Magnus Carlsen, Norway’s world No 1, triumphed again last weekend when he won the 2026 Esports World Cup, staged over four days at the prestigious venue of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Carlsen retained his title from Riyadh 2025 and took home a monster first prize of $250,000 (£183,000).
The time limit was close to blitz, 10 minutes each per player with no per move increment, a format where blunders would be hoped for, and were indeed made, as entertainment for the capacity audience.
The dark side of this format occurs when the players end up trying to win by “dirty flagging”, where they reach king and rook each or a similar dead drawn ending and everything is decided by dexterity with the mouse and by whose clock flag falls first.
Carlsen went through the entire event unbeaten, defeating Russia’s Andrey Esipenko and the US’s Hans Niemann 1.5-0.5 in the group stage, India’s Nihal Sarin 2.5-0.5 in the quarter-finals, France’s Alireza Firouzja 4-1 in the semi-finals, and Belarus’s Denis Lazavik 3-1, 3-1 over two sets in the final.
Carlsen’s best game was at the very end, when he unveiled a prepared line with a positional queen sacrifice which he had spotted that Lazavik had defended previously. There was an option of an early draw by perpetual check, but Carlsen wanted more.
Lazavik was the positive surprise of the event, continuing his previous strong performances in major online speed events. In classical chess the 19-year-old from Minsk is only ranked the world No 110, but in blitz he is among the super-elite.
Carlsen said: “He just doesn’t beat himself! He plays very solid positional chess and doesn’t put his pieces on bad squares.” Second prize for Lazavik was $190,000.
“To go undefeated was part of my strategy,” said Carlsen. “I wasn’t trying to do anything out of the ordinary, other than to play pretty tight chess and take whatever chances I could find. Not losing a game speaks both to the success of that strategy, and of course a little bit of randomness, but I’m happy with that.”
There was also a match for third place in which USA’s world No 3, Hikaru Nakamura, who had lost his semi-final to Lazavik, defeated Firouzja. With the score in the six-game match 3-1 against him, the Frenchman left the tournament hall without making a move and defaulted the fifth game, in response to some technical internet issues in game four.
Firouzja is a creative talent, but he has been involved in several disputes with organisers over the years, which most recently included his withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis in favour of Paris. It amounts to a negative track record which could seriously limit his future invitations.
Meanwhile, the Sinquefield Cup, one of the world’s premier tournaments, finished on Wednesday: Wesley So (US) and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India) tied on 5.5/9. After two rapid tie-break games were drawn, as was the Armageddon decider, the rule is that a draw on the board counts as a win for Black. So became the first player to win the Sinquefield Cup three times.
The Cairns Cup for elite women had a lower profile, but a highly significant result. China’s world title challenger Tan Zhongyi won with 6.5/9, but the US’s Alice Lee finished a strong second on 6/9, qualifying for her first GM norm at open level.
Lee, 16, looks increasingly like the real deal for US chess, a teenager with the potential to follow Bobby Fischer all the way to the summit. This column has reported on her progress several times previously and her Cairns Cup result was her best over-the-board performance yet.
Earlier, Lee won the online chess.com Women’s Speed Championship, crushing the reigning women’s world champion, Ju Wenjun, 9.5-3.5 in the quarter-finals and edging out the all-time No 2 woman, Hou Yifan, 11.5-9.5 in the final. Live commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan and others on both events can be found on YouTube.
In England, the annual Kingston upon Thames Invitational, the brainchild of the Guardian’s Stephen Moss, reaches the two closing rounds of its fifth edition on Friday. The event is held in the town centre, has free entry, and always attracts seasoned experts and aspiring juniors. The star player so far has been Sweden’s Daniel Johnson, who won all his first four games to lead the top-seeded GM Daniel Gormally by half a point.
Kingston 2024 featured the longest Fide-rated game in chess history, 272 moves, and there was a sequel in this week’s first round when CM Peter Lalic, who had created the original record, passed 130 moves in a blocked position against the Scottish senior international Alan Scrimgour. Lalic was short of time and resorted to time-building, shuffling to use the 30-second increment to build his time back up.
Then the arbiter, Paul McKeown, took a hand, warning Lalic that he was violating the catch-all chess rule that players must not do anything to bring the game into disrepute and implying that he might award a default if there was no progress within a stated time. The impasse was resolved when Scrimgour blundered a key pawn and resigned at move 172. Without the arbiter’s intervention, there might have been a new record.
It seems odd that very slowly grinding out a victory can be classed as bringing chess into disrepute, while dirty flagging is not. What do readers think? Let us know in the comments.
There is another major event in London this weekend. The Mind Sports Olympiad Rapid at the ILEC Conference Centre in Earls Court has attracted 16 GMs and 15 IMs, with France’s 2601-rated Maxime Lagarde the top seed. Prize money is £4,000.
