Dubai: World Rapid Chess Championship winner Magnus Carlsen extended his good form into the World Blitz Championship that opened at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club on Thursday.
Carlsen won the rapid chess event here with a tally of 11 points from the 15 rounds.
On the first day of the two-day blitz championship, Carlsen recorded five straight wins and, after 11 rounds, he is the lone leader with nine points.
Carlsen downed Grandmasters Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia, Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan, Laurent Fressinet of France, Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli of Venezuela and Pentala Harikrishna of India in the first five rounds. He also beat defending champion Le Quang Liem of Vietnam, Markus Ragger of Austria and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan.
But Chinese player Lu Shanglei caused a sensation when he upset world champion Carlsen.
American Hikaru Nakamura, who is the top seed, is in second with 8.5 points together with German GM Georg Meier. Nakamura beat seven GMs during the day but lost to Le.
Meier beat Sergey Karjakin, Nikita Vitiugov and Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, Etienne Bacrot and Laurent Fressinet of France and Zahar Efimenko of Ukraine.
Lu shares fourth to seventh positions with Nepomniachtchi, Le and Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia on eight points each. Lu was leading the field after eight rounds, having also beaten strong players such as Evgeny Tomashevsky, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Alexey Dreev.
Former world champion Viswanathan Anand of India and seven other players follow with 7.5 points in the race for the $200,000 (Dh734,000) in cash prizes. He is joined by the lone female player Judit Polgar of Hungary, Viktor Laznicka of Czech Republic, Harikrishna of India, Wang Hao of China, Mamedyarov, Fressinet and Fabiano Caruana of Italy.
Number three seed Levon Aronian surprisingly finished the day back in 30th place.
