Ten participants first played a round of rapids: 25 minutes per game with an addition of ten seconds for each move. Two points were awarded for a win and one point for a draw. In this mini-tournament, Nepomniachtchi and an Italian-American Fabiano Caruana shared first place (12 points each). Carlsen (11) managed to climb from third place to the top of the table with a powerful blitz performance. Here the time control was much stricter: five minutes for a duel with the addition of a couple of seconds per move. Grandmasters played in two rounds, one point for a win, half a point for a draw.
Carlsen traditionally felt like a fish out of water in a super-fast game: 15 points out of a possible 18. The second was the Iranian Alireza Firouzja, who plays under the French flag (13 points), Nepomniachtchi completed the top 3 (10.5).
The final table of the tournament with a total prize fund of 175 thousand dollars is formed from the sum of the results of the participants in rapid and blitz. The top half of the standings looks like this: Carlsen – 26 points, Nepomniachtchi – 22.5, Firouzja – 22, Caruana – 21.5, Dommaraju Gukesh (India) – 19.5.
Carlsen, as the title holder, received a check for $40,000. The competition in Croatia was the third leg of the Grand Chess Tour business series. The next one will take place from November 12 to 19 in the US city of St. Louis.
Meanwhile, in China, there is a match for the women’s world crown (out of 12 games). Two representatives of the Celestial Empire compete: the current holder Ju Wenjun and the challenger Lei Tingjie. Although all the fights end in a draw, the score is 2:2.
