D.he Uzbeke Nodirbek Abdusattorow has duped all favorites and sensationally crowned himself the new rapid chess world champion. The 17-year-old only prevailed in a playoff round on Tuesday evening in Warsaw. The Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who had led the field for a long time two weeks after defending his title in classical chess, only finished third.
“It’s a big win, but I’ll play even better,” the teenager from Uzbekistan announced on Norwegian broadcaster NRK. In the end, Abdusattorow had the best rating of the four players who had scored 9.5 points in 13 rounds.
An “absolutely idiotic rule”
In the event of a tie, the regulations stipulated that the first two would play off. As third place with equal points, top favorite Carlsen was out of the race – and then spoke of “an absolutely idiotic rule”. Abdusattorow prevailed in the jump-off against the loser of the classic World Cup, the Russian Jan Nepomnjaschtschi. Rapid chess is played with 15 minutes per player plus ten seconds per move.
In the women’s category, the Russian Alexandra Kostenjuk won. On Wednesday and Thursday the world championship blitz chess follows in Warsaw with three minutes of basic thinking time plus seconds per move. The total prize money for all four competitions is one million US dollars.
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