Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, won first prize outright with 6/9 at Stavanger on Friday despite faltering near the finish, while three world top-10 grandmasters topped the field at the $194,000 US championship at St Louis. Yet it is a five-minute speed event, featuring a rare appearance by the all-time No1, Garry Kasparov, which has most excited chess fans.

In the Ultimate Blitz match tournament, staged with a $50,000 prize fund, Kasparov met the top trio from the US championship, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So in an 18-round all-play-all with a time limit of five minutes for the game plus a three-second delay per move. One year ago Kasparov, now aged 53, crushed England’s Nigel Short by an 8.5-1.5 margin, but taking on elite GMs half his age is something else.

Rounds 1-9 were staged on Thursday evening, while rounds 10-18 started at 7pm on Friday and are watchable free and live online. Do not miss it!

The final scores were Nakamura 11/18, So 10, Kasparov 9.5, Caruana 5.5. Kasparov lost two games through blunders in winning positions.

Meanwhile Carlsen was sovereign at Stavanger. The 25-year-old Norwegian has been much more impressive in 2016 than last year when his play was inconsistent and he suffered several defeats by weaker rivals. In recent months he has cut down on media work and also adopted what look like different styles according to the opponent. Now he uses a sharp tactical approach against lower ranked opponents, while continuing his trademark marathon strategical grinds against the strong.

When the Swede Nils Grandelius, the bottom rated player at Stavanger, tried to surprise him as Black by 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nf6?! 3 e5 Nd5 4 Nc3 Nxc3 (e6 leads to sharp positions which also favour White) 5 dxc3 Nc6 6 Bf4 Qb6!? Carlsen replied 7 Qc1! (Black hoped for the weakening 7 b3) f6 8 c4 g5 9 Bg3 g4 10 exf6! gxf3 11 Qf4! with a winning attack.

Four rounds later he strategically outplayed the veteran former world champion and current No3, Vlad Kramnik, who has often claimed that he would do well against Carlsen in a match. They opened with a line of the Queen’s Gambit Exchange variation where theory believes that Black has a reasonable game despite weak doubled f pawns: 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bg5 c6 6 e3 Bf5 7 Qf3 Bg6 8 Bxf6 Qxf6 9 Qxf6 gxf6 10 Nf3 Nd7 11 Nh4 Be7 and now came the star move 12 Ne2! shown to Carlsen by Norway’s No2, Jon Hammer, and a new way for White to strengthen his hold on the key f5 square. Kramnik continued 12...Nb6 13 Ng3 Bb4+ 14 Kd1 when his position soon became very passive. Black might try instead 12...f5 13 g3 Bxh4, though normally in this variation the dark-squared bishop is a piece he wants to keep.

The world champion’s smooth and seemingly inexorable progress received a jolt in Thursday’s penultimate round when he blundered a bishop against Armenia’s Levon Aronian and resigned at move 31.

Carlsen will have watched the Ultimate Blitz in St Louis with keen interest, as the Norwegian won the last two world blitz titles with impressive play. If Kasparov’s mini-comeback goes well, there could be an irresistible clamour from chess fans for a speed match between them.

3440 1 Qxf5? Qd2+! 2 Rxd2 Ne1 mate.