World Blitz Championship 2008

Submitted by SonofPearl on Thu, 11/06/2008 at 12:57pm.

The 2008 World Blitz Chess Championship is about to start in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The event takes place from 7-8 November and has a prize fund of 350,000 Swiss Francs (approx 300,000 USD), with the winner pocketing 80,000 SF.

Although there have been a number of strong blitz tournaments held before, having an officially sanctioned World Championship event for blitz chess has been a rarity until recently. The first was held in Saint John, Cananda in 1988 and was won by the great Mikhail Tal, despite his relatively advanced age and poor health. The second official world blitz championship wasn't held until 2006, when Alexander Grischuk took first place, and last year he was succeded by Vassily Ivanchuk, the reigning champion.

The field this time is 16-strong and consists of:

Alexander Morozevich (Russia)
Leinier Domiguez Perez (Cuba)
Rafael Vaganian (Armenia)
Sergey Rublevsky (Russia)
Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan)
Vladislav Tkachiev (France)
Peter Svidler (Russia)
Alexander Grischuk (Russia)
Boris Gelfand (Israel)
Judith Polgar (Hungary)
Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine)
Murtas Kazhgaleev (Kazakhstan)
Krishnan Sasikiran (India)
Gata Kamsky (USA)
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan)
Amin Bassem (Egypt)

The format is a single round-robin event, and the time control is the genuine, real McCoy blitz of 5 minutes with no increment. It won't be pretty, but it will be exciting!

» more Chess event coverage

| 3179 reads | 26 comments |

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Comments:

by gabrielconroy - 7 months ago
London United Kingdom

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 1231

I think Leinier Dominguez-Perez has won, with 11/15, with Ivanchuk second.

by gabrielconroy - 7 months ago
London United Kingdom

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 1231

Ok if you go to that link I posted earlier, the games look more promising. The top game is Kamsky - Morozevich.

by BoyBawang - 7 months ago
Dumaguete City Philippines

Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 60

NAKAMURA! You're the one I wanna see in this tournament! where are you??

by qnl1051 - 7 months ago
Bradenton United States

Member Since: Aug 2008
Member Points: 23

There are some games now showing on the LIVE link, but they don't have player names, Just P01vsP02 etc.

by sadhumohit - 7 months ago
India

Member Since: Aug 2008
Member Points: 14

no anand???

by joviman - 7 months ago
Zaragoza Spain

Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 13

Does anyone know the time-table for the games?

when they play?

The web shows an error message in russian.

ThaNKS...

and i bet for Radjabov

by Phobetor - 7 months ago
International

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1108

@ gabrielconroy: The tournament starts tomorrow (November 8). Today was only the opening ceremony (funny, a tournament with an opening ceremony as long as the tournament itself!)

by gabrielconroy - 7 months ago
London United Kingdom

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 1231

Yeah, you're right. That is one weird site - it definitely seems to be the official site, but those games can't be the right ones. Any idea, SonofPearl?

by Sconsc - 7 months ago
Romania

Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 279

Those can't be the games, I feel like I'm watching 1100's play

by gabrielconroy - 7 months ago
London United Kingdom

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 1231

OK, through a roundabout route I found this live page on the official site, although I haven't worked out how to deduce who the players are yet - if anyone does, let me know, s'il vous plait.

EDIT: Would help to post the address - http://worldblitz2008.kz/online_webcast/64-live.html

by gabrielconroy - 7 months ago
London United Kingdom

Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 1231

I tried to find out when the matches start from the Kazakhstani chess federation website, but all the pertinent pages had a message in Russian that Google helpfully yields as "According to this criterion news could not be found or you do not have access to view the news". So no idea. I'd really like to watch some of these games live, especially the Morozevich ones.

by qnl1051 - 7 months ago
Bradenton United States

Member Since: Aug 2008
Member Points: 23

Is there a live broadcast? When?

by millerthesmurf - 7 months ago
cornwall England

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 272

coz nakamura would get trashed by morozevich!

by millerthesmurf - 7 months ago
cornwall England

Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 272

Morozevich will win

by EnGliSHCheSsPlAy - 7 months ago
Italy Italy

Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 791

yeah Morozevich will win

by santoshmokashi - 7 months ago
maharashtra India

Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 1

Chess The Game

IN Tournament Play With Me

by SonofPearl - 7 months ago
Wales

Member Since: May 2007
Member Points: 5236

From the regulations:

Participants of the Championship.

There are ten players who shall be seeded directly to the final part of the World Blitz Championship, i.e. five first players in the final standings of the two previous World Blitz Championships.
In case if one of the seeded players is a prize winner of both of the Championships, a player who took next place (after 5th place) from the latest World Blitz Championship fills the vacancy.
Champion of the 15th Asian Games Marat Kazhgaleev.
One nominee of the Organising Committee – Rafael Vaganian.
Continental Champions in Blitz of 2008 - 4 players. In case one of the players refuses to participate OR if there has not been a Continental Blitz Championship, the player shall be nominated by the Continental President.