The world’s number one chess player, Magnus Carlsen, won his fifth Speed Chess Championship (SCC) Finals.
Carlsen, 35, banked $25,000 plus an additional split based on winning percentage by beating Alireza Firouzja 15-12 in London, in a repeat of last year’s final matchup. It is Carlsen’s third victory in a row.
Celebrating its tenth edition, it’s only the second time the final four of the chess.com tournament has been held in person, following Paris in 2024. Players compete on computers in an esports-style format, and earlier rounds are completed online.
Carlsen, Firouzja, 22, and third-place Denis Lazavik, a 19-year-old from Belarus, earned automatic qualification to the Esports World Cup through their finishes. Chess first appeared in the ESports World Cup last year, with Carlsen of Norway beating Iranian-Frenchman Firouzja in the final.
We’re running out of space 🐐 @MagnusCarlsen pic.twitter.com/c8PdlhbnEx
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 8, 2026
“I certainly believe that what we’re playing this weekend is more of the future than longer chess tournaments,” Carlsen told The Athletic on Friday.
“We’re moving more to entertainment and attention spans are shorter. I believe faster chess is a purer form of chess because you cannot mask your weaknesses in the same way when you have very little reaction time. In longer formats, you can rely on opening preparation, and then kind of calculating your way out of trouble and not really relying on understanding and instincts in the same way.”
In 2023, Carlsen chose not to defend his Classical World Championship title, which he has won five times, citing motivation issues.
Carlsen and the world number two, Hikaru Nakamura, have won the SCC five times each over its ten-year history. Nakamura, 38, was defeated 13.5-12.5 by Lazavik in the third-place game.
The SCC final four has three varieties of blitz and bullet games. For the first ninety minutes, each player has five minutes, plus one-second increments (extra time per move).
This is followed by one hour of three minutes plus one-second increments and half an hour of one minute plus one-second increments. Players earn one point for a win and half a point for a draw, with nothing for a loss.
USMNT and Fulham footballer Antonee Robinson and England and Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze were in attendance for the final at 180 Studios in Strand, London. The SCC was streamed on chess.com with tens of thousands of viewers across its platforms.