World Blitz Championship starts today

Today the World Blitz Championship starts in Moscow. Magnus Carlsen, Alexander Grischuk and Hikaru Nakamura are among the favorites in a group of twenty top players, who will play a double round-robin over three days. Who do you think will win?

The World Blitz Championship will be held, again at the GUM department store on Red Square in Moscow, from 16 to 18 November. In the double round-robin tournament eight of the ten participants of the Tal Memorial will play - not Alexei Shirov and Wang Hao - added by players who played a qualifier right after the 2010 Aeroflot tournament. The full list of participants:

1. Magnus Carlsen (NOR) 2802 2. Levon Aronian (ARM) 2801 3. Vladimir Kramnik (RUS) 2791 4. Alexander Grischuk (RUS) 2771 5. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE) 2763 6. Sergei Karjakin (RUS) 2760 7. Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR) 2744 8. Teimour Radjabov (AZE) 2744 9. Pavel Eljanov (UKR) 2742 10. Boris Gelfand (ISR) 2741 11. Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 2741 12. Peter Svidler (RUS) 2722 13. Sergei Movsesian (SVK) 2721 14. Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS) 2720 15. Fabiano Caruana (ITA) 2709 16. Maxim Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) 2703 17. Dmitry Andreikin (RUS) 2683 18. Rauf Mamedov (AZE) 2660 19. Boris Grachev (RUS) 2654 20. Boris Savchenko (RUS) 2632

On Tuesday, November 16th and Wednesday, November 17th the players will play 14 rounds each, from 15:00 local time (13:00 CET). On Thursday, Nobember 18th the last 10 rounds will be played, starting from 13:00 local time (11:00 CET). The rate of play for all games is 3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment.

Check out the live page of the Russian Chess Federation's website - we assume the games can be followed there.