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In Doha, Qatar, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen won the Rapid Play Chess World Championship in just a few days (rapid) and lightning (blitz). As is evident from the name, they are two fast-playing versions, which he prefers compared to the classic one, in which the games often last well over an hour. At 35, Carlsen is by far the best chess player in the world and the two World titles won in Doha (28 and 30 December) are his 19th and 20th world title respectively.
Carlsen has won 9 flash World Cups (including the last four editions), 6 quick play World Cups and 5 in the classic mode, considered the most prestigious. As mentioned, however, it is not Carlsen’s favorite (as well as several other chess players). After the victory at the 2021 World Cup, Carlsen does not even compete for the title, which now belongs to the Indian Dommaraju Gukesh but which – precisely due to Carlsen’s resignation – has lost relevance. In chess it works that the reigning champion defends the title from a challenger who wins a special tournament of candidates to challenge him, and if the champion is not the strongest of all, therefore Carlsen, the math doesn’t add up.
MAGNUS CARLSEN E FABIANO CARUANA NEL 2024 (Misha Friedman/GETTY Images)
In the classic version of chess, each player is allowed a basic reflection time of at least 90 minutes in total, which can increase over the course of the game. In rapid play games you have 15 minutes plus 10 seconds for each move, in quick games you have 3 minutes plus two seconds per move. There are also other game variants: for example freestyle chess, in which at the start of the game the pieces other than pawns (i.e. rooks, bishops, knights, kings and queens) are arranged on the board in a random way (although obviously having to respect some rules).
In Doha, Carlsen’s victory in the lightning format was the most complicated. Carlsen had lost some qualifying matches for the semi-finals, including one in which he had accidentally dropped the pieces on the board: it happens even to the best, and in his case it led to a forfeit defeat in that match, with the risk of compromising the tournament.
In the final, Carlsen took a big risk against the Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who is 21 years old and was the rapid-play chess world champion in 2021. Abdusattorov won the first game of the finals, but Carlsen won the second, drew the third and won the fourth, the decisive one. In particular, as he wrote OA Sporthe made his mark «by winning a knight endgame with three pawns on each side than in any [altra] situation would be a pact without appeal.”
Carlsen is known and appreciated for how he manages – within matches and between matches – to get out of situations in which he seemed doomed: he manages to draw matches that others would have considered lost and to win others in which anyone would at most aim for a draw. After winning his twentieth world title he said: “I don’t think I’ve ever given the impression of being the favorite to win, but as long as I’m not mathematically eliminated I’d say it’s never a good idea not to bet on me.”
It is the fifth time that Carlsen has held the quick and flash game world titles at the same time and before 2021, when he was still interested in the World Cup in the classic mode, he had three times held the three most important titles at the same time: just as in other sports, in this case we speak of the “Triple Crown”.
«The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results»
Followed on Instagram by 2 million profiles, Carlsen is the best chess player in the world, and one of the best ever. And even in 2025 he made headlines not only for his victories. In fact, he was talked about for an unexpected defeat (with subsequent punch on the table and overturning of the board) and for his online match, which lasted more than a month, against 143 thousand people (after 32 moves it ended in a draw).
A year ago, therefore at the end of 2024, Carlsen instead stood out for a controversy over how he had chosen to dress. At the 2024 Blitz World Championships he had in fact shown up to a match in jeans, which was not allowed: he had been asked to change and he had decided to withdraw (and then re-entered the competition, managing among other things to make the rules for chess players’ clothing less severe).
Above all and more generally, Carlsen is succeeding in his aim to shift part of the attention from the World Cup played in classic mode, which he considers boring and with too schematic matches. In October the International Chess Federation (FIDE) approved a new competition: the Total Chess World Championship Tour, which from 2027 will include four annual events around the world with games in classic mode (with a shorter duration than usual), quick and flash, and with a single overall winner.
– Read also: Magnus Carlsen against the world
