The FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2014 have been officially opened in Dubai, UAE. The world’s best players, including Vishwanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin, Boris Gelfand, Peter Svidler, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Le Quang Liem, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and a total of 100+ titled players are ready to start competing in what is the strongest ever rapid and blitz chess championship.
The first seeded according to rapid ratings Hikaru Nakamura picked the black color for the World Rapid competition. See the full pairings below.
Games start at 13:00 CET and will be live with analysis at Chessdom
FIDE World Rapid Championship 2014 LIVE
FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship 2014 LIVE
The opening ceremony
(photos by A. Karlovich)
At the start of the ceremony Mr. Khaled Zayed expressed his sincere appreciation to Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, for sponsoring this great event. In addition he expressed his gratitude to Dubai Sports Council and Dubai Municipality for playing a vital role in organizing these tournaments. Mr. Khaled Zayed welcomed the participants from 46 countries and wished them success in the tournament. He was happy to see the top-class players, who travelled to Dubai to take part in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships.
The Chief-arbiter of the tournament IA Abdul Rahim Magdi conducted the ceremony of drawing of lots. The top rated player in rapid and blitz, Hikaru Nakamura was proposed to choose one of two boxes with black and white kings inside. He will start the first round of the World Rapid Championship with Black pieces and it means that all participants with odd numbers will have Black for the first round as well. The second attempt, Hikaru selected a white king and it means he will play with White pieces in the first game of the World Blitz Championship.
It looked quite unusual to see Hikaru Nakamura at the stage conducting the procedure of drawing of lots, while World Champion Magnus Carlsen, seeded 4th in rapid and blitz, remained sited on his chair next to Vishwanathan Anand.
“It feels strange not to be number one by rating, it bothers me a bit and I’m going to change it”, said Magnus after the end of the official ceremony.
The current World Rapid Champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov didn’t look same optimistic: “After our tournament in Shamkir I cannot say anything concrete about my mood or my shape. I can only say it’s going to be difficult to defend my title but in any case I have to work on it”.
Le Quang Liem, the current World Blitz Champion also shared his feelings before the start of the tournament: “For sure it will be challenging and very difficult to defend my title because there are much stronger players in this tournament compared to last year. I’m feeling very excited before the tournament and I hope to perform well. I tried to get myself into a good shape and I played some training games.”
Pairings round 1
| Bo. | Name | Rtg | Result | Name | Rtg | ||
| 1 | GM | Iturrizaga Bonelli Eduardo | 2652 | – | GM | Nakamura Hikaru | 2841 |
| 2 | GM | Caruana Fabiano | 2840 | – | GM | Sokolov Ivan | 2650 |
| 3 | GM | Matlakov Maxim | 2649 | – | GM | Grischuk Alexander | 2828 |
| 4 | GM | Carlsen Magnus | 2827 | – | GM | Georgiev Kiril | 2642 |
| 5 | GM | Mchedlishvili Mikheil | 2641 | – | GM | Mamedyarov Shakhriyar | 2799 |
| 6 | GM | Svidler Peter | 2787 | – | GM | Volokitin Andrei | 2638 |
| 7 | GM | Ganguly Surya Shekhar | 2637 | – | GM | Aronian Levon | 2785 |
| 8 | GM | Karjakin Sergey | 2781 | – | GM | Adly Ahmed | 2634 |
| 9 | GM | Salgado Lopez Ivan | 2630 | – | GM | Anand Viswanathan | 2770 |
| 10 | GM | Korobov Anton | 2770 | – | GM | Sandipan Chanda | 2628 |
| 11 | GM | Savchenko Boris | 2626 | – | GM | Nepomniachtchi Ian | 2768 |
| 12 | GM | Malakhov Vladimir | 2766 | – | GM | Yudin Sergei | 2626 |
| 13 | GM | Amin Bassem | 2624 | – | GM | Radjabov Teimour | 2750 |
| 14 | GM | Vachier-Lagrave Maxime | 2749 | – | GM | Dubov Daniil | 2624 |
| 15 | GM | Anton Guijarro David | 2600 | – | GM | Morozevich Alexander | 2732 |
| 16 | GM | Cheparinov Ivan | 2727 | – | GM | Fier Alexandr | 2597 |
| 17 | GM | Riazantsev Alexander | 2597 | – | GM | Harikrishna P. | 2726 |
| 18 | GM | Le Quang Liem | 2724 | – | GM | Ipatov Alexander | 2596 |
| 19 | GM | Bartel Mateusz | 2593 | – | GM | Eljanov Pavel | 2716 |
| 20 | GM | Wang Hao | 2716 | – | GM | Salem A.R. Saleh | 2592 |
| 21 | GM | Aleksandrov Aleksej | 2589 | – | GM | Wojtaszek Radoslaw | 2710 |
| 22 | GM | Dreev Aleksey | 2709 | – | GM | Moradiabadi Elshan | 2586 |
| 23 | GM | Hansen Eric | 2584 | – | GM | Vallejo Pons Francisco | 2709 |
| 24 | GM | Vitiugov Nikita | 2708 | – | GM | Antipov Mikhail Al. | 2576 |
| 25 | GM | Goloshchapov Alexander | 2574 | – | GM | Mamedov Rauf | 2705 |
| 26 | GM | Ragger Markus | 2701 | – | GM | Al-Modiahki Mohamad | 2569 |
| 27 | GM | Andriasian Zaven | 2568 | – | GM | Moiseenko Alexander | 2699 |
| 28 | GM | Movsesian Sergei | 2696 | – | GM | Durarbayli Vasif | 2550 |
| 29 | GM | Kovalev Vladislav | 2547 | – | GM | Kryvoruchko Yuriy | 2694 |
| 30 | GM | Kasimdzhanov Rustam | 2693 | – | GM | Ghaem Maghami Ehsan | 2542 |
| 31 | GM | Lu Shanglei | 2536 | – | GM | Tomashevsky Evgeny | 2693 |
| 32 | GM | Bacrot Etienne | 2692 | – | GM | Gundavaa Bayarsaikhan | 2534 |
| 33 | IM | Ringoir Tanguy | 2504 | – | GM | Jobava Baadur | 2688 |
| 34 | GM | Naiditsch Arkadij | 2687 | – | GM | Michalik Peter | 2501 |
| 35 | GM | Al-Sayed Mohammed | 2494 | – | GM | Potkin Vladimir | 2682 |
| 36 | GM | Fressinet Laurent | 2681 | – | GM | Vahidov Tair | 2487 |
| 37 | GM | Kayumov Sergey | 2486 | – | GM | Inarkiev Ernesto | 2681 |
| 38 | GM | Laznicka Viktor | 2679 | – | GM | Debashis Das | 2484 |
| 39 | GM | Glek Igor | 2455 | – | GM | Zhigalko Sergei | 2679 |
| 40 | GM | Efimenko Zahar | 2677 | – | GM | Shyam Sundar M. | 2447 |
| 41 | IM | Tissir Mohamed | 2419 | – | GM | Meier Georg | 2677 |
| 42 | GM | Onischuk Vladimir | 2675 | – | GM | Sriram Jha | 2418 |
| 43 | GM | Taleb Moussa | 2406 | – | GM | Van Wely Loek | 2674 |
| 44 | GM | Guseinov Gadir | 2671 | – | IM | Al Qudaimi Basheer | 2397 |
| 45 | Hilwani Talal | 2395 | – | GM | Yu Yangyi | 2668 | |
| 46 | GM | Sargissian Gabriel | 2665 | – | IM | Vakhidov Jahongir | 2368 |
| 47 | IM | Nezad Husein Aziz | 2350 | – | GM | Milov Vadim | 2664 |
| 48 | GM | Safarli Eltaj | 2662 | – | IM | Omar Noaman | 2310 |
| 49 | FM | Breckenridge Steven James | 2310 | – | GM | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 2660 |
| 50 | GM | Lenic Luka | 2659 | – | FM | Byambaa Zulzaga | 2281 |
| 51 | FM | Othman A. Moussa | 2275 | – | GM | Maletin Pavel | 2658 |
| 52 | GM | Najer Evgeniy | 2657 | – | CM | Faisal Abdulla | 2247 |
| 53 | FM | Alhuwar Jasem | 2246 | – | GM | Bologan Viktor | 2656 |
| 54 | GM | Fedoseev Vladimir | 2656 | – | FM | Saeed Ishaq | 2246 |
| 55 | Hj Azahari Md Aliuddin | 2136 | – | GM | Kuzubov Yuriy | 2656 | |
| 56 | GM | Polgar Judit | 2656 | – | Alahakoon Isuru | 2094 | |
| 57 | Al-Hajiri Bader | 2026 | 0 | bye |
