…in blitz tournaments... I must admit that after Magnus Carlsen relinquished the defence of the World Championship title (probably for the first time in history due to ‚laziness‘), he has become the centre of attention even more, at least in all YouTube videos. Almost every second one analyses one of his fresh brilliant performances… in blitz, less often in rapid.
So I would like to pause here in this article and set the record straight. A knowledgeable reader surely knows how information can be distorted, twisted and manipulated nowadays, to the extent that even Joseph Goebbels could be envious. Let us therefore focus on Carlsen's results in the period from January to July of 2023, but let us strictly divide chess encounters as was customary in reasonable times: classical chess, rapid chess and blitz games.
The former world champion was one of those who spoke rather disrespectfully about the level of the World Championship match in Almaty! So a bit of statistics. What did he himself achieve?
January 2023: Tata Steel Masters; 14 participants. At that time still holding the world champion rank, he took third place with a score of 8 points (+5 -2 =5).
May – June 2023: Altibox Norway Chess, Stavanger; 10 participants. Thanks to ‚replaying‘ draws with blitz games, the former world champion took 6th place with a result of 4 points (+0 -1 =8); in a pure tournament table his placement would have been even worse.
A few years ago I devoted a whole article on my website to today's ‚failure to recognise‘ the difference between classical chess, rapid and blitz, titled „On the Pillory (4) – Like Small Children“. Since then the situation has worsened and in fact the chess community is just waiting for regular bullet analyses to appear on YouTube (for the less knowledgeable, here players usually have about one minute of time). The World Championship in this physically demanding discipline has already taken place.
A historic achievement – 9 out of 9?
I could no longer hold back my laughter when one of the many young Russian-speaking YouTubers, calling himself Maksoun, described Magnus's result on the first day of the blitz tournament in Croatia (9 out of 9) as a historic achievement, labelling his post „Magnus Carlsen MAKES HISTORY“.
I always thought that the history of records in our beautiful game was made by, for example, Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine, who won the 1933 Bled tournament by 5.5 points, when Robert James Fischer won 19 games in a row in 1970–1971 and crushed Tajmanov and Larsen 6-0 in Candidates matches, when Garry Kasparov (literally a chess monster of the second half of the 1990s) toured chess-developed countries to play simultaneous exhibitions with clocks against Olympic teams, or Anatoly Karpov with his perhaps unsurpassed record in the number of tournament victories.
Grand Chess Tour, Zagreb
The Grand Chess Tour (probably the brainchild of the 13th world champion) consists of a series of tournaments with 10 participants, each comprising a rapid section (9 rounds, a win counts as 2 points) followed by a blitz tournament (18 rounds, each player faces every other twice with both colours). It was here on the first day that the former world champion achieved that daring feat. The results of both parts of the tournament are, of course, summed in the end, and thanks to the phenomenal blitz result (16 out of 18), the former world champion managed to make up the deficit from the rapid and also win the 2nd Grand Chess Tour tournament.
This time a really strong field gathered in Croatia and I was naturally more curious about the ‚more serious‘ rapid part of the tournament. How will the youngsters Dommaraju Gukesh and Alireza Firouzja perform here?
Move of the year
Enough words and evaluations, with which, I suppose, some readers will disagree or even consider them tendentious. However, despite today's times, when in fascist parts of the world only one ‚correct‘ opinion is allowed again and others are punished (paradoxically, it was precisely because of this ‚change‘ that Ding Liren became world champion!), I would wholeheartedly welcome a discussion here.
The tournament results will soon be forgotten, but I believe not one of the splendid moves. This time I would sign under the opinion of my favourite video author Alexey Pugachev (Шахматы для всех) that Carlsen's daring feat can confidently to compete for the most beautiful move of the year.
Carlsen,Magnus (2835) - Duda,Jan-Krzysztof (2732) rapid Zagreb 2023
The young Polish super-grandmaster has just stormed into the white camp with the move 20…Qd2. Dear readers, can you find the answer and correctly calculate (finish calculating!) the necessary variations? (The solution can of course be found below, as the entire game is worth replaying and studying.)
What is happening with Firouzja?
From the very first moments when I saw the play of the then very young Iranian chess player Alireza Firouzja, I knew that one of the greatest talents in history had joined the chess world. I wrote about him on these pages, for example in connection with the 2019 World Blitz Championship (his famous dispute with Carlsen), when he was only 16 years old, and later in connection with his participation in the Candidates Tournament.
In the meantime, Alireza became the winner of last year's Grand Chess Tour series and at one point even rose to second place in the world rating list. He currently still leads the ‚ELO blitz ranking‘.
However, I reluctantly see that surely not only my hopes (so far only slightly) have faded. The point is that Firouzja does not devote himself fully and completely to chess. This is very clearly seen by his coach and analyst, for example, in the choice of openings of this little genius...
In games against the former world champion, however, Alireza did not falter this time either and won their mini-match (of course as the only one). So first let's look at one rapid game and two blitz games.
Different people, different chess players, different characters, different playing styles!
Why does Carlsen also win?
Many readers will surely agree with the so-called only correct opinion, namely that the sole reason for Carlsen's practical successes, touching the stars, is his playing – or perhaps creative – superiority over all current rivals. I will heretically oppose this. In my opinion, among more than 90% top players in the world, a phobia has developed over the years (here I mean fear, anxiety, the word can be interpreted in various ways). Fear then leads exactly to what we can observe mostly in rapid and blitz.
Imagine: you are sitting at a game, there is not much time left on the clock, and opposite you sits a real colossus. While in a ‚normal‘ game you would make your move without unnecessary additional considerations, with Magnus your subconscious suggests: „Better check everything once again, there might be a trap in the position!“ So sometimes you even review an automatic sequence again and again... time is running! Because the former world champion, thanks to his phenomenal general intuition, already plays faster than most opponents, the difference in time on the clock increases due to ‚checking‘. In blitz itself, this very often has a decisive significance regardless of the position. (Incidentally, Carlsen also ‚cares‘ to achieve the lowest possible increment per move wherever he can!) Of course, the reader does not have to agree with me, but the statistics are relentless. Seeing Carlsen in blitz with worse time during a longer phase of the game can be considered a rarity!
The second manifestation of ‚Magnusophobia‘ is then downright spasmodically played openings, frantic unprepared attacks and the like. Because the former world champion also masters classical chess education, he can easily refute such attempts just by estimation on a rolling basis.
Let us now look at two blitz games that demonstrate both the faults Magnus's opponents commit.
Ups and downs
At the end of the article, let us look at two Carlsen's moves of the year. Below we will find both the solution to the diagram I set for dear readers at the beginning, and the last example is quite the opposite. If this year on some platform not only the 10 best moves of the year but also the worst blunders are rated, then the former world champion could win both categories! Admittedly, the last example comes from a rapid team tournament in Dubai, played in June 2023.
In August 2023, the chess world will surely be mainly watching the World Cup in Baku. We shall see whether the former world champion will repair his tarnished reputation in classical chess. In my opinion, it mainly depends on whether he finds lost motivation and overcomes his laziness and reluctance to play games with longer time controls, which, by the way, have been respected for more than 150 years...
