The Week in Chess

The Chess.com Speed Chess Championship took place May 3rd to January 3rd 2018. 16 top players qualified: Three time controls 5 minutes plus 2 seconds per move, 3 minutes plus 2 second per move and bullet 1 minute plus 1 second per move. Each section ends with a single chess960 game.

1/8th Finals: May 3rd: Nakamura 20.5-7.5 Grigoriants, May 24th Karjakin 19-7 Meier, May 25th So 15.5-14.5 Giri, Aug 3rd: Grischuk 17.5-9.5, Rapport, Aug 23rd: Nepomniachtchi 15-13 Aronian, Aug 24th: Caruana 19-8 Hou Yifan, Aug 30th: Vachier-Lagrave 19-12 Xiong, Oct 4th: Carlsen 20.5-5.5 Guseinov.

Quarter-Finals: Oct 23, Oct 24, Nov 2nd, Nov 18th, Oct. 23: Maxime-Vachier Lagrave 13-16 Alexander Grischuk. Oct. 24: Sergey Karjakin 20-10 Ian Nepomniachtchi. Nov. 2: Hikaru Nakamura 17-10 Fabiano Caruana. Nov. 18: Magnus Carlsen 27.5-9.5 Wesley So.

Semi-Finals: Nov 21st Carlsen 15.5-10.5 Grischuk, Dec 16th Nakamura 16.5-13.5 Karjakin.

Final Carlsen 18-9 Nakamura Jan 3rd 2018. Carlsen repeated his win of 2016. In particular Carlsen crushed Nakamura in the bullet chess section where Nakamura had previously been seen as its premier exponent. One point of interest is that Nakamura and Carlsen will play a Chess 960 match in February and Nakamura won these games 2.5-0.5.

I have removed the Chess960 games as they are problematic for many chess programs. Here is a PGN file including the Chess960 games.