World Rapid and Blitz: Carlsen's Double Gold, Goryachkina's First World Title, and Assaubayeva's Blitz Dynasty

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Carlsen after winning his ninth World Blitz Championship (All photos courtesy FIDE/Lennart Ootes, unless marked otherwise)

No Co-Champions this year. The 2025 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships were held December 26 through 30 in Doha, Qatar. GM Magnus Carlsen won double gold for his sixth World Rapid and ninth World Blitz title, while GM Aleksandra Goryachkina won her first world championship title in the Women’s World Rapid and GM Bibisara Assaubayeva won her third Women’s World Blitz title in five years.

Most annotations below are by WGM Sabina Foisor, and are marked otherwise.

Rapid

GM Magnus Carlsen won his sixth World Rapid Championship with a 10½/13 score, a full point of four players tied for second. Of them, Russian GM Vladislav Artemiev and Indian GM Arjun Erigaisi won silver and bronze, respectively, leaving American GMs Hans Niemann and Leinier Dominguez off the podium due to tiebreaks.

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From left: Artemiev, Carlsen, and Arjun on the podium for the Rapid.

Artemiev actually defeated Carlsen in their Round 7 encounter, but was unable to keep up with Carlsen’s five-game winning streak from rounds eight through 12.

All eyes were on Carlsen – Niemann in Round 11 when Niemann sacrificed a pawn for a potential initiative.

Tying for second was a great result for Niemann and Dominguez, who entered the tournament seeded 48^th and 13^th, respectively, by rapid ratings. Niemann gained 24 points for his performance, and Dominguez a modest five. 

GMs Wesley So and Samuel Sevian were among the eight players tied for sixth place with 9/13 scores, finishing eighth and 11^th, respectively, on tiebreaks.

After losing in Round 1, So went undefeated over the next 12 games with six wins and six draws.

Sevian, who gained nine points for his 2703 performance, was in contention on the final day before a Round 10 loss to Arjun. From there, he bounced back with a strong 2½/3 finish including a last-round win over Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. Also included is his fine victory from Round 1:

Finally, soon-to-be GM Nico Chasin played above his rapid rating with a 6/13 score, gaining 16 points. The highlight of his tournament had to be his wins over two recognizable GMs:

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Zhu, Goryachkina, and Humpy on the podium for the Women's World Rapid.

Russian GM Aleksandra Goryachkina won the Women’s World Rapid title in tiebreaks over Chinese GM Zhu Jiner.

Reigning champion GM Humpy Koneru of India tied for first with an 8½/11 score, as well, finishing third on tiebreaks and out of the playoffs.

All three Americans had disappointing results in the rapid, all losing rating points. GM Irina Krush had the best score of the trio with 6½/11, a half-point ahead of IM Carissa Yip, who, in turn finished a half-point ahead of WGM Jennifer Yu. Krush’s up-and-down Round 1 victory, annotated below, was emblematic of the tournament:

Blitz

Unlike the pure Swiss System format of the World Rapid Championship, the World Blitz Championship consisted of two stages for the second year. The first day-and-a-half consisted of a Swiss stage of 19 rounds for the Open and 15 rounds for the Women’s section, with the top four players from each section qualifying for the knockout stage, played later in the day on Tuesday.

In the Open, GM Arjun Erigaisi won the Swiss with a 15/19 score, a point ahead of GM Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen finished third, a half-point behind Caruana, and Uzbekistan’s GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov had the best tiebreaks of the six players tied for fourth with 13/19.

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Abdusattarov, Carlsen, Caruana, and Arjun on the podium for the World Blitz.

Despite losing his first game of the finals to Abdusattorov, Carlsen won 2½–1½ thanks to a win in the final game. This makes for Carlsen’s ninth World Blitz Championship.

Carlsen won 3–1 over Caruana in the semifinals, winning the final two games after a pair of draws, while Abdusattorov defeated Erigaisi 2½–½ to eliminate the Swiss winner.

Below are two of Foisor’s favorite games from the Swiss portion of the Blitz:

Besides Caruana’s stellar 2838 performance in the Swiss, GM Andrew Hong had the best relative performance, gaining 15 points for his 10½/19 score.

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Hong had a strong showing in the Blitz.

While one of his five wins over fellow grandmasters might be more impressive on paper, his sharp tactical flourish here was a highlight of Monday’s games:

Chasin’s 8/19 score was roughly par for his rating, due mostly to a three-game losing skid to close out Tuesday. But his Monday got off to a nice start with an upset over another household name in Round 1:

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Anna Muzychuk, Assaubayeva, Zhu, and Roebers on the Women's Blitz podium.

In the Women’s, five players tied for first with 11/13 scores. In tiebreak order: GM Bibisara Assaubayeva (KAZ), GM Anna Muzychuk (UKR), IM Eline Roebers (NED), GM Zhu Jiner (CHI), and GM Valentina Gunina (RUS). As a result, Gunina was ‘odd woman out,’ missing out on the knockout stage.

Assaubayeva won the knockout portion with a 2½–1½ match victory over Muzychuk thanks to a win in the final game after three draws. This is Assaubayeva’s third Blitz title, adding to her 2021 and 2022 victories. Muzychuk was the 2014 and 2016 Blitz Champion, as well.

Muzychuk defeated Roebers 2½–1½ in a tense semifinal match, while Assaubayeva won 3–0 against Zhu.

While Yip did not qualify for the knockout this year, she had a strong 9/15 showing in the blitz, gaining 15 rating points.

Yip jumped out to an early lead on Monday with a blistering 5/5 start, including a win in Round 2 over her former Olympiad teammate:

After a three-game losing skid dropped her to 5/8, Yip won back-to-back games including one against Zhu to finish the first day with a 7/10 score:

Tuesday got off to a promising start with a draw against Anna Muzychuk and a win against Russian GM Kateryna Lagno. The latter was a bit of a revenge game, as Lagno eliminated Yip in the quarterfinals of last year’s Blitz.

After holding Goryachkina to a draw, Yip was again in contention with a 9/13 score. But, knowing she would most likely need to win both games to make the playoff stage, she had to take risks against GM Antoaneta Stefanova in the penultimate round, eventually losing and missing out on the playoffs.  

All games from the event can be replayed on Lichess and Chess.com.