World Rapid Championship
World Rapid Chess Championship Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Dec. 25-30, 2017
Final Top Standings
1-3. Viswanathan Anand IND 2758, Vladimir Fedoseev RUS 2771, Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2780, 10.5/15
4-9. Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2654, Magnus Carlsen NOR 2908, Alexander Grischuk RUS 2813, Boris Savchenko RUS 2685, Rauf Mamedov AZE 2695, Gadir Guseinov AZE 2714, 10.0/15
10-18. Peter Svidler RUS 2743, Wang Hao CHN 2770, Yu Yangyi CHN 2752, Vladimir Onischuk UKR 2748, Vladislav Artemiev RUS 2687, Ding Liren CHN 2734, Penteala Harikrishna IND 2687, Sergey Grigoriants RUS 2572, Zhao Jun CHN 2600, 9.5/15
Total of 134 participants
Time Control: 15 minutes play- to- finish with 10 seconds added after every move starting move 1.
This year’s world rapid and blitz championships were hosted in Riyadh, the capital city of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The tournaments were renamed the ‘King Salman World Rapid & Blitz Championship’, and had a record $ 2 million prize fund with $250,000 going to the winner.
There were no preliminary qualifying events – the rules simply state that you may join so long as your rating is 2600 and above.
There were some misgivings on the choice of Saudi Arabia for the championships. On the safety and security front Saudi Arabia has several disputes with its neighbor Yemen which has the potential to escalate to a full-blown war. I am sure our BW readers had seen in the papers that Yemen had launched 2 missiles against Saudi. Although they were both intercepted before hitting their targets you can imagine how nerve-wracking this can be!
On the political side there was a howl of protest from the Israeli Chess federation and the Association of Chess Professionals ( the president of ACP is GM Emil Sutovsky, an Israeli Jew) that Israeli players were not given visas to enter Saudi Arabia. Naturally they pointed to the FIDE motto Gens Una Sumus (“we are one people”) and that its Statutes provide that “FIDE events may be hosted only by Federations where free access is generally assured to representatives of all Federations.”
There were a lot of discussion about this and I assume this will continue even after the event. My personal opinion is that the organizers from FIDE and Saudi did the best they could — it was not as if there was a queue of potential hosts and sponsors willing to take over the event.
You will remember that a few months ago Saudi Arabia along with United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar due to its “harboring a multitude of terrorist and sectarian groups that aim to create instability in the region.” Saudi even went so far as to close its border and halted air and sea traffic with Qatar. For the World Rapid Chess event though FIDE managed to negotiate with the Royal Family to extend visas to the Qatari players. Another issue was the government relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have lately been icy. Once again the organizers managed to clear the way for the Iranian players to get visas.
FIDE was also confident that they can get a special dispensation for the Israeli players. Unfortunately though the US President Donald Trump chose this time to escalate tensions between the Arab world and Jews by declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and announcing that the US embassy would be moving there. This proved to be the straw which broke the camel’s back and the Israeli players had to stay home.
Enough talk about politics! Let’s go to the chess.
The Jordanian player IM Sami Khader ( born 1972) is unknown to most of us, but he has some serious skills, for example during the 2016 Baku Olympiad he was the silver medalist on Board 5 with eight wins out of eight games for a performance rating of 2932. Here in Riyadh he came through with a brilliant victory against one of the toughest to beat players, nicknamed “Minister of Defense.”
Khader, Sami (2392) — Karjakin, Sergey (2760) [B94] WCh Rapid 2017 Riyadh (2.43),
26.12.2017 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 Nbd7 7.Qe2 h6 8.Bh4 g6 9.f4 e5 10.fxe5 dxe5 11.Nf3
In Negi’s best-selling book on “1.e4 against the Sicilian” he recommends here 11.0– 0– 0!. Obviously Black cannot take the knight because of 11...exd4 12.e5 dxc3 13.exf6+. Negi then goes into a very detailed and involved analysis of what happens after 11.0–0–0 Qc7 ending around 10 moves later with the verdict that White is better. Khader does not go full throttle right away and tries to keep control of the complications. 11...Qc7 12.0–0–0 b5 13.Nd5 Nxd5 14.exd5 Bd6 15.Qe3 Bb7 16.Bd3 f5?
Best was either ...Nd7–b6xd5, or even 16...0–0! if 17.Qxh6 then 17...e4! (threatening ...Bf4+ winning the queen) 18.Ng5 Bf4+ 19.Kb1 Bxg5 20.Bxg5 exd3 21.Rxd3 Qe5 Black is doing very well. 17.Nd4! Qb6?!
Obviously Karjakin was counting on this move. 18.Bxf5! gxf5 19.Qg3 Nf8
[19...exd4 20.Qg6+ Kf8 21.Qxf5+ Kg7 22.Qxd7+ Black’s isolated king will fall] 20.Nxf5 Rh7 21.Rhe1 Kd7 22.Bf6?
An inaccuracy as now Black has 22... Bb4 considerably complicating matters. Once Karjakin lets this possibility slip there is no more salvation.
22...e4? 23.Nxd6 Qxd6 24.Qg4+ Kc7 25. Bh4 Qg6 26. Qf4+ Kd7 27.Rxe4 Rc8 28.c3 h5 29.Re6 Nxe6 30.dxe6+ Ke8 31.Qd6 Qh6+ 32.Kb1 Be4+ 33. Ka1 Bd3 34. Qxd3 Kf8 35.e7+ Kg7 36.Qd4+ Kf7 37.Rf1+ Ke6 38.Rf6+ Qxf6 1–0
This was not Karjakin’s tournament. He later on went down again to a 15-year-old boy (still only an FM but has already fulfilled the requirements for the GM title), Andrey Esipenko, the reigning World Under-16 Champion. The video of the event shows that the two players on the next board, Ponkratov and Grischuk, couldn’t stop looking over their shoulders to see Karjakin being taken down. Karjakin, Sergey (2760) — Esipenko, Andrey (2564) [B11] WCh Rapid 2017 Riyadh (8.9), 27.12.2017 1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Nc3 Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 Nf6 6.d3 e6 7.Bd2 Qb6 This is Esipenko’s pet line in the Caro-Kann Two Knights Defense.
8.0– 0– 0 d4 9. Ne2 c5 10. e5 Nd5 11.Nf4 Nb4 12.Kb1 Nd7 13.Qe4 Nc6 14.Nh5 0–0–0
Black shouldn’t take the proferred pawn. After 14...Ndxe5 15.f4 Nd7 16.f5 e5 17. Be2 followed by Bf3 and g2– g4 White will have a full-blown initiative. Black with his pieces not yet properly coordinated will have to shed one or two pawns to hold the balance. 15.f4 c4!
One moment White is trying to break through in the center and the next it is Black who has a strong offensive against the opposing King. 16.dxc4 Ba3 17.Bc1
[17.b3 Nc5 18.Qf3 d3 19.Bxd3 Rxd3 20.cxd3 Nxb3 Black mates] 17...Nc5 18.Qf3 d3! 19.cxd3
[19.Bxd3 Bxb2! 20.Bxb2 Na4 21.Kc1 Qxb2+ 22. Kd2 Rxd3+ 23. Qxd3 Rd8 Black is clearly winning] 19...Na4 20.Rd2 Nd4 21.Qf2 Nc3+ 22.Ka1 <D> 22...Qb3! 23.bxc3 [23.axb3 Nxb3#] 23... Qxc3+ 24. Bb2 Bxb2+ 25.Rxb2 Qc1+ 26.Rb1 Nc2+ 27.Qxc2 Qxc2 28.g3 b5 29.cxb5 Rd4 0–1
The Tbilisi KO World Cup held last September had 7 rounds of mini- matches involving 128 of the top players of the world. Who would have thought that the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen would only last up to the 3rd round? It was Bu Xiangzhi who brought him down with a sudden kingside attack. Here in Riyadh Bu Xiangzhi prevented any thoughts about “revenge being a dish best served cold” by upsetting Carlsen again with yet another kingside assault.
Carlsen, Magnus (2837) — Bu, Xiangzhi (2730) [A28] WCh Rapid 2017 Riyadh (1.1), 26.12.2017 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.e3 Nc6 4.a3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Qc2 Be7 7. Nf3 0–0 8.b4 Nxc3 9.dxc3 Qd6 10.Bd3 f5 11. e4 f4 12. h3 a5 13. Bb2 Bf6 14.Rd1 Qe7 15.0–0 Be6 16.Qe2 Qf7 17.Rd2 g5 18.b5 Ne7 19.c4 Ng6 The follow- up will be 20... g4 21.hxg4 Bxg4 and the pin will be hard to break. 20.Nh2 Rad8 21.Rfd1 Qe7 22.Qh5 Rd7 23.Ng4 Rfd8 24.Nh6+
[24.c5 Bg7 25.c6 bxc6 26.bxc6 Rd6 27. a4 The coming Ba3 is awkward to meet]
24...Kh8 25.Nf5 Qc5 26.Qe2 Nh4 27. Nxh4 gxh4 28. Qh5 Rg8 29. Bf1 Rdg7 30.Kh1 Qe7 31.Qf3 Rg5 32.a4 Bf7 33.Rd7 Qe6 34.Qe2?
GM Yermolinsky pointed out here that the correct move for White is 34.Qa3! so that Black’s ...Qb6 anytime can be met by c4–c5. 34...Bh5 35.f3 Rg3
Threatening 36... Bxf3.37. gxf3 Rxh3+ 38. Bxh3 Qxh3+ 39. Qh2 Qf3+ 40.Qg2 Qxg2 checkmate. 36.Kh2 Qb6! 37.c5 Qxc5 38.Kh1 0–1
Here Carlsen lost on time, but it does not matter since it is mate in 2: 38...Rxh3+ 39.gxh3 Qg1 checkmate.
This was a really exciting event. Rapid chess, if you ask me, is the way to go for the coming years.