Blitz champions

Besides the controversial anticlimax at the World Blitz Championships, in which Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi agreed to share the title, there were several old-fashioned tournament winners to celebrate in New York. China’s Ju Wenjun, the reigning women’s world champion in classical chess, won her first women’s world blitz championship. The women’s world rapid championship, held in the days beforehand, was won by Humpy Koneru, who first won the title in 2019.

The winner of the open rapid section was more of an outlier. Eighteen-year-old Volodar Murzin from Russia was seeded just 59th at the start of the event but his undefeated 10/13 score earned him first place outright, ahead of the world’s elite. It would have been foolish to underestimate him, as he had finished in fifth place the year before.

Murzin’s most impressive game was his upset win against Fabiano Caruana in the second round. But he needed a little luck as Black in the penultimate round (see below): Praggnanandhaa has an extra passed pawn and the Ba5 is shut out of the game. One way to win was 32 f7! Rf8 33 R1b2+ Kf1 34 f4 Be1 (to prevent Rb2-f2+) 35 Rd3!, preparing Rd3-d1 and Rb2-f2#. Instead, he repeated moves and then erred catastrophically.

R Praggnanandhaa–Volodar Murzin

32 R3b2+ Kf3 33 Rb3 Ke2 34 R1b2+? 34 f7 still wins. Kf1 35 Rb1+ Be1 What follows is hopeless for White, but there is no good answer to the threat of mate on g1. 36 Rxe1+ Kxe1 37 Rb1+ Ke2 38 Bf4 Rxf6 39 Bg3 Kd3 40 Rb4 Rg4 41 Rb7 Rf7 42 f4 h5 43 Kg2 h4 44 Kf3 hxg3 45 Kxg4 g2 White resigns

I admired Murzin’s brilliance back in 2023, when he played a spectacular game to beat Shreyas Royal, who was then just 14 but is now England’s youngest grandmaster.

Shreyas Royal–Volodar Murzin

Fide Grand Swiss, Isle of Man 2023

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 O-O 5 Be3 d6 6 h3 e5 7 d5 Na6 8 g4 Nc5 9 f3 c6 10 Qd2 cxd5 11 cxd5 Ne8 12 h4 f5 13 g5 fxe4 14 fxe4 Bg4 15 Be2 Bxe2 16 Ngxe2 Rc8 17 h5 Rf3 18 Rh4 Bh6!  A neat move as 19 gxh6? allows Qxh4+.