com) defeated the non-titled, Greek puzzle specialist Dimitrios Ladopoulos (@jimis98) in the final that consisted of 10 rounds of Puzzle Battle. It was a repeat of last year's final, also won by Robson.

In the quarterfinals and semifinals, Robson had beaten GM Eric Hansen and GM Hikaru Nakamura with impressive 50-0 and 45-0 scores, meaning he didn't lose a single individual battle. While his opponents were sometimes faster, Robson made fewer mistakes as he showed almost computer-accurate solving ability.

"It feels really good," said Robson in the interview after the final. "I felt a lot of pressure coming to this event. I didn't really know what the bracket was gonna be, who was gonna be playing, until just the other day. When I saw that jimis was really my main competition, it seemed like we were destined to meet in the final, so I was waiting for this match for a little while. I was pretty nervous. I think we both were. I think it was tough for both of us to play in this final."

Both Robson and Ladopoulos are considered to be absolute specialists in solving puzzles on Chess.com. While some people make an effort to memorize big numbers of specific puzzles, according to Robson that's not the case for the two finalists—their secret is to simply practice a lot.

The Puzzle Battle World Championship was played on the last day of Chess.com's Puzzle Week, a series of five days of different puzzle-related events that had a combined $23,000 prize fund. Teams were involved in Puzzle Rush (five minutes, three minutes, and Survival) as well as Puzzle Battle.

You can find all of Chess.com's puzzle features, such as regular Puzzles, Puzzle Rush, and Puzzle Battle, at Chess.com/puzzles.

For more, visit the original blog here: https://www.chess.com/news/view/ray-robson-wins-2021-puzzle-battle-championship