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The World Chess Federation FIDE, the chess server Playchess and the Russian Aeroflot Open invite you to participate in the 2010 World Blitz Championship and offer you a chance to test your skill in blitz chess with the very best.
On February 18th 2010 a double nine-round Swiss blitz tournament will be held in the complex “Izmailovo” in Moscow, which will have the status of qualification for the World Blitz Championship 2010 (Final). The final tournament will take place in November 2010. It will consist of 20 players (ten participants of Mikhail Tal Memorial 2010, six winners of the Qualification Tournament of Feb. 18, 2010 and four to six wild cards. The prize fund of the Qualification Tournament constitutes EUR 40,000.
You have the chance to win a package, including travel costs and accommodation in Moscow for two days, to take part in the February 18 Blitz Qualifier. You can do this by taking part in the Internet tournament, which will be held from January 19th to 30th, 2010 on the Playchess server.
The next rounds
Here are the dates of play. All times are given Central European Time
(Greenwich Standard Time +1) which is the time-zone used on the server.
| Preliminary # 1 | Tuesday, 19th January 2010, 24.00 CET (midnight) |
| Preliminary # 2 | Wednesday, 20th January 2010, 18.00 CET |
| Preliminary # 3 | Saturday, 23rd January 2010, 15.00 CET |
| Preliminary # 4 | Monday, 25th January 2010, 20.00 CET |
| Preliminary # 5 | Tuesday, 26th January 2010, 18.00 CET |
| Preliminary # 6 | Thursday, 28th January 2010, 20.00 CET |
| Final | Saturday, 30th January 2010, 16.00 CET |
The first preliminary was played at 19th January 2010 (Tuesday night) 24.00 CET. It attracted 445 players who entered the competition. This appearance is an all-time high for tournaments on the server which, we are pleased to note, took the load quite easily. The tournament was run by Italian Sysop and Tournament Director Andrea Natoli. It lasted approximately four hours, and in the end you needed twelve points (and a better tiebreak) from 17 games to get a place in the final. The race for the top ten places was fairly close, as even the number two in the end has scored just 13 points.
Below you will find the final result of the qualifying players and the top 100 scorers. Some words of explanation: The Elo is the server rating at the start of the tournament. If a player had just registered on the server he or she might have had no server rating. The top ten players are given with their real names as given in the personal information. They have not been checked for right spelling etc.
| # | Nickname | rating | Player | Score | TB |
| 1 | Omnislash | 3285 | GM Hrair Simonian (ARM) | 14.5 | |
| 2 | Onor | 2826 | Chris Jericho (BEL) | 13.0 | 124.00 |
| 3 | Khismatullin | Boris Khismatullin (RUS) | 13.0 | 121.50 | |
| 4 | Tojapolska | 2168 | Kryzsiek Panecki (POL) | 13.0 | 109.50 |
| 5 | LiLip0o0o0oT | 3105 | IM Homayoan Toufighi (IRN) | 12.5 | 119.00 |
| 6 | Harutjunyan G | 2815 | GM Georg Harutjunyan (ARM) | 12.5 | 118.00 |
| 7 | IturrizagaE | Eduardo Iturrizago (VEN) | 12.5 | 117.50 | |
| 8 | Moreno Ruiz | 2580 | Moreno Ruiz (ESP) | 12.5 | 109.00 |
| 9 | Hausigel | 3073 | Roland Voigt (GER) | 12.0 | 118.50 |
| 10 | Storne | 2636 | IM Nikola Vesterovic | 12.0 | 110.50 |
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