World Rapid/Blitz championship

[Sin Hombre]

This is one of the biggest tournaments as I explained here http://www.sports-india.com/phpBB/viewt ... 3#p4446823

Rapid finished earlier today.

19-year old Arjun Erigaisi finished 5th though his actual performance (as measured by Tournament Performance Rating) was 2nd only to Magnus. Without going into an essay on how Swiss system pairings work, Arjun who was in the top 5 from the start with a weaker rapid rating (because he hasn't played as much rapid) kept drawing top seeds.

18-year old Nihal finished 9th. Vidit finished 15th and Surya finished 20th. Bit unfortunate that we were not able to win our first non-Anand medal in the Open section (sometimes inaccurately referred to as men's since both men and women can participate).

We did medal in the women's with a bronze from 15-year Savitha Shri. Koneru finished 6th. Savitha's results this year have been tremendous (she is #4 amongst girls u-20 in the world) and is very much looking like Koneru's successor.

[rajitghosh]

Humpy won the silver in the world women's blitz championship. She started badly but recovered well to win the silver. Now she has medals in all the world championship formats- classical, rapid and blitz.

[Sin Hombre]

Unfortunately, not a great run in the open section with Hari finishing 17th and Nihal 18th as the only top-20 finishers.

Still, the bronze for Savitha in rapid and silver for Koneru meant it was a reasonable outing for the Indian contingent.

[Saffron Lenin]

India chess has a long way to go!!!!!

[Saffron Lenin]

Let's see what will happen in Tata steel at Netherlands.....I guess it is the next big event for our players

[Sin Hombre]

Samarkand hosts this year's edition of world rapid/blitz.

Results after Day 1 of Rapid (5/13 rounds completed)
Magnus is in the lead with 4.5 points and best tiebreaks
2. Arjun 4.5 points
5. Vidit 4.5 points
6. Bharath Subramaniyam 4 points
16. Sandipan Chanda 4 points
20. Nihal 3.5 points
21. SL Narayan 3.5 points


Women's section (4/11 rounds completed)
6. Vaishali 3.5 points
15. Humpy 3 points
19. Padmini Rout 3 points

[Sin Hombre]

Results after Day 2 of Rapid (9/13 rounds completed)
Magnus is in the lead with 7 points and best tiebreaks
4. Bharath Subramaniyam 6.5 points
5. Arjun 6.5 points
10. Vidit 6.5 points
22. Nihal 6 points


Women's section (8/11 rounds completed)
2. Humpy 6.5 points
10. Priyanka Nutakki 6
22. Vaishali 5 points

[Sin Hombre]

Final rapid results
Magnus won with 10 points
4. Vidit 9 points - lost a completely winning game in the penultimate round and went from potentially tying Magnus to finishing outside the top-3
8. Pragg 9 points
15. Arjun 8.5 points
25. Gukesh 8.5 points
27. Bharath Subramaniyam 8 points
29. SL Narayan 8 points

Women's section rapid final
2. Humpy 8.5 points - lost a tiebreak for 1st against a much lower rated player despite outplaying her. Humpy still can't call herself a world champion
13. Varshini Sahiti 7.5 points
22. Priyanka Nutakki 7 points

Blitz starts tomorrow.

[Sin Hombre]

Results after Day 1 of Blitz (12/21 rounds completed)
6 players including Magnus again are tied for 1st at 9 points
4. Nihal Sarin 9 points
5. Arjun 9 points
18. SL Narayan 8 points
23. Vidit 8 points


Women's section (9/17 rounds completed)
3. Harika 7 points
13. Priyanka Nutakki 6
24. Diyva Deshmukh 6 points