During the closing days of December, the 2018 Rapid and Blitz FIDE World Chess Championships were played in St Petersburg, Russia.
The classical World Champion, Norway’s Magnus Carlsen declared his intention of going after both the Rapid and Blitz Championships. He wanted to hold all three Championships in the same year.
Earlier, in November, Carlsen had defeated America’s Fabiano Caruana for the Classical title, which is regarded as the foremost title in all of chess.