Teymur Rajabov to compete in world blitz championship

Participants will include the Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, ranked number two in the world; the world's best woman player, Hungarian grandmaster Judit Polgar, who competes in men's competitions; the child prodigy of world chess, 14-year-old Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen; and several other giants of the game, such as grandmasters Peter Svidler of Russia, Boris Gelfand of Israel and Teymur Rajabov of Azerbaijan.

Blitz chess is played by the usual chess rules, but instead of taking hours, each contestant is allotted just five minutes total for all of his moves. More than half of all games are decided because a player's time is up, not because of any move on the board (however, in most cases the player who stalled is also the one whose pieces were in an inferior position). Each player has a stop watch, which he hits immediately after moving one of his pieces. Because the competition takes place at an especially fast pace, it seems to the spectator that he is watching a sped up tape of a regular chess game.

/Ha'aretz/