Carlsen wins seventeenth world chess championship title with rapid and blitz victories

The world number one has successfully won both his world rapid and blitz chess championship titles in Samarkand across two events, each featuring its own share of controversies. With these victories to follow up his Champions Chess Tour win, Carlsen clearly remains the player to beat in faster time controls, where his interests lie.

With just a single game lost across the 34 played in the two tournaments combined, it was yet another blistering set of performances by Magnus Carlsen, who rode the crest of a wave created by his early victories to steer his final games in the rapid and the blitz events alike to draws in a bid to secure successive title defenses for himself.