Vishy Anand is the World Rapid Champion 2017

by Sagar Shah - 28/12/2017

Vishy Anand played the tournament of his life to score 10.5/15, remain unbeaten and become the World Rapid Champion 2017. After 15 rounds of rapid chess, we had three leaders - Anand, Fedoseev and Nepomniachtchi. The tiebreak was a blitz encounter between the first two placed players. Nepo had to be content with the third spot and Anand and Fedoseev fought it out in two blitz games to determine who would take home the gold. It was Anand who finally won the title with a 2-0 win over Fedoseev. While the world thought that Anand would soon retire, the Indian maestro is busy beating the best players in the business!

Fedoseev - Vishy Anand, tiebreak game two

Vladimir Fedoseev knew that things were getting out of his hand. He had to win this game in order to equalize the scores and take the match into armageddon. A draw would work just fine for Vishy as he had won the first tiebreak game. Understanding the demands of the situation Fedoseev sacrificed his knight on d4 with Nxd4. The point was not so clear. Black recaptured cxd4, Bxd6 Rxd6 and I was wondering what exactly did White gain by sacrificing his queen. Fedoseev whipped out the move Qf4!?

The move looked interesting but Anand just played his queen back to c7. Fedoseev pushed his pawn to c5, which could have been taken with the queen as Rc1 would be met with Qa3. However, to c5 Anand just played Rd7 and White pushed on with c6. Vishy took the queen on f4 (Rd6 was stronger) and White played cxd7!?

The World Rapid event had reached its pinnacle of excitement. The queen was hanging on f4, the pawn was queening on d8. But what would happen if the queen went back to c7? Well Fedoseev went in with Re8+ and after Kh7 d8=Q and Vishy kept his cool and picked up Nxe8 Qxe8.

...Bf5! The final nail in White's coffin. Fedoseev had no chance to win this position and in a drawish situation resigned the game.

Fedoseev played really well but was unable to win the title

In a rare moment of showing his emotions, Vishy Anand pumped his hands in the air after winning game two against Fedoseev

Final standings:

Rk.	SNo		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.	TB1	TB2	TB3	Rp	K	rtg+/-
1	12	GM	Anand Viswanathan	IND	2758	10,5	0,0	2733	129,0	2874	20	46,8
2	8	GM	Fedoseev Vladimir	RUS	2771	10,5	0,0	2728	129,5	2871	20	39,4
3	7	GM	Nepomniachtchi Ian	RUS	2780	10,5	0,0	2700	121,5	2843	20	24,8
4	68	GM	Bu Xiangzhi	CHN	2654	10,0	0,0	2746	130,5	2867	20	85,4
5	1	GM	Carlsen Magnus	NOR	2908	10,0	0,0	2712	129,0	2823	20	-27,8
6	5	GM	Grischuk Alexander	RUS	2813	10,0	0,0	2709	124,0	2827	20	5,4
7	45	GM	Savchenko Boris	RUS	2685	10,0	0,0	2686	123,0	2786	20	42,0
8	37	GM	Mamedov Rauf	AZE	2695	10,0	0,0	2652	120,0	2753	20	25,6
9	26	GM	Guseinov Gadir	AZE	2714	10,0	0,0	2648	111,0	2754	20	16,6
10	18	GM	Svidler Peter	RUS	2743	9,5	0,0	2729	129,5	2805	20	27,4
11	9	GM	Wang Hao	CHN	2770	9,5	0,0	2726	126,5	2814	20	18,8
12	14	GM	Yu Yangyi	CHN	2752	9,5	0,0	2694	120,0	2778	20	11,8
13	42	GM	Artemiev Vladislav	RUS	2687	9,5	0,0	2680	119,0	2754	20	30,2
14	16	GM	Onischuk Vladimir	UKR	2748	9,5	0,0	2678	119,0	2757	20	6,2
15	20	GM	Ding Liren	CHN	2734	9,5	0,0	2674	117,5	2748	20	4,6
16	43	GM	Harikrishna P.	IND	2687	9,5	0,0	2666	120,0	2737	20	26,0
17	95	GM	Grigoriants Sergey	RUS	2572	9,5	0,0	2635	107,5	2659	20	67,6
18	90	GM	Zhao Jun	CHN	2600	9,5	0,0	2591	107,0	2618	20	53,0
19	69	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	GEO	2654	9,0	0,0	2738	125,5	2806	20	62,2
20	92	GM	Saric Ivan	CRO	2597	9,0	0,0	2699	119,5	2716	20	60,4

Anand's performance:

Not only did Anand remain unbeaten, he also gained 47 Elo points. This take his live rapid rating to 2805

Very few people would have believed that Anand had it in him to become the World Champion again!

This image of Anand received nearly 450+ shares on Facebook within an hour

Vishy Anand giving an interview to Goran Urosevic after becoming the World Rapid Champion 2017

IM Sagar Shah explains to you some of the key aspects of the final day that helped Anand win the title

If she could fly, she wouln't have thought even for a second to go to Riyadh. Aruna Anand was extremely happy after her husband became the World Rapid Champion

Anish Giri on Anand becoming the World Rapid Champion

Wesley So sends us his humourous message

The after-party at Four Seasons Hotel| Photo: R. Anantharam

What is truly admirable is Vishy Anand's control and discipline. He made a tweet and then postponed his celebrations until the World Blitz Championships 2017 came to an end:

Can he make it two in row?! Let's hope so!

Replay all the games:

The full report on day three of the World Rapid 2017 by Aditya Pai will soon follow.