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Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi Agree To Share World Blitz Title, Ju Wins Women's
Carlsen won his eighth title and Nepomniachtchi his first, despite a myriad of distractions off the board. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi Agree To Share World Blitz Title, Ju Wins Women's

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GMs Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi have agreed to share the 2024 FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship title after Carlsen's suggestion seven games into their final.

After sensationally U-turning on his decision to withdraw from the event, Carlsen won his eighth world blitz title, while Nepomniachtchi deservedly picked up his first. This is the first individual chess world championship title that has ever been shared.

GM Ju Wenjun won an all-Chinese, 2023 Women's World Championship rematch final against GM Lei Tingjie 3.5-2.5 in the wake of indomitable performances in her quarterfinal and semifinal matches.

Open Knockout Bracket


Women's Knockout Bracket

Cipriani Wall Street, a building steeped in history and the former home of the New York Stock Exchange was a fitting venue for the knockout phase of the championship, which bristled with energy and action. As the 16 open and women's quarterfinalists filtered into the great hall, you could cut the tension with a knife.

Monolithic columns served as a grandiose backdrop to the action. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Recessed downlights illuminated eight boards, down from the 94 needed for the Swiss portion of the open section. By the end of the day's play, there would only be two. In the background was the only other section of the hall that was lit, the stage where the 2024 world blitz chess champions would be crowned.

Niemann embraced the atmosphere and gave off a confident aura ahead of his quarterfinal clash with Carlsen. Photo: Lennart Ootes/FIDE.

Both defending champions, Carlsen and GM Valentina Gunina, were still in the hunt for their respective titles as play commenced, but would they both be able to stave off the circling sharks?

Open: Carlsen, Nepomniachtchi Agree To Share World Blitz Title

Two age-old nemeses, Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi, made their way through their quarterfinal and semifinal matchups and faced off in a supposed winner-takes-all final.

Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi's first game together was back in 2002 at the U12 European Championship. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

The pair are no strangers when it comes to playing matches on the world stage, with their FIDE World Chess Championship match in 2021 being their most renowned clash. More recently, Carlsen routed Nepomniachtchi in the 2024 Champions Chess Tour Finals. For the latter, who has historically struggled against Carlsen in big moments, this match was arguably his magnum opus. 

Nepomniachtchi put his best foot forward from game three onwards. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Carlsen started the final with two devastating wins in a row—the first, a squeaky-clean Sicilian Defense: Nyezhmetdinov-Rossolimo, and the second, a positional squeeze that led to Nepomniachtchi losing a piece. Pundits far and wide were predicting an early finish on New Year's Eve.

Nepomniachtchi then produced a riposte worthy of a world champion, winning two games on demand to tie the match. Commentators GM Jan Gustafsson and FM James Canty III were critical of Nepomniachtchi's decision to repeat a line of the French Defense that he used unsuccessfully in the Champions Chess Tour Finals.

Locked in. Nepomniachtchi had done his homework on the French Defense. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

Despite using "the same plan" that he had in the previous loss, the choice to play the line proved to be a masterstroke. After castling queenside, Nepomniachtchi muddied the waters and uncorked a combinational rook and knight sacrifice, forcing Carlsen's resignation on move 31 and taking the match into a sudden-death tiebreak. 

The first sudden-death game set the tone for the rest of the match, and when the players agreed to a draw on move 43, Chess.com's Game Review announced they had played no less than three brilliant moves. Our Game of the Day, analyzed by GM Dejan Bojkov, is below.

Chess.com Game of the Day Dejan Bojkov

Two more games with near-perfect play then led to a rare moment in chess. Entitled to play with the white pieces in the fourth sudden-death game, Carlsen suggested to Nepomniachtchi that they share the title. 

A short break ensued as the players conferred with the arbitrating team. According to FIDE's CEO Emil Sutovsky, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich gave the nod to the pair being proclaimed joint champions. Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi were then seen embracing and the former would later exclaim: "It feels very good to share gold with Nepo."

Speaking to the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK), Carlsen justified the peace offering: "We reached a point where it had been a long day. We played many games, we had three draws, and I felt that I could keep playing. But it was a nice solution to share the win, it was a good way to end it."

Carlsen also noted that he felt that having White in the next game made it "a reasonable moment to make the offer."

Nepomniachtchi accepted the opportunity to share his first world championship title. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Naturally, opinions were split on whether the decision to share the title was even allowed and the wording of two of FIDE's regulations was debated on social media.

4. 3. 2. 4. 3. "If the game described in Article 4.3.2.4.2. is drawn, the procedure described in Article 4.3.2.4.2. shall be repeated until the first game won by one of the players."

1.4 - "At any time, any circumstance or unforeseen situation not covered in these Regulations shall be referred to the FIDE President for the final decision".

Several chess personalities weighed in on the decision, most notably GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Hans Niemann, and WFM Alexandra Botez. All three disagreed with the ruling. In a YouTube recap, Nakamura declared the following: "I don't think it is right at all" and a poll on Nakamura's Twitter almost split the room, showing that 56% of voters were against the decision and 44% thought it was fine.

While this is the first time that a chess world championship title has been shared, it's happened before with other important chess events. At the 2018 Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen made a similar offer to GMs Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana, which was accepted, In 2020, the FIDE Online Olympiad ended with India and Russia being announced as joint gold medalists after major internet disruptions forced Dvorkovich to step in. Nepomniachtchi tweeted the following about this at the time:

Another non-chess happening that springs to mind is the result of the high jump at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim opted to share gold instead of undertaking a "jump-off" (the high jump equivalent of a sudden-death game). 

The innuendo and controversy sprouting from the world blitz championship extended beyond the title discussion. On the eve of the blitz finale, after being forfeited for failing to arrive for his game with Niemann on day one, GM Daniil Dubov was quizzed by IM Levy Rozman as to whether there was "some sort of statement" being made.

Dubov never arrived to play his round 10 game against Niemann. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Dubov answered the following: "What happened, happened. I mean I went to the hotel and when I came back I said I was sleeping. You know, what do you want me to say?" Both players addressed the incident in separate interviews with Rozman for "Take Take Take".

An online exchange between the pair would later be posted by GM Peter Svidler, with Dubov proposing that Niemann take a "lie detector test with a trained professional" before committing to a "24-game blitz match." Perhaps Las Vegas would have been a better place for the event to take place given that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Controversy aside, there was plenty of entertaining chess played on the final day, including in Carlsen's quarterfinal blockbuster with Niemann. The match, which was their first over-the-board meeting since the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, did not disappoint.

A nervy clash between Carlsen and Niemann transpired. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Carlsen had to fight back from 1.5-0.5 down after Niemann won the second game against the now eight-time champion.

While Carlsen rallied to dispatch GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda 3-0 in the semifinal, Nepomniachtchi put an end to GM Volodar Murzin's fairytale week and then came back from a 1-0 deficit against the ever-solid GM Wesley So in the semifinals.

Women's: Ju Undefeated In Knockout

Unlike in the open section, a single winner, Ju, was declared the women's world blitz chess champion after she toppled her countryman Lei in their second sudden-death game.

Ju coasted through her quarterfinal and semifinal matches, posting 2.5-0.5 scores against the defending champion Gunina and Swiss winner GM Vaishali Rameshbabu, respectively, before winning a war of attrition against Lei.

To Lei's credit, the match could have gone either way and she had already dusted two of the world's best women's players, IM Bibisara Assaubayeva and GM Kateryna Lagno en route to the final.

Lei and Ju were a cut above the other contenders on the final day of play. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.

The first to praise Lei after the match was Ju, who professed that luck played a part in her victory: "Lei Tingjie is a very strong blitz player and I was just more lucky. I think we both played well. In game six she played this opening I luckily checked earlier in this tournament."

The post-tournament press conference was dominated by questions aimed at the joint open champions. Ju spoke eloquently regardless. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Ju's next stop in terms of world titles is the Women's World Chess Championship 2025, where she will face off against another countryman, the uncompromising GM Tan Zhongyi, in a bid to defend her title for a fourth time.

Ju was unstoppable when it mattered most. Photo: Michal Walusza/FIDE.
How to rewatch?
You can rewatch the tournaments on Chess24's YouTube or Twitch channels. You can also revisit the action with GM Hikaru Nakamura's recaps on YouTube and his stream on Kick. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.

GM Jan Gustafsson and FM James Canty III hosted the broadcast.

The 2024 FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships decided the world champions of rapid and blitz chess in Open and Women's sections. For the rapid championships, the Open was a 13-round Swiss; the Women's was an 11-round Swiss. The time control for both tournaments was 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. The Blitz championships were the same number of rounds followed by a Knockout played by the top-eight finishers, with a time control of 3+2 for all games. The prize fund is $1.5 million.

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