After five rounds of play, Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin are sharing the lead at the World Rapid Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan. Both players scored 4.5/5, and are followed by Veselin Topalov, Alexander Grischuk and Teimour Radjabov, who have a point less.

The playing hall on the third floor of the Radisson Astana | All photos © ChessVibes

The first games of the World Rapid Championship were played on a national holiday in Kazakhstan: Day of the Capital. It is also the birthday of the first and current President of Kazakhstan, whom we mentioned in our previous report.

The first move of the tournament was performed by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who had left the hotel early morning to attend the start of another event: an open tournament in Karaganda, about 100km south-east of Astana. Back in Astana, he started the game between Murtas Kazhgaleyev and Magnus Carlsen.

The playing hall is quite spacious, and contains two rows of eight boards. Each board has its own arbiter who writes down the moves. It's rapid, but a faster form than normal: 15 minutes plus 10 seconds increment.

There were about fifty spectators today, who could follow the games reasonably well thanks to two big electronic screens left and right of the players, However, there was something wrong with the resolution so the pieces were actually not that easy to recognize. 

The best way to follow the games is of course to stand next to the board, and this was actually possible. The playing area is roped off with about a meter and a half distance, so you can actually come closer to the players than normal.

Although the players are playing for a US $200,000 prize fund, the atmosphere is quite relaxed. There were no incidents on this first day, although some players had to get used to the fact that they couldn't just offer a draw. (Is the Corsica/Sofia rule really necessary in rapid chess?)

Here's our video report on the first day:

After the first day Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin are sharing the lead with 4.5/5. Especially Karjakin can be satisfied with that result, because he arrived in Astana only a few hours before the start of the tournament! He had missed his flight the day before. (He tells about this in the video.)

Afterwards Carlsen said that he was especially happy with his game against Alexander Morozevich, which he won "quite easily".

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Magnus Carlsen started with 4.5/5

Karjakin felt that his best game of the day was against Grischuk. He could finish it off with a queen sacrifice:

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Karjakin actually started with 4/4 and then drew quickly with Black against Veselin Topalov. Carlsen won his last game to catch Karjakin in first place. He came up with a devilish trick against Igor Kurnosov, trapping White's knight. The Norwegian told us that had seen this already when he liquidated to the knight ending.

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Sergey Karjakin: also 4.5/5, despite an unfortunate travel experience

Anuar Ismagambetov (2471) is having a tough time and started with five zeros. Alexander Morozevich's 1/5 is quite disappointing but he has still ten more rounds to finish on a decent score. Tomorrow at 15:00 Astana time (11:00 CET) play resumes!

Games day 1

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World Rapid Championship 2012 | Round 5 standings