Pestaño: Karjakin, Grischuk are rapid and blitz champs

THE Official World Blitz and Rapid Chess Championships were held from July 1-11 in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan and had a prize money of $400,000. It is worth noting that the Rapid championship was a first in the history of Fide.

The rapid tournament was a 16-player single round robin and the blitz event was a 16-player double round robin.

Rate of play was 15 minutes plus 10-second increment per move, starting from move one for rapid and three minutes plus two-second increment per move, starting from move one for blitz.

There was a special rule. The players were not allowed to offer draws directly to their opponents. Any draw claim will be permitted only through the Chief Arbiter and accepted in case of a triple-repetition of the position or the 50-move rule.

The players who joined the tournament were Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Morozevich, Vassily Ivanchuk, Alexander Grischuk, Veselin Topalov, Peter Svidler, Boris Gelfand, Viktor Bologan, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexey Dreev, Igor Kurnosov, Vladislav Tkachiev, Murtas Kazhgaleyev, Anuar Ismagambetov, Dmitry Andreikin, Le Quang Liem, Nikolai Chadaev, Pavel Kotsur and Rinat Jumabayev.

Karjakin won the rapid competition with a score of 11.5/15, a full point ahead of Carlsen. He had an incredible third day performance of 4.5/5.

After two days of play and 10 games Carlsen looked like he was a certain winner. But
then the Norwegian world number 1 lost two in a row, allowing Karjakin to catch and then overtake him.

Ivanchuk played a large part in the final result, running out of time to Karjakin in his first game of the day, then beating Carlsen in the second.

Carlsen lost another game against Grischuk in round 13, and should have lost another when Veselin Topalov missed a checkmate in their final round clash.

Karjakin holds the record for both the youngest International Master (11 years and eleven months old) and youngest grandmaster in history (at the age of 12 years and seven months).

The World Blitz Championship was won by Grischuk . He led almost throughout. Carlsen started slowly but finished strongly, defeating Karjakin to overtake him for second place.

Grischuk is a Russian grandmaster and was Russian Champion in 2009. He has won two team gold medals and one individual bronze medal at Chess Olympiads.

Russia vs. China. Russia defeated China 77.5-72.5 in their annual Scheveningen match held in St. Petersburg this year from July 1-9.

The Russian men’s team won the classical chess, 13.5-11.5, but their women went down, 14.5-10.5. In rapid chess, the Russian men also won, 29-21. The Chinese women scored another victory as well, albeit with a smaller margin, 25.5-24.5.

The players who represented Russia (men’s) -Dmitry Jakovenko, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Nikita Vitiugov, while the Chinese men’s players were Wang Hao, Wang Yue, Li Chao, Ding Liren, Yu Yangyi.

The women’s players were Valentina Gunina, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Natalija Pogonina, Olga Girya, Baira Kovanova for Russia and Zhao Xue, Ju Wenjun, Huang Qian, Shen Yang, Ding Yixin for China.

Poker. Antonio Esfandiari has won the largest buy-in tournament in poker history, the $1-million Big One for One Drop at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

He is a professional poker player and former professional magician, known for his elaborate chip tricks. By winning the event, along with the largest cash prize in the history of poker at $18,346,673, Esfandiari is now ranked number one in all-time tournament poker winnings.

(boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)