FIDE World Chess Rapid and Blitz Championship 2021

And we have a brand-new World Rapid Champion!

17-year-old Uzbek Abdusattorov stunned the chess world by storming the playing hall in Warsaw to win the playoffs against Ian Nepomniachtchi.


photo credit to Lennart Ootes (https://lennartootes.com/)

It was an intense and exciting - if not crazy - day, starting with the greatest upset of the tournament: Abdu beat Carlsen in round 10!
Then the young GM found himself almost lost in each of the following games, but he showed resilience and resourcefulness, pulling off three miraculous draws.
Meanwhile, Carlsen beat Aronian and drew against Nepo. In the last round, Carlsen played black against his old foe Hikaru Nakamura.
Hikaru showed he's not out of it, despite having not played in an official over-the-board tournament for almost two years.
The game was thrilling with Carlsen missing a clear chance to take home the full point and the title, but in the end, they drew.
Four players with 9.5 points led the standings at the end of the 13 rounds, but due to the rules, only the two with the best tiebreaks play the playoff games.
There have been a lot of complaints about this rule, and Magnus himself didn't spare harsh words about it.
Only to congratulate the deserving winner of the tournament after a little while:

The usual class act.

Nepomniachtchi and Abdusattorov played two blitz games, with the young Uzbek winning the second one and the Title. Nodirbek is the youngest ever to win the World Rapid Championship. Kudos!

You can find the whole story in the article written for the ICC by GM Ronen Har-Zvi.

But now, without rest, on with the Blitz  Championship! The two-day craziness starts again at 9 AM EST, 15:00 local. 

ICC will have GM Miguel Illescas do a video recap at the end of each day!

Stay tuned to the ICC YouTube channel!