blitz chess

English

Etymology

Partial calque of German Blitzschach.

Noun

blitz chess (uncountable)

1. (chess) Chess played at a quick time control, with each side getting about five minutes to make their moves. Blitz chess is played at a variety of time controls, primarily 3+0 (three minutes per side), 3+2 (three minutes per side plus two extra seconds per move), 5+0, and 5+3.

   Synonyms: lightning chess, speed chess

   • 2013 June 24, Mark Samuelian, “Speed Chess Changed My Brain”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     What I had played was chess. Specially, I knocked out some 2,000 games of speed (or "blitz") chess in the two months leading up to the tournament. In fact, I played so much that I'm currently in the top half-percent of more than 1.3 million of blitz players at an online chess competition site.

   • 2018 November 27, Kabir Chibber, “What will happen on the final day of the World Chess Championship”, in Quartz‎^[2]:

     If there’s still no winner, the players move on two games of blitz chess. There, each player is limited to only five minutes, with three seconds added after each move. If there is no winner, they play a further two games of blitz chess.

   • 2017 December 28, Des Bieler, “Chess champion refuses to defend titles in Saudi Arabia to protest treatment of women”, in The Washington Post‎^[3]:

     Muzychuk, 27, is the reigning women’s world champion in both rapid and blitz chess.

Related terms

• classical chess
• rapid chess
• bullet chess

Translations

form of chess

• Dutch: snelschaak n
• Finnish: pikashakki
• German: Blitzschach (de) n, Schnellschach (de) n
• Romanian: șah fulger n
• Slovene: hitropotezni šah m
• Spanish: ajedrez rápido
• Swedish: blixtschack (sv) n