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User:Greg820/rapid

The World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships is an event held annually by FIDE consisting of a series of chess tournament held to determine the world champions in chess played under rapid time controls. Prior to 2012, FIDE gave such recognition to a limited number of tournaments, with non-FIDE recognized tournaments annually naming a world rapid champion of their own. Since 2012, FIDE has held an annual joint rapid and blitz chess tournament and billed it as the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. FIDE also holds the Women's World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship. The current rapid world champion is grandmaster Nodirbek Abdusattorov and the blitz world champion is Magnus Carlsen. Alexandra Kosteniuk and Kateryna Lagno are respectively the current women's rapid and blitz world champions.

Time controls

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Advertisement for 1988 World Active Chess Championship

The concept of rapid chess (then called "active chess") made its debut at a 1987 FIDE Congress meeting in Seville, Spain. During the World Active Chess Championship the following year, time controls were set at 30 minutes per player per game.[1] In 1993, following his split from FIDE, world champion Garry Kasparov organized a slightly quicker version of active chess, dubbing it "rapid chess". The Professional Chess Association, Kasparov's answer to FIDE, subsequently organized two Grand Prix cycles of rapid chess before folding in 1996. Under rapid chess time controls, each player was allowed 25 minutes with an additional 10 seconds after each move.[2] FIDE would re-use these time controls and the "rapid chess" moniker for the 2003 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship, held in Cap d'Agde. During the World Cup 2013, these time controls were also used for the rapid tiebreak stages.

In 2012, FIDE inaugurated the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships. The current time controls for the rapid championship are set at 15 minutes per player, with a 10-second increment.[3]

Early iterations

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Prior to 2012, FIDE sporadically sanctioned a world rapid chess championship. The first official high-profile rapid match took place in 1987, when then-world champion Garry Kasparov defeated Nigel Short in the "London Docklands Speed Chess Challenge" at the London Hippodrome. Kasparov won the match with 4 wins, two losses, and no draws in six games.[4]

In 1988, FIDE organized the inaugural World Active Chess Championship, a 61-player rapid chess tournament in Mazatlan, Mexico hosted by the Mazatlan Hoteliers Association. The event was won by Anatoly Karpov, who edged out GM Viktor Gavrikov on tiebreak points after their 1st-place playoff ended in a 5-5 tie. Karpov was subsequently named the new "Active Chess Champion", winning a $40,000 cash prize in the process.[5] Garry Kasparov, the current world champion, declined to participate in the event and derided the concept of an active chess champion afterwards - he was quoted as saying, "Active Chess? What does that make me, the Passive World Champion?". The political controversy surrounding the event and the naming of a separate "active chess champion" led to the parallel rapid championship being dropped for future years.[6]

In 2001, the French Chess Federation organized the 16-player World Cup of Rapid Chess at Cannes, with support from FIDE. The tournament consisted of a round-robin stage (2 groups of eight players each), followed by a set of knockout matches to determine the winner. With the Melody Amber rapid chess tournament being held concurrently, the world's top players were split between attending both events. Garry Kasparov defeated Evgeny Bareev in the final match to win the tournament.

Looking to revive the World Rapid Chess Championship, FIDE gave official "world title" recognition to the 2003 rapid chess tournament held in Cap d'Agde, France. Hosted by the Caisse Centrale d'Activités Sociales des Electriciens et Gaziers de France (CCAS) on the Mediterranean coast, the 2003 tournament included eleven of the world's 12 top-ranked players along with five wild-cards. With an average rating of 2726 Elo points, the 2003 event was the strongest rapid chess tournament of all time up to that point.[7] Included in the field were the reigning FIDE and Classical world chess champions, Ruslan Ponomariov and Vladimir Kramnik. Ultimately, Viswanathan Anand won the tournament, defeating Kramnik in the final round.

FIDE World Blitz Championship (2006–2010)

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The first blitz chess tournament to be recognized by FIDE as a "world championship" took place on 6 September 2006 in Rishon Lezion, Israel. Structured as a 16-player round-robin, the tournament featured seven of the world's top 20 Grandmasters, as well as a young Magnus Carlsen. After 15 rounds, Alexander Grischuk and Peter Svidler finished atop the leaderboard with 10½/15; Grischuk subsequently defeated Svidler with Black in an armageddon game to win the championship.[8] The following year, the tournament (now branded as the FIDE World Blitz Cup) was held in Moscow, Russia following the Tal Memorial tournament and was re-structured as a 20-player double-round robin with a significantly stronger field. After Ukrainian grandmaster Vasyl Ivanchuk and Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand entered the final round tied on points, Ivanchuk defeated Anand from a disadvantaged position to win the tournament with 25½/38.[9]

In 2008, the championship reverted to a 16-player round robin. Despite a late charge from the defending champion Ivanchuk, who won seven of the final eight rounds, the tournament was won by Leinier Domínguez, a 25-year-old GM from Cuba who scored 11½/15 to edge out Ivanchuk by a half-point.[10] In 2009, the championship returned to Moscow, where the format was once again switched to a 22-player double round-robin with revised time controls of three minutes per player plus a 2-second increment. The event was won by the young Norwegian chess prodigy Magnus Carlsen, who finished three points clear of the field with 31/42 and went 8/8 against the 2nd through 5th-place finishers.[11]

2010 would prove to be the final year of the event – hosted again in Moscow, the tournament was dubbed the VI World Blitz 2010 and held immediately after the Tal Memorial tournament. Despite losing both his final games, Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian was able to clinch the title with 24½/38, half a point ahead of Teimour Radjabov.[12] In November 2010, a nine-round Swiss tournament was scheduled for February 17, 2011, to serve as a qualifying event for the World Blitz Championship 2011; however, after no bids for the event were made the tournament was eventually cancelled.[13]

Editions and medallists

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Year Host city Champion Runner-up Third place
2006   Rishon Lezion   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)   Peter Svidler (RUS)   Teimour Radjabov (AZE)
2007   Moscow   Vasyl Ivanchuk (UKR)   Viswanathan Anand (IND)   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
2008   Almaty   Leinier Domínguez (CUB)   Vasyl Ivanchuk (UKR)   Peter Svidler (RUS)
2009   Moscow   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Viswanathan Anand (IND)   Sergey Karjakin (UKR)
2010   Moscow   Levon Aronian (ARM)   Teimour Radjabov (AZE)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)

World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships (since 2012)

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On May 31, 2012, FIDE announced the inaugural World Rapid & Blitz Championships, set to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan from July 1 to 11. The 2012 tournament consisted of a qualifying round, followed by the rapid and blitz events held consecutively over 5 days. In order to promote viewership, time controls were set at 15 minutes per player, rather than the pre-2012 standard of 25 minutes. The championship was originally structured as a 16-player round-robin tournament, set to coincide with the first release of FIDE's rapid and blitz ratings in July 2012; invited were the top 10 players in the FIDE ratings list, the three medalists of the qualification competition, and three wild-card nominees by the organization committee and FIDE.[14]

The style has since been changed to a Swiss tournament with a field of over 100 grandmasters. The top three finishers in the standings are awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively. Various methods of resolving Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments have been used and the 2016 edition resulted in all three medallists tied on 11/15 points with the champion being determined by comparing the average rating of each player's opponents. From 2017 onwards, a tie-breaker match has been played in the event of two or more players being tied on points for first place. [15]. Only two players may participate in this match, even where three or more players are tied for first place on points. This caused some controversy in the 2021 edition where four players finished at the top of the tournament each with a score of 9.5/13. A tie-break match for the gold and silver medals was held between Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Ian Nepomniachtchi due to having the highest Buchholz (Cut 1) scores of the four players. Magnus Carlsen, the defending champion, and Fabiano Caruana were therefore unable able to participate in the tie-break match despite having the same score as the champion. Carlsen criticised this result as 'idiotic' and called for changes [16].

Editions and medallists

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Open
World Rapid Chess Championships (since 2012)
Year Host city Champion Runner-up Third place
2012   Astana   Sergey Karjakin (RUS)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Veselin Topalov (BUL)
2013   Khanty-Mansiysk   Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE)   Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)
2014   Dubai   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Fabiano Caruana (ITA)   Viswanathan Anand (IND)
2015   Berlin   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)   Teimour Radjabov (AZE)
2016   Doha[17]   Vasyl Ivanchuk (UKR)   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)
2017   Riyadh[18][19]   Viswanathan Anand (IND)   Vladimir Fedoseev (RUS)   Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)
2018   Saint Petersburg[20]   Daniil Dubov (RUS)   Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE)   Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
2019   Moscow   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Alireza Firouzja (FIDE)*   Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
2020 Not held due to COVID-19 pandemic[21]
2021   Warsaw   Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB)   Ian Nepomniachtchi (CFR)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)
  • Alireza Firouzja competed under the flag of FIDE in this tournament after the Iranian federation withdrew all Iranian players so that they would not have to face players from Israel.[22]
Women
Women's World Rapid Chess Championships (since 2012)
Year Host city Champion Runner-up Third place
2012   Batumi[23][24][25]   Antoaneta Stefanova (BUL)   Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS)   Humpy Koneru (IND)
2013 Not held[26]
2014   Khanty-Mansiysk[27]   Kateryna Lagno (UKR)   Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS)   Olga Girya (RUS)
2015 Not held
2016   Doha[28][29]   Anna Muzychuk (UKR)   Alexandra Kosteniuk (RUS)   Nana Dzagnidze (GEO)
2017   Riyadh[30]   Ju Wenjun (CHN)   Lei Tingjie (CHN)   Elisabeth Pähtz (GER)
2018   Saint Petersburg[31]   Ju Wenjun (CHN)   Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (IRN)   Aleksandra Goryachkina (RUS)
2019   Moscow   Humpy Koneru (IND)   Lei Tingjie (CHN)   Ekaterina Atalik (TUR)
2020 Not held due to COVID-19 pandemic[21]
2021   Warsaw[32]   Alexandra Kosteniuk (CFR)   Bibisara Assaubayeva (KAZ)   Valentina Gunina (CFR)
Open
World Blitz Chess Championships (since 2012)
Year Host city Champion Runner-up Third place
2012   Astana   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Sergey Karjakin (RUS)
2013   Khanty-Mansiysk   Le Quang Liem (VIE)   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)   Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR)
2014   Dubai   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)   Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
2015   Berlin   Alexander Grischuk (RUS)   Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA)   Vladimir Kramnik (RUS)
2016   Doha[33]   Sergey Karjakin (RUS)   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Daniil Dubov (RUS)
2017   Riyadh[34]   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Sergey Karjakin (RUS)   Viswanathan Anand (IND)
2018   Saint Petersburg   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Jan-Krzysztof Duda (POL)   Hikaru Nakamura (USA)
2019   Moscow   Magnus Carlsen (NOR)   Hikaru Nakamura (USA)   Vladimir Kramnik (RUS)
2020 Not held due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021   Warsaw[35] TBD TBD TBD
Women
Women's World Blitz Chess Championships (since 2012)
Year Host city Champion Runner-up Third place
2012   Batumi[36]   Valentina Gunina (RUS)   Natalia Zhukova (UKR)   Anna Muzychuk (SVN)
2013 Not held
2014   Khanty-Mansiysk[37]   Anna Muzychuk (UKR)   Nana Dzagnidze (GEO)   Tatiana Kosintseva (RUS)
2015 Not held
2016   Doha[38][39]   Anna Muzychuk (UKR)   Valentina Gunina (RUS)   Kateryna Lagno (RUS)
2017   Riyadh[40][41]   Nana Dzagnidze (GEO)   Valentina Gunina (RUS)   Ju Wenjun (CHN)
2018   Saint Petersburg[42]   Kateryna Lagno (RUS)   Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (IRN)   Lei Tingjie (CHN)
2019   Moscow   Kateryna Lagno (RUS)   Anna Muzychuk (UKR)   Tan Zhongyi (CHN)
2020 Not held due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021   Warsaw[35] TBD TBD TBD

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "A Brief History of Fast Chess".
  2. ^ Wolff, Patrick (September 2001). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess. ISBN 9781101221952.
  3. ^ "Regulations for the FIDE World Rapid Championship 2015" (PDF).
  4. ^ "The Spectator: 3 APRIL 1987, Page 52".
  5. ^ "Chess - NYTimes".
  6. ^ "Garry Kasparov: A History of Professional Chess".
  7. ^ "TWIC 468: Cap d'Agde".
  8. ^ "CB News: Grischuk wins FIDE World Blitz Championship". 12 September 2006.
  9. ^ "TWIC 681: FIDE World Blitz Cup".
  10. ^ "Dominguez-Perez wins World Blitz Championship in Almaty". 8 November 2008.
  11. ^ "World Blitz Championship: Carlsen wins by three-point margin". 18 November 2009.
  12. ^ "CB News: Aronian wins World Blitz Championship". 18 November 2010.
  13. ^ "Information and Regulations of the International Chess Open Festival "AEROFLOT OPEN 2011" and the Qualification Tournament for the World Blitz Championship 2011" (PDF).
  14. ^ "Regulations for the World Rapid Chess Championship 2012" (PDF).
  15. ^ "Regulations for the FIDE World Rapid Championship 2017" (PDF).
  16. ^ "Carlsen thinks World Cup rule is 'idiotic': Lost gold in last game".
  17. ^ "The winners of FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships".
  18. ^ "Saudi ban on Israeli chess players underscores limits of Gulf relations". 27 December 2017.
  19. ^ "'I am ready to stand for my principles': Double world chess champion says she won't defend titles in Saudi Arabia because of kingdom's inequality". 27 December 2017.
  20. ^ ChessBase staff (28 December 2018). "FIDE World Rapid Champions: Dubov and Ju". ChessBase. Retrieved 28 December 2018.
  21. ^ a b "World Rapid and Blitz Championship postponed to 2021".
  22. ^ "Firouzja Seeks Nationality Change After World Rapid & Blitz Ban By Iranian Federation", chess.com, 25 December 2019, retrieved 29 December 2019
  23. ^ "Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2012". World Chess Federation. FIDE. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  24. ^ "Antoaneta Stefanova is Women World Rapid Champion". Chessdom. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  25. ^ "Stefanova and Gunina winners at World Rapid and Blitz Championships". Chessvibes. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  26. ^ "FIDE Archive: 2013". World Chess Federation.
  27. ^ "FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship 2014" (PDF). FIDE. FIDE. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  28. ^ "FIDE "Women" World Rapid Ch. 2016 Final Ranking after 12 Rounds".
  29. ^ "Double gold for Ukraine in FIDE World Rapid Championship".
  30. ^ "King Salman World Rapid Championship 2017 Women". Chess-Results. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  31. ^ "King Salman World Rapid Championship 2018 Open". Chess-Results Server. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  32. ^ "World Rapid & Blitz 2021 to be held in Warsaw, Poland". World Chess Federation. FIDE. 10 December 2021.
  33. ^ "The winners of FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships".
  34. ^ Saudi chess tournament starts without Israeli players
  35. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Warsaw2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  36. ^ georgian chess federation. "Women's World Blitz Championship 2012". Chess-Results. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  37. ^ "FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship 2014" (PDF). FIDE. FIDE. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  38. ^ chess house. "FIDE Women World Blitz Ch. 2016". Chess-Results. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  39. ^ "The winners of FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships".
  40. ^ "King Salman World Blitz Championship 2017 Women". Chess-Results. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  41. ^ Saudi chess tournament starts without Israeli players
  42. ^ Fedorov, Vladimir. "King Salman World Blitz Championship 2018 Women". Chess-Results. Swiss-Manager. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
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