Reflection of a chess player

We usually say that a person has chess reflexes when he reacts very slowly to various stimuli. Contrary to popular belief, chess players have excellent reflexes. This was confirmed by research by psychologists from the University of Michigan, which showed that many players can assess the situation in the blink of an eye. Chess turned out to be the second sport in terms of the speed of reaction of players (only table tennis is ahead of them). Experienced players with many games under their belts can play very quickly using established habits and proven patterns. Popular among chess players, especially the younger generation, is blitz - these are blitz games where both opponents usually have only 5 minutes to think for the whole game. You can play even faster - each player has, for example, only 1 minute for the whole game. In such a game, called a bullet, a very fast player can make more than 60 moves in XNUMX seconds! Therefore, the myth that chess players must be slow and think long is not true.

By term «instant chess»A chess game is defined in which each player has no more than 10 minutes for the whole party. In the chess community, a popular term for fast play is . The name comes from the German word for lightning. Opponents have a small total amount of thinking time at their disposal spread over the entire game - usually 5 or 3 minutes with an additional 2 seconds after each move. The players do not write down the course of the duel (in tournament games of classical chess, each player is required to write down the game on special forms).

We win a game of instant chess if:

1. we will mate;
2. the opponent will exceed the time limit, and this fact will be reported to the referee (if we have only one king or not enough material to checkmate the opponent, the game ends in a draw);
3. the opponent will make a wrong move and reset the clock, and we will advertise this fact.

Do not forget to stop the clock after exceeding the time limit or an illegal move by the opponent and inform the referee about it. By making our move and clicking on the clock, we lose the right to complain.

Instant chess tournaments are extremely spectacular, but due to the very short time for thinking and the speed of making moves, they can cause disputes between players. Personal culture is also important here. fast reflexes by the referee and the opponents themselves.

Experienced when it comes to the tactics of this type of chess players can move pieces very quickly to a safe place without a detailed analysis of the situation, so that the enemy, due to lack of time, could not take advantage of emerging opportunities. Players try to surprise their opponent with an opening, which is rarely played in classical games, or with an unexpected sacrifice (gambit) that makes them think extra.

In fast games, they usually play to the end, counting on the wrong move of the opponent or exceeding the time limit. In the endgame, with only a few seconds left on the clock, the worse-positioned player tries to avoid checkmate, hoping to be able to win in time, because offensive play takes relatively longer than defending the king from checkmate.

One of the varieties of instant chess is the so-called in which each participant has from the 1 3 to minutes for the whole party. The term comes from the English word "projectile". Most often, each player has 2 minutes plus 1 second after each move - or 1 minute plus 2 seconds. For an extremely fast chess game in which each player only has 1 minute for the entire game, the term (lightning) is also used.

Armageddon

In chess matches and tournaments, like in tennis or volleyball, if the opponents are very close, you need to somehow choose the winner. This is what (i.e. breaking a tie) is used for, usually to play a set of games according to the rules. rapid chessand then instant chess.

If, however, it is still impossible to choose the best of the two, the final result of the competition is decided by the last game, called "Armageddon". White gets 5 minutes and black gets 4 minutes. When that game also ends in a draw, the player playing black is the winner.

Armageddon in Hebrew it is Har Megiddo, which means "mountain of Megiddo". This is the place of the announcement in the Apocalypse of St. John, the final battle between the forces of good and evil, in which the hordes of Satan will come together in a fierce battle with the angelic hosts led by Christ. Colloquially, Armageddon has become an erroneous synonym for a cataclysm that will destroy all of humanity.

World Blitz Champions

The current world blitz champions are a Russian (1) among men and a Ukrainian. Anna Muzychuk (2) among women. Muzychuk is a Lviv-born Ukrainian chess player who represented Slovenia in 2004-2014 - a grandmaster since 2004 and a men's grandmaster title since 2012.

1. Sergey Karjakin - world blitz champion (photo: Maria Emelyanova)

2. Anna Muzychuk - World Blitz Champion (photo: Ukr. Wikipedia)

The first unofficial world championship in instant chess were played on April 8, 1970 in Herceg Novi (a port city in Montenegro, near the border with Croatia). It was right after the famous match between the USSR national team and the whole world in Belgrade. In Herceg Novi, Bobby Fischer won with a huge advantage, scoring 19 points out of 22 possible and ahead of Mikhail Tal, second in the tournament, by as much as 4,5 points. The first official World Blitz Championship was played in Canada in 1988, and the next ones were only played after an eighteen-year break in Israel.

In 1992, the International Chess Federation FIDE organized Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Budapest. Both tournaments were won by Zsuzsa Polgar (that is, Susan Polgar - after changing citizenship from Hungarian to American in 2002). Readers were interested in the story of the three brilliant Hungarian Polgar sisters.

It is worth recalling that a number of tournaments for the world blitz championship were judged by the famous Polish chess judge Andrzej Filipowicz (3).

3. Polish chess judge Andrzej Filipowicz in action (photo: World Chess Federation - FIDE)

The last World Men's and Women's Blitz Championship was held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on 29 and 30 December 2016. 

In the men's tournament, in which 107 players played at a distance of 21 rounds, from (world champion in classical chess) and Sergey Karyakin (vice-world champion in classical chess). Before the last round, Carlsen was half a point ahead of Karjakin. In the last round, Carlsen brought Black only against Peter Leko, while Karjakin defeated White's Baadur Jobav.

In the women's tournament, which was attended by 34 chess players, the victory was won by Ukrainian grandmaster Anna Muzychuk, who scored 13 points in seventeen games. The second was Valentina Gunina, and the third was Ekaterina Lachno - both 12,5 points each.

Polish Blitz Championship

Blitz games were usually held annually from 1966 (then the first men's tournament in Łódź) and 1972 (the women's tournament in Lublince). The largest number of national championships on their account: Wlodzimierz Schmidt - 16, and among women, grandmaster Hanna Ehrenska-Barlo - 11 and Monika Socko (Bobrovska) - 9.

In addition to tournaments, team championships are also played in the individual competition.

The last Polish Blitz Championship took place in Lublin on June 11-12, 2016. The women's tournament was won by Monika Socko, ahead of Claudia Coulomb and Alexandra Lach (4). Among men, the winner was Lukasz Ciborowski, who was ahead of Zbigniew Pakleza and Bartosz Socko.

4. Winners of the 2016 Polish Blitz Championship (photo: PZSzach)

Fifteen rounds were played in both the women's and men's championships at a pace of 3 minutes per game plus 2 seconds per move. The next national championships are planned by the Polish Chess Federation on August 12-13, 2017 in Piotrkow Trybunalski.

The European Rapid and Blitz Championship returns to Poland

On December 14-18, 2017, the Spodek Arena in Katowice will host the European Speed ​​and Speed ​​Chess Championship. The Polish Chess Federation, KSz Polonia Warszawa and General K. Sosnkowski in Warsaw are the forerunners of this international event. As part of the Stanisław Havlikowski Memorial, since 2005 in Warsaw rapid chess championships have been held annually, and in 2010 they were joined by the championship in instant chess. In 2014, the tournament was organized in Wroclaw by KSz Polonia Wrocław. After two years of absence from our country, the European Speed ​​and Chess Championship is returning to Poland.

In 2013, 437 players (including 76 women) took part in the blitz, of which 39 players had the title of grandmaster (5). At the competitions in the Palace of Culture and Science, the players played eleven duels, consisting of two games. The winner was Anton Korobov from Ukraine, who scored 18,5 points out of 22 possible. Second place went to Vladimir Tkachev representing France (17 points) and third place went to the then Polish Classical Chess Champion Bartosz Socko (17 points). The best opponent was the wife of the bronze medalist, grandmaster and Polish champion Monika Socko (14 points).

5. On the eve of the start of the European Blitz Championship in Warsaw, 2013 (photo by the organizers)

747 players took part in the rapid chess tournament. The youngest participant was five-year-old Marcel Macieek, and the oldest was 76-year-old Bronislav Efimov. The tournament was attended by representatives of 29 countries, including 42 grandmasters and 5 grandmasters. Unexpectedly, the XNUMX-year-old grandmaster from Hungary Robert Rapport won, confirming the reputation of one of the world's greatest chess talents.

Rapid chess includes games in which each player is given more than 10 minutes, but less than 60 minutes at the end of all moves, or where a fixed time is allotted before the start of the game, multiplied by 60, taking into account the second. the bonus for each turn falls within these limits.

The first unofficial Polish championship in super flush chess

On March 29, 2016, the Super Flash Championship () was played at the Economic University in Poznań. The pace of play was 1 minute per player per game, plus an additional 1 second per move. The rules of the tournament stipulated that when a player knocks over a piece during his turn and flips the clock lever (leaving the piece lying on the board), he is automatically forfeited.

Grandmaster Jacek Tomczak (6) became the winner, ahead of the champion Piotr Brodovsky and grandmaster Bartosz Socko. The best woman was the academic world champion - grandmaster Claudia Coulomb.

6. Jacek Tomczak - the unofficial champion of Poland in super-rapid chess - against Claudia Kulon (photo: PZSzach)

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