Yesterday the tiebreaker for the first and second places of the World Rapid Championship was played. The “mini-match” between Nepomniachtchi and Abdusattorov was won 1.5-0.5 by the Uzbek. At the end of the tournament, there were four players equaled at the top of the standings with 9.5 points: the aforementioned chess players, in addition to the World champion Magnus Carlsen and the number two in the ranking, Fabiano Caruana.

However, due to the tiebreaker criteria (average Elo of the rivals against whom they played in the previous rounds) those favored to contest the tiebreaker were the Uzbek and the Russian. Magnus Carlsen, outraged, complained to Norwegian TV: “It’s a completely idiotic rule. Either all players on the same amount of points join the playoff, or no-one does”.

The World Champion and his criticism of FIDE

The world champion continued his criticism by assuring that: “it’s a real pity to lose my chance for a playoff based on tiebreaks. A few years ago there was no playoff. Obviously you know the rules in advance, I knew it during the event and that it could be a factor, but I don’t think it should be 100 percent up to the players to have to correct and complain about a system that is really, really bad. I don’t know about most people, but for me any tiebreak system is okay, as long as it obviously doesn’t hurt some kind of sense of fairness. To have a playoff for victory is very much how it should be in such a prestigious event, something you obviously also should have in the Candidates. When you have a playoff for first place, you have to let all the players on the same amount of points join the playoff. Anything else is just plain wrong”.

Furthermore, Carlsen pointed out against FIDE: “What FIDE have been doing, I have no idea. I have to take some self-criticism that my father and I have not been guard dogs at FIDE, which is obviously necessary, otherwise they f *** up every time”. And also added: “having a tiebreaker for the title is a step in the right direction, but I can’t imagine any other logical reasons for having a maximum of two players in a tiebreaker, and that’s too amateurish in a World Championship”.

Support for Carlsen’s criticism

One of those who supported Magnus‘s criticism regarding the tiebreaker criteria was Sergey Karjakin, who in his tweet shared a note with the Norwegian’s criticism with the words: “time to agree with a World Champion”. Another who also spoke through twitter was Hikaru Nakamura, who commented that: “Seeing the World Rapid Championship go from 15 rounds to 13 was an oddity, but seeing these tiebreak rules for a ‘World Championship’ is beyond laughable”.

For his part, GM Ben Finegold commented: “if I had to think of the worst system of deciding a Champion, the one they are using is near the top. Thinking is not their strong suit”. Also, the GM Levy Rozman tweeted: “completely ridiculous situation in World Rapid 2021. Four people: Carlsen, Nodirbek, Nepo, and Fabiano tied for 1st place. But according to regulations, ONLY Top 2 by tiebreaks have a playoff for Gold/Silver. Horrible rule!”.

What did FIDE reply?

David Llada, FIDE‘s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, commented to the Chess24 website: “It is difficult to prepare for a playoff between a number of players that you cannot anticipate. It poses a lot of problems for an event that is being broadcast live and needs to stick to a tentative schedule”.

And he also added: “the idea of having a play-off in case of a two-way tie at the top of the table made sense. It seemed a much better alternative than not having a play-off at all and having to resort to classical tiebreak systems for Swiss tournaments. However, the opinion of the players is duly noted. They were supposed to know the regulations, but no-one pointed this out before the tournament, or during the technical meeting”.