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World Blitz Championship (2016) The 2016 FIDE World Blitz Championship was a 21-round Swiss open held in the Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena in Doha, Qatar, 29-30 December, with the participation of 89 GMs, including defending champion Alexander Grischuk. Prize fund: $200,000, with $40,000 to the winner. Time control: 3 minutes per player for all moves, with 2 seconds added per move from move 1. No playoffs to be held if players finished with the same number of points. Tournament director: Mohamad Al-Modiahki. Chief arbiter: Ashot Vardapetyan. Sergey Karjakin won on tie-break ahead of Magnus Carlsen, both with 16.5/21. Official site: http://qatarchess2016.com/DohaChess... Regulations: https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/... Chess-Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr255851.... Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/news/view/kar... ChessBase: https://en.chessbase.com/post/serge... Chess24: https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-t... TWIC: https://theweekinchess.com/chessnew... FIDE: https://ratings.fide.com/tournament... Previous: World Blitz Championship (2015). Next: World Blitz Championship (2017). See also World Blitz Championship (Women) (2016), World Rapid Championship (2016) and World Rapid Championship (Women) (2016)  page 1 of 46; games 1-25 of 1,134  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Carlsen vs X Bu 1-0 45 2016 World Blitz Championship C42 Petrov Defense 2. R Jumabayev vs V Artemiev 1-0 95 2016 World Blitz Championship D78 Neo-Grunfeld, 6.O-O c6 3. Nakamura vs L Pantsulaia   1-0 39 2016 World Blitz Championship A30 English, Symmetrical 4. E Inarkiev vs Aronian   ½-½ 55 2016 World Blitz Championship C84 Ruy Lopez, Closed 5. Nepomniachtchi vs A Volokitin   1-0 35 2016 World Blitz Championship B91 Sicilian, Najdorf, Zagreb (Fianchetto) Variation 6. N Grandelius vs Vachier-Lagrave   ½-½ 64 2016 World Blitz Championship A33 English, Symmetrical 7. Mamedyarov vs D Anton Guijarro   ½-½ 70 2016 World Blitz Championship E12 Queen's Indian 8. D Flores vs Karjakin 0-1 34 2016 World Blitz Championship A20 English 9. Radjabov vs M Al Sayed 1-0 28 2016 World Blitz Championship D43 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav 10. F Bindrich vs L Dominguez Perez   0-1 44 2016 World Blitz Championship D27 Queen's Gambit Accepted, Classical 11. R Mamedov vs E Ghaem Maghami   ½-½ 55 2016 World Blitz Championship A13 English 12. E Najer vs Grischuk   0-1 27 2016 World Blitz Championship C70 Ruy Lopez 13. F Amonatov vs B Lalith   1-0 27 2016 World Blitz Championship C46 Three Knights 14. P Maghsoodloo vs Tomashevsky   0-1 35 2016 World Blitz Championship A04 Reti Opening 15. Anand vs Bologan 1-0 38 2016 World Blitz Championship B90 Sicilian, Najdorf 16. B Adhiban vs Ivanchuk   1-0 51 2016 World Blitz Championship D26 Queen's Gambit Accepted 17. Jobava vs G Quparadze 0-1 48 2016 World Blitz Championship A45 Queen's Pawn Game 18. Dreev vs O Bortnyk   1-0 37 2016 World Blitz Championship A46 Queen's Pawn Game 19. V Onyshchuk vs V S Gujrathi   0-1 47 2016 World Blitz Championship B12 Caro-Kann Defense 20. R Svane vs A Adly   0-1 29 2016 World Blitz Championship D45 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav 21. Dubov vs S Halkias   1-0 30 2016 World Blitz Championship A33 English, Symmetrical 22. A Aleksandrov vs S Lu   1-0 35 2016 World Blitz Championship A80 Dutch 23. H Melkumyan vs Ganguly   0-1 72 2016 World Blitz Championship D42 Queen's Gambit Declined, Semi-Tarrasch, 7.Bd3 24. F Perez Ponsa vs Y Yu   0-1 58 2016 World Blitz Championship B30 Sicilian 25. S Zhigalko vs A Tari   0-1 50 2016 World Blitz Championship C58 Two Knights  page 1 of 46; games 1-25 of 1,134    REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)   < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 8 ·  Later Kibitzing> Dec-30-16    Eyal: <dumbgai: The average opponent rating should be calculated excluding games between the tied players. Suppose in a hypothetical situation where Carlsen and Karjakin faced the exact same 20 opponents, plus each other. If they tied, Karjakin would have the better tiebreak by virtue of facing the higher rated Carlsen, while Carlsen faced the lower rated Karjakin. That would be silly.> Out of curiosity, I did the math for this tournament - if you calculate Karjakin's average without Carlsen and Carlsen's average without Karjakin, Karjakin still has the better TB, though it's really minimal (2733 - 2731 instead of 2740 - 2735). Dec-30-16    keypusher: < Jith1207: <Did Leko offer a draw?> Yes, He did, in the last round and brought down Magnus to his knees with a Draw. Karjakin wins in a better tie-break. If only Sergey had played like this during the blitz / rapid rounds in November....> There weren't any blitz rounds in November. Karjakin finished two points behind Carlsen in rapid here. Pretty much like November, in fact. Dec-30-16    nok: <<42.Kc3 was an easy win for Jobava.> It may be an "easy" win once you see the move and get the idea.> Well you can play it without thinking. The king was going to the queenside anyway, so attack the overloaded rook. It's not like the primitive pawn push wasn't winning either. Granted, we've seen worse. <Salem +103.8> He's trolling the championship now! Dec-30-16    Eyal: Btw, congrats to Dubov for the bronze. As for Carlsen, he does finish with the best combined score and is the only one who gets to stand twice on the podium (though for him it might be even more frustrating when it's not gold...). That's the third time he does it in the four rapid/blitz championships in which he participated since they started holding them side by side in 2012 (in 12 he won two silvers, in 14 two golds). Dec-30-16    frogbert: The real difference is consistency, obviously. Grischuk and Ivanchuk trail Carlsen by as many points today as Karjakin did in the rapids. Dec-30-16    Eyal: <nok: Granted, we've seen worse.> Btw, if you want to see "worse" in the context of a breakdown that helps to crown the ultimate winner, look at Wojtaszek's loss to Karjakin in the penultimate round. Dec-30-16    mrkaic: It is the right time for Carlsen to retire. He has peaked, most likely has enough money for the rest of his life and can quit competitive chess with absolute dignity. If he retires now he will become a legend. Dec-30-16    shintaro go: During the presentation of the medals, Karjakin shook Dubov's hand but not Carlsen's. Magnus looking uninterested being at the podium. Dec-30-16    shintaro go: Ukraine dominates Rapid and Blitz championships with Ivanchuk and Karjakin winning. Dec-30-16    dumbgai: Not to mention Muzychuk winning both events on the women's side. I don't think Karjakin counts as Ukrainian now, though. Dec-30-16    jphamlore: Karjakin just illustrated what I was saying at the time of his world championship match with Carlsen: Karjakin is a true prodigy, a fantastic rapid and blitz player. A lot of people just seemed to look at Karjakin's then blitz rating to decide he somehow wasn't elite at that time control. It's just that he lives at the same time as another true chess prodigy Carlsen. Dec-30-16    nok: <look at Wojtaszek's loss to Karjakin> Well I guess it all evens out. In the end if you except Dubov, the first six are the usual suspects. Dec-30-16    keypusher: < mrkaic: It is the right time for Carlsen to retire. He has peaked, most likely has enough money for the rest of his life and can quit competitive chess with absolute dignity. If he retires now he will become a legend.> There are lots of things in this world I don't understand, but one of the bigger mysteries is chess fans who are constantly urging great chess players to retire. It's BAD that Bobby Fischer and Paul Morphy quit when they did. Think of all the great games they didn't play. Dec-30-16    Eyal: <During the presentation of the medals, Karjakin shook Dubov's hand but not Carlsen's. Magnus looking uninterested being at the podium.> I don't think there was anything significant there - they shook hands in a friendly way a bit later, after the medals were given. But it's true that Carlsen looked quite moody during the ceremony; he smiled only when he saw Ivanchuk running to the podium to get his medal in the rapid. Dec-30-16    amuralid: Ivanchuk looked totally lost during the entire presentation. He did not come when they called his name, then ran to the stage and jumped on the podium. Then seemed totally, totally engrossed in thoughts. I couldn't help laugh when he did not want to leave the stage even when they wanted to announce the blitz results. And that last group photo - he stood with his back to the camera! He was definitely on Planet Ivanchuk today. Dec-30-16    mrkaic: <There are lots of things in this world I don't understand, but one of the bigger mysteries is chess fans who are constantly urging great chess players to retire. It's BAD that Bobby Fischer and Paul Morphy quit when they did. Think of all the great games they didn't play.> It is a matter of dignity and is not limited to chess. Do you want to see these great players going out as washed up has beens? Kasparov did it the right way -- he left while on top, maybe a tad too late. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Tiger Woods, still saying that he wants to play competitive golf in a sad display on denialism. Dec-30-16    BobbieM: Carlsen is now number 1 in classic, rapid and blitz chess. Has this happened before?? Dec-30-16    MissScarlett: Has what happened before? Dec-30-16    Rolfo: 2014 may be Dec-30-16    nok: The three ratings thing is new, and this proves it unnecessary. Should be various time controls, one rating. Dec-30-16    zanzibar: It's a bit of a pain to get the final standings in Blitz from the tournament site, imo. Here's a direct link: http://www.chess-results.com/tnr255... Here are the top-10: < 1.... Karjakin.......2800.. RUS.. 16,5.. 2740.. 259,0 0,0.. 10 2963 2.... Carlsen....... 2873.. NOR.. 16,5.. 2735.. 258,0 0,0.. 11 2959 3.... Dubov......... 2724.. RUS.. 14,5.. 2733.. 259,0 0,0.. 10 2865 4.... Nakamura....2842.. USA.. 14,5.. 2720.. 256,5 0,0.. 10 2853 5.... Grischuk.......2761.. RUS.. 14,5.. 2718.. 253,0 0,0.. 11 2852 6.... MVL............ 2823.. FRA.. 14,0... 2708.. 252,5 0,0.. 11 2820 7.... Dominguez.. 2783.. CUB.. 13,0.. 2725.. 253,5 0,0.. 11 2806 8.... Korobov....... 2666.. UKR.. 13,0.. 2708.. 246,0 0,0.. 11 2784 9.... Ivanchuk......2754.. UKR.. 13,0.. 2697.. 254,5 0,0.. 10 2776 10....Anand........ 2754.. IND.. 13,0.. 2695.. 249,0 0,0.. 10 2773 > (<CG> can we pleeze get verbatim mode?) Dec-30-16    Eyal: Something truly bizarre that happened in the game A Adly vs D Flores, 2016 : <Ahmed Adley was trying to win R-N vs Diego Flores for a long time. So long, that Flores at some point claimed a draw based on the 50-move rule.  This claim was rejected as it was only 47 moves, so the players played on with Adly getting extra time on the clock. Only a few moves later, Flores blundered and the position was suddenly lost. The Argentinian GM thereupon claimed again, but again it was denied—this time because only White had played 50 moves since the last capture, but Black not yet. Flores in fact had only one second left on the clock in the following position [after 142.Ke6]: click for larger view He then requested the arbiter to start his clock from the other side, so that the arbiter's arm would not be in the way, which got the fairly big crowd laughing. Another arbiter started the clock, Flores managed to make his move [142...Nd7], but them made the mistake of playing another one, instead of claiming for the third time. Before he knew it he was checkmaked, and the game was over.> (https://www.chess.com/news/view/kar...) A video of the whole incident: https://livestream.com/ChessCast/Ra... Dec-30-16    notyetagm: <dumbgai: I wonder what Dima's rating will be after this. <<<0/15 and 0/21>>> for a previously unrated player gives almost no information about what his actual playing strength is. Apart from it being significantly lower than that of his average opponent.> Yes, an absolute beginner who barely knew how to move the pieces would have the same 0/36 performance. Dec-30-16    notyetagm: Dubov got the Bronze so once again Naka got nothing. Dec-30-16    Eyal: Actually, when I look at it, I think it's even worse - the arbiter simply miscounted. The last move with a capture was 92.Kxd4, so up to and including 152.Ke6 fifty moves without a capture were played by <both> sides - 92-141 by Black, 93-142 by White. There was no reason to deny the second claim even according to what the arbiter says. Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 8) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 5 OF 8 ·  Later Kibitzing> NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. Becoming a member is free, anonymous, and takes less than 1 minute! If you already have a username, then simply login login under your username now to join the discussion. Please observe our posting guidelines: No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language. No spamming, advertising, duplicate, or gibberish posts. No vitriolic or systematic personal attacks against other members. Nothing in violation of United States law. 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