Magnus Carlsen scored another triumph this week when the 32-year-old No 1 won the World Rapid and World Blitz titles ahead of more than 170 rivals in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Norwegian’s 10/13 Rapid total was half a point ahead of Germany’s Vincent Keymer in second place and the US champion, Fabiano Caruana, in third, while in Blitz he totalled 16/21, a full point ahead of Hikaru Nakamura of the US, who took silver on tie-break from Armenia’s Haik Martirosyan.

Carlsen has now been the dominant player in World Rapids for more than a decade, showing an impressively high quality of chess at a fast time limit. Rapid is 15 minutes per player for the entire game, plus a 10 seconds per move increment, while Blitz is three minutes per player per game, plus a two seconds per move increment.

This is the third time in less than a decade that Carlsen has won both highly competitive speed crowns, following his earlier doubles in 2014 and 2019. No other player has ever won both titles in the same year.

One of his best Rapid attacks was modelled on a 1970 Bobby Fischer classic. It involved the rare 1 b3 opening followed by a middle game g pawn push backed by White’s rooks, with an improbable climax 28 Ng5!! sacrificing a bishop on a square allowing a knight fork of White’s queen and both rooks.

Carlsen’s final-round Rapid win was a lesson in how to play the well known Richter Attack against the Sicilian 1 e4 c5. His f3-g4-h4 pawn chain anticipated Black’s late castling and set up the decisive 25 Bxh7+! tactic which fatally exposed the black king.

The deeper significance of these games, and also of the positional crush against Keymer, which Carlsen regarded as his most satisfying win, is as a practical demonstration that high level play is possible at much faster time limits than the four-or five-hour sessions for the classical world championship, which Carlsen has just abandoned.

Everything went smoothly for Carlsen in Rapid, but his first 12 rounds (of 21) in the World Blitz on Thursday were contrastingly incident-prone. He went skiing in the morning, got stuck in traffic on the way to the tournament hall, and was absent at the scheduled time for round one. The organisers delayed the start, and his opponent was slow to start the clock, but when Carlsen finally appeared and sprinted across the hall to his board there were only 30 seconds remaining of his three minutes.

It was effectively hyperbullet for the Norwegian, but, playing most of his 59 moves instantly, he still managed to win with nine seconds to spare. With no time to change clothes, he then received a warning for breaking Fide’s dress code.

Several players complained of excessive heat in the tournament hall, and Carlsen was reported as saying after his sixth round game “I am completely fried”. He began with 6.5/7, then drew his final five Blitz games, several of them without much fight, to leave himself a point behind his old rival Nakamura who scored an unbeaten 10/12 on the first day on Thursday.

The final nine rounds on Friday were chaotic as Carlsen and Nakamura suffered defeats and were caught by the chasing pack. Carlsen’s round-14 win against Richard Rapport was one of the wildest games in chess history, described as a “bar brawl” with missed chances on both sides.

At the end, Carlsen’s superior class shone through as he won his final two rounds to edge a point clear of Nakamura, who despite his successes in online chess has yet to win an over-the-board world speed title.

England had two representatives at Almaty, IM Ameet Ghasi in the Open event and the British champion Lan Yao in the women’s. Both did little in the Rapid, but Ghasi’s Blitz games on Thursday included the best hour or so of his entire career.

From 3/5 Ghasi surged to 6.5/9, scoring 3.5/4 against four elite grandmasters before round 10 against the 2018 world title challenger, Caruana. In that game, too, Ghasi was almost winning out of the opening before missing the powerful 16 f5! and subsiding into defeat. He finished the tournament on 9.5/21.

China’s Tan Zhongyi won the World Women’s Rapid, while the host nation’s Bibisara Assaubayeva, 18, won the Women’s Blitz title for the second year running.

3848: Left: 1 Qh5! 1-0. If gxh5 2 Bxh7 mate. Right: 1 Qh5! wins. If Qxh5 2 Rxg7+ Kh8 3 Rxf7+ Kg8 4 Rg7+ Kh8 5 Rg5+ Rf6 6 Bxf6 mate. In the game, Black gave up his queen by 1...Qg6 but soon resigned.