World Blitz Championship Runs Tuesday through Thursday
The World Blitz Championship is in Moscow, the traditional after-event for the Tal Memorial. There will be 22 participants playing in a double round robin, with 14 rounds a day for three days. Of the 22, nine are from the Tal Memorial (all the participants but Shirov), plus 13 other very strong players including Carlsen but not Topalov (no surprise there - he's a relatively weak blitz player) or Anand (somewhat of a surprise). 2007 and 2008 winners Ivanchuk and Dominguez aren't playing either, so the field clearly isn't as strong as it could be. That said, it's still plenty strong, especially with internet blitz king Nakamura making his first appearance. Here's the field:
From the tournament:
Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Wang Hao, Vladimir Kramnik, Boris Gelfand and Pavel Eljanov.
Other invitees:
Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Ruslan Ponomariov, Peter Svidler, Sergei Movsesian, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dmitry Andreikin, Rauf Mamedov, Boris Grachev and Boris Savchenko.
Reader Comments (4)
It looks like there will be 20 players. From the official website:
World Blitz Championship will be held in Moscow from 16 to 18 November. In the double round robin tournament will take part in World Blitz champion Magnus Carlsen (NOR), 8 members Tal Memorial (with the exception of Wang Hao and Shirov) and Teimour Radjabov (AZE), Ruslan Ponomariov (UKR), Peter Svidler (RUS), Sergei Movsesian (SVK), Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS) and 6 other grandmasters.
Control of time - 3 minutes per batch with the addition of two second per move.
Beginning of the games - 15.00
16 and 17 November will be played on 14 rounds, 18 November - 10 rounds.
Ivanchuk is both the 2008 AND 2007 winner.
[DM: Mmm, sort of. He is the 2007 and 2008 winner of the Tal Memorial Blitz, but in 2008 it wasn't the World Blitz Championship.]
Nakamura will take this, with Carlsen 2nd and Kramnik or Mamedyarov in 3rd place.
I think Magnus is gonna win this with clear advantage. In second place Naka.