Familiar blitz: the best grandmasters gathered in New York for the tournament

On New Year's Eve the traditional and one of the most prestigious tournaments in the chess calendar - the World Rapid and Blitz Championships - will start, which this time will be hosted by New York. A trip to the USA in the current conditions is a very difficult event from all sides, but the FSM did everything to support its athletes. As a result, the delegation of our country at the championships, although not as numerous as in previous years, but still very strong. About the chances of our grandmasters to repeat last year's successes - in the material of "Izvestia".

In good shape

Almost all the best chess players in the world will play in the USA. Only Alexandra Goryachkina is missing from the women's world top ten (she didn't get an American visa). Rapid and Blitz are not the most crowning disciplines of Russia's strongest chess player, but she has recently gained excellent form and could well qualify for the top-3 in both disciplines. On the other hand, Anastasia Bodnaruk and Valentina Gunina will play in New York. Last year in the Rapid tournament Bodnaruk was seeded only No. 51, but managed to surprise the entire chess world by sharing first place with Humpy Koneru. In a tie-break, the Russian defeated the Indian representative in a dramatic struggle and became the World Rapid champion for the first time.

- Do you feel any pressure because of the title defense? Unfortunately, there is such a moment, the share of responsibility has increased," Anastasia Bodnaruk admitted to Izvestia. - I will try not to let it affect me negatively. I don't always manage this process, but I've been in this sport for a long time. I should be able to cope. I'm a little worried about the time difference, which is eight hours. It's a lot, of course, and I sometimes have trouble sleeping during big tournaments. So I will hope that sleep is not disturbed. This is a very important point.

Last year Valentina Gunina won the World Blitz World Championship for the second time in her career. After starting with seven wins in a row, the Russian did not slow down and kept her lead until the very end, suffering only one defeat in 17 rounds.

- In the USA our girls will be the favorites, I'm more confident in them than ever," Sergey Rublevsky, the head coach of the Russian women's national team, said in a conversation with Izvestia. - I'm glad that Katya [Lagno] has quickly recovered from her unsuccessful trip to the FIDE Grand Prix stage in Kazakhstan, and that Valya [Gunina] has gained excellent form for her main start of the year. In the blitz tournament in Calcutta in the second half of November, she showed her trademark chess.

In addition to Bodnaruk, Lagno (three-time world blitz champion) and Gunina, Polina Shuvalova (who took bronze at the 2022 World Blitz Championships) and Leia Garifullina may compete for medals in both events.

Targeted preparation

On the men's side, the undisputed favorite is Magnus Carlsen, who has done gold doubles at the last two World Championships in Rapid and Blitz. In total, the Norwegian has won the World Cup seven times in blitz and five times in rapid. In New York, the entire chess elite, with the exception of 18th world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, will try to break his winning streak. A week before the start of the tournaments in the USA, the Indian prodigy suddenly disappeared from the lists of participants. In his time, the 17th world champion Ding Lizhen, after winning the 2023 match, went to the Grand Chess Tour stage in Romania, where he performed poorly, and then took a long break, unable to fully regain his former form. Apparently, Gukesh decided not to repeat the mistakes of his predecessor and chose the path of recovery after a tough match.

But Hikaru Nakamura, Lenier Dominguez, Wesley So and Alireza Firoudja, who missed the last World Cup in Uzbekistan, are in the lineup. The latter, by the way, has the second number of seeding in the blitz tournament. In rapid chess, Caruana, Maxim Vachier-Lagrave, Wei Yi and Jan Nepomnyashchy follow Magnus in the rating. The strongest Russian chess player of recent years has won silver at the 2013 and 2021 World Chess Championships in Rapid and silver at the 2014 World Cup in Blitz, but he has not yet reached victory.

- This year I tried to prepare for the World Cup separately, as the calendar was more or less unloaded. Usually I came to these tournaments and played them on a whim," Yan Nepomnyashchy explained to Sport-Express.

Vladimir Potkin, Yan's former coach and coach of the Russian national team, is confident that Nepomnyashchy has a good chance of achieving his long-awaited success. Especially against the background of his excellent Rapid play at the recent Champions Chess Tour 2024 Super Final in Oslo, where Nepomnyashchy reached the final before losing to Magnus. The 42-year-old also mentioned other Russian chess players.

- Of course, Daniil Dubov and Alexander Grischuk, who are always very strong in these controls, have good chances for medals," Potkin said. - Andrey Esipenko won a strong open in Qatar in classical chess and can show a high result. Our champion Vladislav Artemyev will be missed, last year he was third in blitz. However, I'm glad that the young guys are also going - Arseny Nesterov, Ivan Zemlyansky, Rudik Makaryan. Surprises are possible from them.

In the last days of December we will not only learn the names of the world champions in Rapid and Blitz, but also the first winner of a ticket to the Candidates Tournament - 2026. For 12 months the participants have been gaining points in the FIDE Circuit standings, and a week before the end of the tournament we can summarize the preliminary results.

At the moment Fabiano Caruana is leading the FIDE Circuit, having successfully played two tournaments in the USA and collected 130+ points. He could have been overtaken by Arjun Erigaysi, but the Indian chess player failed to take a clean first place at a major tournament in Qatar (where Esipenko won), and now Erigaysi is six points behind Caruana.

The last chance for Arjun lies in a successful performance in New York. With the Rapid and Blitz tournaments being counted at a reduced rate, Erigaysi needs to jump above his head - the Indian grandmaster has never finished in the top three before.

Schedule

December 26-28 - Rapid (13 rounds for men and 11 rounds for women)

December 30-31 - Blitz (13 rounds for men and 11 rounds for women plus playoffs).