Magnus Carlsen and Bibisara Assaubayeva are the 2022 FIDE World Blitz Champions
After a 2-days blitz marathon with 21 rounds for the Open Section and 17 for the Women’s, Magnus Carlsen and Bibisara Assaubayeva are the 2022 FIDE World Blitz Champions. Carlsen also won the Rapid Tournament to leave Almaty as the World Chess Champion in Classical, Rapid and Blitz!
Magnus Carlsen had an “adventurous” blitz tournament with running and changing clothes to losing on time against Neponiachtchi, miraculously winning a lost position against Richard Rapport, and blundering a whole bishop against Alexey Sarana.
Even though Hikaru Nakamura entered Day 2 with a full point ahead, Carlsen managed to catch him and score two crucial wins in the end against Shimanov Aleksandr and Abdusattorov Nodirbek to reach a 16/21 score and become the 2022 World Blitz Champion.
A great surprise though was the young GM Sarana Alexey who finished with 14.5/21, beating Giga Quparadze, Raunak Sadhwani, Daniil Dubov, Hikaru Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
In the Women’s Section, 18-year-old Kazakh IM Bibisara Assaubayeva achieved a total score of 13/17 to become the 2022 World Blitz Champion for the second time.
The standings changed suddenly on Round 16 when Shuvalova – the leader of the tournament until one round before the end – lost to Koneru Humpy and for the first time had to concede the lead to Tan Zhongyi and Bibisara Assaubayeva. Koneru won the final round against Tan and Bibisara also achieved a great win against the Indian GM Harika Dronavalli to win the title literally last minute.
