Sergey Karjakin and Anna Muzychuk are World Blitz Champions 2016

Sergey Karjakin is new World Champion in Blitz. After narrowly missing to beat Magnus Carlsen at their World Championship match in New York, Karjakin got the better of Carlsen at the World Blitz Championship in Doha, Qatar. Though it was close.

Carlsen and Karjakin had been dominating the blitz tournament from the very start. After day 1 they shared the lead with 10.0/12 and they continued to lead throughout day 2. However, before the last round Carlsen was leading with 16.0/20 while Karjakin was half a point behind. But in the last round Carlsen had to play the infamously solid Peter Leko with Black while Karjakin had White against Baadur Jobava.

After failing to create any serious winning chances against Leko, Carlsen finally settled for a perpetual and a draw and Karjakin did not miss to grab this opportunity. He won against Jobava and once again the tie-break – the Elo-average of the opponents – had to decide. Karjakin’s opponents had the better average and this helped Karjakin to finish 2016 as World Champion.

Carlsen won silver and Daniil Dubov won bronze. With 14.5/21 he shared places three to five with Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk and had the best tie-break.

The Women’s Tournament

After dominating the rapid tournament from beginning to end Anna Muzychuk won her second World Championship title in five days through a strong finish. After day 1 of the blitz tournament she had 6.5/9 but on day 2 she just crushed the opposition. She began the day with three draws but then won the last five rounds. In the end she had 13.0/17, won the tournament and became Women’s World Blitz Champion 2016.

Anna Muzychuk won the World Rapid Championships and the World Blitz Championships

Half a point behind Anna Muzychuk followed Valentina Gunina and Kateryna Lagno with 12.5/17 each. As Gunina had the better tie-break she won silver and Lagno bronze.