2025 FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship Day 3: Carlsen Wins 20th World Title, Assaubayeva Now 3-Time Women’s Blitz Champion

GM Magnus Carlsen has won the 2025 FIDE World Blitz Chess Championship by defeating GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov 2.5-1.5 in the final match. Along with €70,000, he earned his ninth world blitz title and 20th world championship title across all three time controls. For the fifth time he wears the double crown of both rapid and blitz world champion.

At just 21 years old, GM Bibisara Assaubayeva has won her third world blitz title at the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Blitz Chess Championship, defeating two-time champion GM Anna Muzychuk 2.5-1.5 in the final match. She earns €40,000 and, more importantly, picks up a spot in the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

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🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/AvmmRJ0xSs

— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) December 30, 2025

Although it’s the ninth time Carlsen has won the world blitz title, it was far from smooth; he found himself having to win on demand in both the Swiss and Knockout. Likewise, Assaubayeva nearly lost the last two games of the Swiss but saved a lost position in the last round. Like Carlsen, she only won the final match in the last game.

THE 2021, 2022, AND NOW 2025 WOMEN’S WORLD BLITZ CHAMPION 🙌🏆

Bibisara Assaubayeva takes down Anna Muzychuk in the finals to claim her third World Blitz Championship at just 21 years old! 🇰🇿 pic.twitter.com/1HEPRsRWCE

— Chess.com (@chesscom) December 30, 2025

Open Swiss:  Arjun Proves Unstoppable

GM Arjun Erigaisi was a runaway train on the second day of the Swiss tournament and won a full point ahead of the field. The top four qualified for the single-elimination Knockout that followed.

Magnus sends the pieces scattering and desperately tries to set them up again, but to avoid losing on time like the day before he hits the clock with 2 seconds to spare without having finished the repairs! pic.twitter.com/XcvkNAnMKI

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 30, 2025

The game was declared a loss, and Chief Arbiter Nebojsa Baralic said that this exact situation was outlined in the technical meeting before the event. With the worst possible start to his day, the Norwegian GM said that he understood he had to score 4.5/5 in the remaining games, and thought to himself, “It’s unlikely, but not super unlikely.”

“I don’t think I ever looked particularly likely to win the event, but so long as I’m not mathematically eliminated, then ruling me out is probably not a good idea.”

– Magnus Carlsen after winning his 20th world championship title. pic.twitter.com/XesLoxSHes

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 30, 2025

Carlsen, in order, defeated GMs Rudik Makarian, Bu Xiangzhi, Ihor Samunenkov, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave before finally drawing with Abdusattorov in the last round, which was enough to advance without worrying about tiebreaks.

Meanwhile, Arjun won the exchange and the game against Martirosyan in round 15. By the time he beat GM Lu Shanglei in round 16, the Indian number-one was in the sole lead with 12.5 points. But that didn’t stop him; despite the danger, he declined each opportunity to repeat moves against GM Javokhir Sindarov in round 17 and, deservingly, won the game with the black pieces.

In overkill mode, Arjun then beat GM Teimour Radjabov, when it wasn’t even necessary, and drew GM Nihal Sarin to finish at the top of the Swiss. 

Caruana entered the day in the sole lead and managed to finish second in the Swiss by drawing four games and winning two, against GMs Alexander Grischuk and Aram Hakobyan (in the last round). It seemed critical that he held a long, 128-move endgame against Martirosyan with one pawn less in the penultimate round, though in hindsight we know that he would have advanced even with a half-point less.

Abdusattorov won three games, lost one, and drew two on the second day. He finished in a six-way tie on 13 points but had the best tiebreaks. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who entered the day co-leading the event, may be kicking himself for failing to win a king and pawn endgame against World Blitz Co-Champion Ian Nepomniachtchi in the last round, which would have put him in the final four.

Nihal and Hakobyan were the only other two players who had a shot at finishing on 13.5 points, but neither was able to win. Thus, Abdusattorov got the fourth and last spot, and we were off to the Knockout.

Open Knockout: Magnus Does Magnus Things In The Endgame

There is a quote famously attributed to GM Mikhail Tal that goes something like, “The position is equal, but more equal for me.” Carlsen, who has built a career out of winning equal endgames, showed again that the endgame always seems to be “more equal” for him than anyone else.

Open Knockout Bracket

Carlsen 3-1 Caruana

After two draws, Carlsen won the last two games of the match. The draws weren’t peaceful, as Caruana sacrificed a piece but ultimately held game one, and an attempted attack by Carlsen in game two fizzled.

There’s another chess quote, attributed to Siegbert Tarrasch, that’s often repeated: “All rook endgames are drawn.” Carlsen said, well, not against me. 

Caruana, in a must-win game with the black pieces, got no chances. And it was Carlsen who won with a devastating attack.

Abdusattorov 2.5-0.5 Arjun

Considering the form Arjun showed in the Swiss, the match was surprisingly one-sided. The Uzbek GM won both of the first games and then settled for a draw to clinch it in just three games.

After a rook endgame in game one, Abdusattorov won again by using his king as an active piece in the endgame.

Abdusattorov 1.5-2.5 Carlsen

Carlsen self-destructed in game one, trying too hard to win, but then won two games with the black pieces.

In game one, Carlsen nearly hung his knight with 39.Rf7??. Having touched his rook already, he played 39.Rh6?? and his queenside collapsed.

Nodirbek Abdusattorov wins game one with the black pieces against Magnus Carlsen! pic.twitter.com/PDMmiTIzt4

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 30, 2025

And then Carlsen played the Game of the Day and probably the most memorable endgame of the tournament. Ask yourself, how does one win from this position with Black against an elite grandmaster, even in blitz?

GM Rafael Leitao helps us answer that question with his analysis below.

There was a cool moment where Carlsen, realizing he was going to win, broke the fourth wall and looked at the audience during the game. He later explained his thoughts: “I was enjoying it a bit at that time and I kind of had the calm to realize, well, now I’m winning and you shouldn’t have given me this chance.”

After a nearly perfect draw, at almost 98 accuracy by both sides, it came down to game four. With an even score, a win for either player was worth the world title, and it was Carlsen who took it in yet another endgame. 60…e3!, played in two seconds, was the championship-winning move, a temporary pawn sacrifice to destroy the white pawn formation.

Abdusattorov, who won the 2021 championship in rapid chess, had never earned a medal in blitz. He earns silver for the first time. Caruana and Arjun share third and fourth place.

The award ceremony also featured the rapid winners. Carlsen finished first, GM Vladislav Artemiev second, and Arjun again third.

At the press conference, Carlsen said he frankly “didn’t necessarily expect to be there” in the Knockout, but he started to get optimistic once he beat Vachier-Lagrave in the penultimate round.

Defeating GM Sergey Karjakin in the 2016 world championship was the hardest of his 20 world titles to achieve, he said. As for whether winning the blitz title gets tougher the ninth time around, he responded, “I don’t think I’m getting worse compared to my opponents.” 

Looking ahead, he and his family will stay in Doha for a vacation after the tournament. In 2026, he plans to play “at least two but maybe three” classical tournaments, which for him he said is already a lot.

You can watch GM Hikaru Nakamura’s recap of the day below.

Women’s Swiss: Gunina Blunders Vs. Anna Muzychuk In Final Round

Five players finished with 11 points out of 15 games, but only four could advance to the Knockout. GM Valentina Gunina, who lost the heartbreaker of the tournament in the final round, was the one left out.

Final Women’s Standings After 15 Rounds | Top 25

#	Title	Name	Fed	Rating	Points	Rp
1	GM	Assaubayeva, Bibisara		2428	11	2478
2	GM	Muzychuk, Anna		2397	11	2407
3	IM	Roebers, Eline		2377	11	2446
4	GM	Zhu, Jiner		2425	11	2444
5	GM	Gunina, Valentina		2314	11	2447
6	GM	Stefanova, Antoaneta		2367	10.5	2449
7	GM	Goryachkina, Aleksandra		2439	10	2439
8	WIM	Omonova, Umida		2278	10	2438
9	WGM	Shukhman, Anna		2204	10	2459
10	IM	Song, Yuxin		2371	10	2368
11	IM	Salimova, Nurgyul		2336	10	2367
12	WGM	Nurman, Alua		2324	10	2349
13	IM	Garifullina, Leya		2407	10	2350
14	IM	Bulmaga, Irina		2251	10	2330
15	WGM	Munkhzul, Turmunkh		2307	10	2333
16	WFM	Iudina, Veronika		2037	9.5	2388
17	GM	Ju, Wenjun		2489	9.5	2340
18	IM	Arabidze, Meri		2356	9.5	2292
19	GM	Lagno, Kateryna		2448	9.5	2379
20	IM	Injac, Teodora		2323	9.5	2340
21	IM	Badelka, Olga		2208	9.5	2360
22	GM	Divya, Deshmukh		2388	9.5	2347
23	GM	Koneru, Humpy		2430	9.5	2325
24	IM	Maltsevskaya, Aleksandra		2323	9.5	2273
25	IM	Kamalidenova, Meruert		2295	9.5	2292

See full standings here. 

IM Eline Roebers, who finished day one in the sole lead, drew the first game against WIM Umida Omonova and then beat GM Antoaneta Stefanova. Though she lost the next two games, against Assaubayeva and GM Zhu Jiner, she managed to win on demand in the last game against IM Song Yuxin to finish in the top four.

Zhu, on the other hand, had a better performance than any of the top-four finishers on the last day. Bouncing back from yesterday’s loss to IM Carissa Yip, she won every single one of her five games on Tuesday, notably defeating Roebers and Song in the last two rounds.

Assaubayeva, who won the last three games on Monday, started with another three wins on Tuesday. But then she was hit, in the last two rounds, with what she said was the hardest moment of the tournament: “I was tired, I won six games in a row, and I had very good chances to qualify but then I lost to Valentina Gunina and in the last game I played terribly.”

She could have lost a piece, but she ended up holding the draw.

A close call, but it was enough for Assaubayeva to finish with the best tiebreaks and reach the Knockout.

Like Zhu, Gunina was on fire and won all of her games ahead of the last round—a seven-game winning streak if including yesterday’s games. After she beat Assaubayeva in round 14, she was in the sole lead and a draw with White would have been enough to get her through.

In fact, she offered GM Anna Muzychuk a draw right after the opening moves, but the second player understood she was in a must-win game. With great play, Gunina won a piece and was winning. But one oversight, missing 29…Qg3+, cost the entire game and the world title.

Sadly, Muzychuk offered a draw back at some point but it was declined. That draw would have been enough for Gunina to finish in clear first on 11.5/15. 

Gunina missed out on the Knockout by half a Buchholz point. Muzychuk said, “I think I would just prefer the Swiss, no matter how many rounds… to play one Swiss, and then all the points are erased, and then you have to play a Knockout. I think it’s a bit strange.”

Women’s Knockout: Assaubayeva Does It Again

Assaubayeva was in full control of both of her matches, especially the first. On top of winning the event, she also clinched the last Candidates spot through the FIDE Women’s Events series when she won her semifinal match.

Women’s Knockout Bracket

Assaubayeva 3-0 Zhu

Assaubayeva incredibly won all three games against Zhu, who like Arjun, had a great Swiss portion but collapsed in the match format. 17…Nxc3! was the winning tactic in game one.

Assaubayeva landed a checkmate with a pawn in game two and needed just a draw to clinch the match. Zhu was objectively winning the last game but, clearly nervous, hung a full knight and resigned.

With this victory, Assaubayeva had already earned her spot in the Candidates no matter how she’d do in the Final. You can see all eight of the Women’s Candidates participants in the table below.

2026 Women’s Candidates Participants

Player	FED	Rating	World No.	Age	Qualified As
Zhu Jiner		2579	2	23	Women’s Grand Prix 2024-5 Winner
Aleksandra Goryachkina		2534	6	27	Women’s Grand Prix 2024–5 Runner-up
Divya Deshmukh		2497	12	20	Women’s Chess World Cup 2025 Winner
Koneru Humpy		2535	5	38	Women’s Chess World Cup 2025 Runner-up
Tan Zhongyi		2524	7	34	Women’s Chess World Cup 2025 3rd Place
Vaishali Rameshbabu		2473	17	24	Women’s Grand Swiss 2025 Winner
Kateryna Lagno		2508	9	36	Women’s Grand Swiss 2025 Runner-up
Bibisara Assaubayeva		2497	11	21	Women’s Events 2024–25 Winner

Muzychuk 2.5-1.5 Roebers

Roebers vs. Muzychuk was a bigger fight, which Muzychuk only won in the final game.

Roebers self-destructed in game one when she entered a self-pin, drew game two, and convincingly won on demand in game three. The final game decided the match, and after converting a massive space advantage from the middlegame, Muzychuk finished it with a pretty rook “sacrifice” to promote her pawn.

Muzychuk 1.5-2.5 Assaubayeva

The first three games ended in draws, and Assaubayeva took the match in the last game.

Of all the draws, the wildest one was the first. Muzychuk sacrificed an entire rook out of the opening and the players repeated moves, though the computer shows White spoiled a slight advantage by overlooking the “obvious” 21.h3!!, down a rook!

Muzychuk let go of a pawn-up (winning) advantage in game two, but so did Assaubayeva in game three—both in endgames involving a rook and queen for each side.

But in game four with 35.Be4!, Assaubayeva achieved a stable advantage of good knight vs. bad bishop as well as control of the e-file. It took some time to win it as they blitzed out moves with under a minute, but the advantage never slipped from there.

Muzychuk finishes with silver, while Roebers and Zhu share third-fourth.

As for the rapid, GM Aleksandra Goryachkina won, followed by Zhu and, in third, GM Koneru Humpy.

At the press conference, Assaubayeva said, “When coming here my main goal was to qualify for the Candidates in the FIDE Circuit, but also of course I want to win my third title and I’m very happy that I did it.”

She said this year’s was the hardest one of her three titles to achieve, as it’s the only one she won through the match format. Before last year, the tournament was just a Swiss with no Knockout portion.

Unlike Carlsen, she will not retreat to a vacation in Doha. Her celebration will consist of preparing for Tata Steel Chess 2026, which begins on January 17 in the new year. She will be in the Challengers section.

That concludes our coverage of this year’s world rapid and blitz championships. I sincerely wish you a happy new year and look forward to the chess moves that lie ahead!

The 2025 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 an 11-round Swiss. The time control for both tournaments was 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. The blitz championships featured 19 rounds in the Open and 15 rounds in the Women’s, followed by a Knockout played by the top-four finishers, with a time control of 3+2 for all games. The total prize fund was over €1,000,000.

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Previous coverage:

• Day 4: Arjun, Vachier-Lagrave, Caruana Lead As Carlsen Falters; Roebers Takes Sole Lead
• Day 3: Carlsen, Goryachkina Win 2025 World Rapid Championships
• Day 2: Artemiev Beats Carlsen, Leads With Niemann; Humpy Catches Zhu In Women’s
• Day 1: Carlsen, Gukesh, Arjun, Vachier-Lagrave, Artemiev Share Lead
• Carlsen On World Rapid & Blitz: ‘As Long As I’m In Good Shape, I’ll Be A Dangerous Man’
• Carlsen Confirmed For World Rapid & Blitz Championship As FIDE Announces Field
• FIDE On World Blitz Format Change: ‘Too Many Non-Games’
• FIDE Introduces Armageddon Rule, Changes World Blitz Championship Format Again