The 2017 World Blitz Championship: Random Games of Interest

Having dedicated a couple of posts to all of Magnus Carlsen's games from the 2017 World Blitz Championship, this time we'll take a look at some games from the rest of the action. I went through all 1447 available games (one game is missing as of this writing, and another game seems to have been a forfeit win) and have picked out 22 that caught my eye.

Yes, I really went through all 1447 games. Not thoroughly - my finger was basically glued to the right arrow key as I zipped through them - but it still took a long time to do it. Crazy? Maybe - but I recall Vladimir Kramnik saying in an interview that part of being a professional player (at least at his level) was going through a thousand new games a week, every week, seeing what's new. So I just did it this one time.

Anyway, the games were not picked because of their competitive significance, but - as stated above - because they caught my eye for one reason or another: a nice attack, an interesting opening idea, a brilliant tactic, or - in a few cases - because of an egregious blunder.

Have a look, enjoy, and don't wait for me to do this again for the Olympiad or the next rapid & blitz world championship!