“He who analyzes blitz is a fool.”
— Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov

Instead of ending the FIDE World Championship in Rapid and Blitz Chess as a celebration of chess instinct, finding the coolest head in a situation dominated by passion rather than creativity, we got the new Corona Circus…

The first of the two days of the election for the Blitz Champion in the men’s competition began with the game of the greatest living grandmaster in the World against the World Blitz Champion, well known Magnus Carlsen:

Indjić 0-1 Carlsen
Yes, Aleksandar Indjić from Serbia is the greatest living… well, the tallest living grandmaster with a height of 204 cm. That’s what you get when your child start skipping basketball lessons and instead runs to a chess club.

However, the first day went relatively normally. Levon Aronian dominated over the board, with 10 out of 12 possible points, and the insecure Carlsen gave the impression that after Rapid, he would lose the Blitz title as well. Let us recall the placement at the podium from Moscow 2019:

And let’s remind ourselves of the rules of the game and the time format for this tournament:

Again hated Buchholz in case of an equal number of points at the end of the tournament. On the second day, that forced the players who disagree to take rather radical steps. For example, Hikaru Nakamura took his virus with him and was eliminated from the tournament after a positive test. The organizers of this Coronavirus Hoax managed to ruin another world event by removing one of the favorites, but at the same time they managed to completely ruin Christmas and New Year for him…

And really, can anyone explain why FIDE removed Nakamura from the December 2021 Top 100 rankings list and the January 2022 Top 100 rankings list?

Other players tried to avoid Buchholz by trying to play matches for all or nothing, with the pedal to the metal and with maximum of passion…

Did you see how cool GM Tigran L. Petrosian was? And yet, how many players so many ways to avoid Buchholz. There were players who tried to scare opponents by breaking the dress code…

…and extremely aggressive play. Yan Nepomniachtchi played the King’s Gambit twice – and he won both games! Unfortunately, no extra points were provided for the attractive games.

The most successful in that avoidance was the winner of the women's sugar tournament, Bibisara Assaubayeva. She secured the top position the whole one round before the end of the tournament, and like the winner of the men’s tournament in Rapid time control, the Uzbek Abdusattorov, Bibisara from Kazakhstan is only 17 years old! What a kids!

There was no such luck in the men’s tournament. There, three players finished the tournament with 15 points out of a possible 21. Buchholz knocked out the youngest and most dangerous, 18-years-old Alireza Firouzja, and the tie-break was played by the favorite of the home fans, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

It must be said that Maxime had his two days at this tournament, where he showed a great game practically without coming into a time troubles, and showing some completely original ideas:

In the last round, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave also defeated the former Blitz Champion Magnus Carlsen, so that not a shadow of doubt can fall on his title. Here is the podium with the winners of the FIDE World Rapid and blitz Chess Championship for 2021:

I know you couldn’t care less, but if you’re ever interested in what that last day looked like, it’s recorded for history here:

And if you want to see all the games, you will find them on the official website of the championship. Please enjoy but don’t analyze.

Until the next Circ… Championship…