Ju Wenjun Wins FIDE World Blitz in Tiebreakers, Carlsen and Nepo Split Title

One True Champion*

The 2024 FIDE World Blitz Championship featured an experimental departure in format from previous years, replacing the second day of Swiss play with an eight-player knockout featuring the top finishers from the one-day Swiss on December 30th. Several hundred fans crowded the Cipriani building on Wall Street in Manhattan, New York on New Year's Eve, all of whom were hoping to get a glimpse at some of their favorite players battle for tens of thousands of dollars and the title of World Blitz Champion.

Now, tell me, isn't it way more exciting this way? KO. Head to head. Fill or kill.

Semis start in 10 mins.
— Emilchess (@EmilSutovsky) December 31, 2024

The goal: Since a world championship event should produce a world champion, the format of the World Blitz Championship should be changed as to guarantee that one true champion emerges from each section.

The reasoning: With so many rounds in the two-day Swiss format, the tournament often runs the risk of ending in a multi-way tie for first. The champion is determined by a combination of tiebreakers and/or knockout playoff matches in a way that can be disappointing to many players and fans.

The solution: Take the top eight finishers from the Swiss portion and seed them into an eight-player knockout bracket. Each round consists of four games at the same blitz time control of 3+2. If the match is tied 2–2 at the end of game four, the players play a fifth "sudden death" game with the winner advancing. If game five is a draw, they switch colors and repeat, ad infinitum, until somebody wins.

The results: let's call them mixed.

Classical women's champ Ju Wenjun won her first World Blitz title (Photo courtesy of Michal Walusza/FIDE)

China's GM Ju Wenjun – the reigning classical World Champion — won the women's tournament over her 2023 classical challenger GM Lei Tingjie in a great fight that saw Ju emerge victorious 3½–2½ with a win in the second overtime game after five straight draws.

The match was tense and even, with neither player achieving a big advantage in any of the first five games as pressure mounted. When Ju finally converted her extra pawn in the sixth game, the playing hall broke out in applause led by the players competing in the open final. It would be hard to argue that this format produced exciting chess all day and a deserving champion.

The open was set for a similarly epic conclusion, with GMs Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi tied 3½–3½ after their third overtime game ended in a draw. And then...

Photo courtesy of Michal Walusza/FIDE

They stopped playing. At first, it looked like they were discussing the endgame from game seven, but discussion continued. As the crowd and commentators waited for game eight to begin, instead it dawned on everyone that the players were asking arbiters to relay a request to call the match a tie to FIDE officials.

To be fair to the players, Carlsen leapt out to a 2–0 lead only for Nepomniachtchi to roar back with consecutive wins on demand. By this point, nerves were settled and neither player was taking much risk in their overtime games. Had regulations originally specified that the title would be shared after three sudden death games, there might not have been much of a complaint from fans. And if the title was decided in an Armageddon game with draw-odds, no increment, and players knocking pieces off the board in a time scramble, at least one fan (editor's note: it's the author of this article) would have found it a depressing conclusion to a brilliant fight.

But, to be fair to the players who weren't competing in the open final, the decision to switch to this knockout format hinged on the premise of "one true champion," and it did not produce one. Almost 300 competitors were eliminated from the World Blitz after the one-day Swiss on the 30th, with many of them having had to book their hotel and flights around the possibility that they'd be playing on Tuesday only to be sitting around their hotel room, all for the sake of a tournament that produced a "true champion." And yet, a player who had already bended, broken, and ultimately changed rules earlier in the week to decide he'd be happy with a tie, so tie it is!

Many took to social media to share their disappointment, frustration, and outright confusion.

A reminder of what FIDE wanted to get out of having the Rapid and Blitz World Championship in New York: To showcase chess to potential sponsors as a serious high class sport to invest in.
— GM Jacob Aagaard (@GMJacobAagaard) January 1, 2025

FIDE should have organized a tournament tomorrow for the 200 people who got knocked out.

Something with a nice format and easy on the dress code.
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) December 31, 2024

Did the women’s section finalists know it was okay to change the tournament format during the match? What is the point of playing knockouts if sharing is acceptable?🤷🏻‍♀️
P.S. The women’s section had an excellent finale and a deserved winner. 👏🏼 https://t.co/J42vOrcd2s
— Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (@Gulruhbegim) January 1, 2025

Several pointed out that Lei might have appreciated knowing that she had the option to just request the match be called a tie before she played a gutsy opening with the black pieces to try and actually win her match.

Did the women’s section finalists know it was okay to change the tournament format during the match? What is the point of playing knockouts if sharing is acceptable?🤷🏻‍♀️
P.S. The women’s section had an excellent finale and a deserved winner. 👏🏼 https://t.co/J42vOrcd2s
— Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova (@Gulruhbegim) January 1, 2025

Perhaps nobody was more impacted by the format changes before and during the event than GM Daniel Narodtisky. Naroditsky was one of ten players to finish the Swiss portion tied for first with 9½/13. But with only eight spots available for the knockout portion, FIDE used tiebreaks to eliminate the two players who opponents had the lowest average scores according to the event regulations.

If only I had known that the rules were flexible, I'd have lobbied for all 10 players who tied for first to be included in the knockout. Or, if we can have two co-champions, why not 10?! Alas...
— Daniel Naroditsky (@GmNaroditsky) January 1, 2025

In other words, the second day featured a potentially infinite number of tiebreak playoffs, but the first day could not introduce a single extra game in the event of players like Naroditsky or GM Humpy Koneru (the odd woman out in a seven-way tie for third) finishing in a tie for a top-eight spot. This isn't even getting into the reasons why GM Daniil Dubov didn't make the top eight on tiebreaks.

Next week, expect more reporting from this event highlighting performances from other top players, including a number of Americans who out-performed their ratings. But there are too many such narratives to cram into one article, and it would be a shame to see any of them overshadowed by controversy.

Women's Knockout

Graphic courtesy of FIDE

IM Carissa Yip was the only American to qualify for the women's knockout stage, and the three-time U.S. Women's Champion was set to face none other than the 2018 World Women's Champion runner-up GM Kateryna Lagno.

Calling it a battle of youth versus experience doesn't seem fair to either the 21-year-old Yip or the her 35-year-old Russian opponent. Still, this was still Yip's first World Rapid & Blitz Championship, whereas Lagno won the 2010 World Blitz Championship when Yip was seven years old.

The playing hall during the knockout (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

The first game started slightly shaky for Yip, who ultimately decided to sac a pawn in order to free up her pieces. But once she did, the moves started coming to her quickly while Lagno's rook started to look trapped on the open board. At one point, Yip even missed a win:

The quarterfinal match between Lagno and Yip gave the three-time U.S. Women's Champion a chance to go toe-to-toe with a former Women's World Championship challenger (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

The confidence carried over to the second game, where an enterprising and rare variation of the Ruy Lopez gave Yip an easy game as soon as Lagno chose a non-critical continuation on move six. Lagno began to launch an attack out of desperation more than due to any sort of momentum, and Yip's defense was accurate at first. One miscalculation was enough, though, for Lagno to take over:

Yip had two more games to try and equalize the match, but game three would be her final attempt to win with the white pieces.

Photo courtesy of Michal Walusza/FIDE

Yip got a better position out of the opening this time, and while Lagno wasn't exactly worse, it was clear that nerves and impatience were getting to her, culminating in another calculation error, this time from Lagno:

Despite being one of only two non-grandmasters in the final eight, Yip had tied the match 1½–1½ with one game to go and was proving she clearly deserved to be in such elite company.

GM Awonder Liang and WGM Rochelle Wu were among the leaders of "Team Yip" during the knockouts (Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

GM Awonder Liang and WGM Rochelle Wu were among the leaders of "Team Yip" during the knockouts (Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

The final game began well enough for both players, but Yip decided to go straight for a kingside attack rather than play more principled moves in the center. The position was still double-edged, but one critical decision to push her d-pawn before recentralizing her pieces gave Lagno a crushing initiative:

The loss was a disappointing end to a fantastic week of play from the Stanford undergrad. She'll be back, and we can't wait.

Blitz — IO Karen Pennock was one of several familiar friendly faces among the arbiters working the tournament (Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

IO Karen Pennock was one of several familiar friendly faces among the arbiters working the tournament (Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

In the semifinals, Lagno was eliminated in double-overtime by GM Lei Tingjie 3½–2½ while Ju cruished past GM Vaishali Rameshbabu 2½–½ to set up an all-Chinese final between two old friends and Olympiad teammates.

friends — Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE

buds — Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE

Of course, the smiles vanished as soon as the clocks started. The match went to overtime after four solid draws so neither player willing to abandon their super-solid repertoires. Finally, in the second overtime game, Lei decided to take a risk with a gambit line of the Tarrasch Defense, and Ju was able to take the pawn and run.

In the post-game press conference, Ju insisted that her victory was due more to luck than anything else. As an example, she cited the fact that she just happened to review the line Lei tried to surprise her with earlier this week, while preparing for a totally different opponent. But if Ju is right that luck had anything to do with it, it's only that she showed us that it's even better to be both lucky and good.

Photos courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE (L) and Michal Walusza/FIDE

Ju took home $60,000 for her victory, with Lei earning $40,000 for finishing second. Lagno and Vaishali each won $20,000, and the four remaining quarterfinalists each earned $10,000. Assuming that the regulations are to be followed as written, Humpy earned $5,000 for finishing ninth despite having the same score as the four players finishing fifth through eighth.

From left: runner-up Lei Tingjie, Ju Wenjun, Kateryna Lagno, and Vaishali Rameshbabu (Photo courtesy of Lennart Ootes/FIDE)

Open Knockout

All week, the organizers had the women playing in a separate venue across the street from the main playing hall. While this kept the women's games out of the spotlight, organizers also had the women's games start 15 minutes after the corresponding open games each round. The intention was to make it easier to follow games from both sections.

Yet, for the knockout, the organizers opted to have both sections share the main stage. While the intention is laudatory, the plan backfired as soon as the bracket for the open was released. Indeed, three of the four open matches got overshadowed as well. See if you can guess why:

Graphic courtesy of FIDE

All anybody wanted to talk about in the lead-up to the knockout was the three-versus-six match-up of Carlsen and GM Hans Niemann. The feud between these players is well-documented and well-litigated. Was Magnus going to even show up? Would Hans be able to put up a fight, or would he lay an egg like in their match this past October?