Croatia Rapid & Blitz: Slim Lead For Nepomniachtchi Before Kasparov Joins
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi came in first in the rapid part of the Croatia Rapid & Blitz. The Russian grandmaster finished a point ahead of the pack, with 18 rounds of blitz to go on Saturday and Sunday. GM Garry Kasparov will now be taking over from GM Ivan Saric, who finished in a tie for second place.
How to watch?
The games of the Zagreb Rapid & Blitz can be found here on our live events platform.
The standings didn't change much on the third day in Zagreb after both the seventh and eighth rounds saw five draws—something quite rare for a speed chess event.
This way, the tournament leader could hold on to a slim lead despite drawing, in his case, three times. Against GM Jorden van Foreest, he apparently wasn't too happy with the position he got out of the opening:
Van Foreest will be the one playing The Boss first on Saturday afternoon in a game between the youngest and the oldest player and one between two former Wijk aan Zee winners. The 22-year-old Dutch grandmaster hadn't been born when Kasparov scored his first of three victories in the famous Dutch tournament in 1999, the last one that was still called "Hoogovens," when he played his brilliant game against GM Veselin Topalov.
After those two peaceful rounds, the ninth and last round of rapid was a great one with two games fighting for Game of the Day status. GM Alex Yermolinsky chose GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's win against Van Foreest, saying: "Couldn't miss this one!"
"It was a really very nice game," said Mamedyarov. "I think there were many mistakes, but it's normal when there are time problems. But not every day we see three queens."
The other wild game was GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda's win vs. GM Anton Korobov in a very sharp Samisch King's Indian with opposite castling:
Also in the ninth round, GM Anish Giri joined the players on plus one. He beat GM Vishy Anand in a Catalan with several key moments in one game.
"I have a feeling the worse I play, the luckier I get," said Giri. "Sometimes I play quite well and then I get really unlucky, and whenever I play horribly, I get really lucky."
Zagreb Rapid & Blitz 2021 | Day 3 Standings
| # | Fed | Name | Rtg | Perf | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Pts |
| 1 | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 2791 | 2812 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 11 | ||
| 2 | Ivan Saric | 2650 | 2788 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 3 | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 2831 | 2769 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 4 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 2774 | 2774 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 5 | Anish Giri | 2731 | 2779 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 10 | ||
| 6 | Shakhriyar Mamedyarov | 2761 | 2738 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 9 | ||
| 7 | Viswanathan Anand | 2751 | 2739 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 | ||
| 8 | Alexander Grischuk | 2784 | 2697 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | ||
| 9 | Anton Korobov | 2781 | 2657 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 7 | ||
| 10 | Jorden van Foreest | 2543 | 2641 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 |
All games day 3
The Zagreb Rapid & Blitz takes place July 7-11, 2021 in Zagreb, Croatia. The time control in the rapid was 25 minutes for each player with a 10-second increment per move, starting from move one. The time control in the blitz is five minutes for each player with a two-second increment per move, starting from move one. The rapid counts double for the final standings. The tournament is the third leg of the Grand Chess Tour and has a $150,000 prize fund with a first prize of $37,500.
Previous report:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
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