English Chess Forum

Does any one know if there is a World Lightning Chess Championship?

Do you mean Lightning (10s/move) or Blitz? There is a World Blitz Championship. It was a 20-player double APA last year, with Aronian winning. Not sure about Lightning.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Do you mean Lightning (10s/move) or Blitz? There is a World Blitz Championship. It was a 20-player double APA last year, with Aronian winning. Not sure about Lightning.

Hi Alex

Thanks for your response I mean Lightning (10s/move)

Lightning chess (10s per move, or similar) is not very popular these days and to the best of my knowledge there is no World Championship for this format.

David Sedgwick wrote:Lightning chess (10s per move, or similar) is not very popular these days and to the best of my knowledge there is no World Championship for this format.

Not very popular? If you say so, but it's not unknown in the West Midlands. There's an annual Lightning Chess Team Tournament run by the Birmingham and District Chess League. Last year 15 four-person teams competed (plus reserves). The year before that it was won by Sutton Coldfield Chess Club, which itself runs a couple of lightning tourneys each summer.

MSoszynski wrote:

David Sedgwick wrote:Lightning chess (10s per move, or similar) is not very popular these days and to the best of my knowledge there is no World Championship for this format.

Not very popular? If you say so, but it's not unknown in the West Midlands. There's an annual Lightning Chess Team Tournament run by the Birmingham and District Chess League. Last year 15 four-person teams competed (plus reserves). The year before that it was won by Sutton Coldfield Chess Club, which itself runs a couple of lightning tourneys each summer.

I've never played a game of Lightning chess in my life!

The only reason Lightning was popular was that it was a good way of running a speed chess competition in the days where clocks were few and far between. This is no longer a problem, so why not revert to plan A, which would be to give everyone a clock and play Blitz?

I wouldn't be interested in playing in the BDCL Lightning Tournament. Make it Blitz, and we'd field a team for sure.

"The only reason Lightning was popular was that it was a good way of running a speed chess competition in the days where clocks were few and far between."

The first part is not true. Just because you hate it does not mean that everybody does!

"This is no longer a problem, so why not revert to plan A, which would be to give everyone a clock and play Blitz?"

Lightning requires different skills - actually getting into a rhythm of moving as the buzzer sounds and playing some sort of coherent move is not easy. I prefer lightning to blitz, partly as it's not decided by one player running out of time.

The drawback to lightning is when people move after the buzzer, which is a bit difficult to police (without starting huge arguments). On the other hand, it doesn't destroy the clocks.

The trouble with serious tournaments for lightning and blitz is that people tend to cheat more than in normal chess. Bring on a British Lightning championship and a Chess960 one as well...

My club has a lightning competition which is still going strong

Kevin Thurlow wrote: The drawback to lightning is when people move after the buzzer, which is a bit difficult to police (without starting huge arguments). On the other hand, it doesn't destroy the clocks.

Use digital clocks and set them to something like 30 seconds initial plus 10 seconds delay or increment. Increment might work better as you can then ignore the clock provided you are moving quickly enough.

10 seconds a move was far too slow for openings and also for playing out completely won endings. Did the rules in the USA allow players to move and reply ahead of the buzzer?

Alex H - I think giving everyone a clock would cause huge problems. I prefer to give, on average, half a timing device each to each competitor in a tournament.

With lightning there was always the problem of the player moving late but this paled into insignificance compared to the problems caused by players moving early.
You would then have the player who moved early complaining that the opponent did not move on the next buzz and an arguement developing. Another scenario would be that the person who now had 15 seconds or so of thinking time would hear the buzzer and with 'Pablov's dogs' type reactions then try to move on the next buzzer and realise they didn't have to with tremendous confusion and dispute following.

Thank you to everyone for your comments - once again you have all raised some interesting thoughts and ideas to my posts

Alex McFarlane wrote:Alex H - I think giving everyone a clock would cause huge problems. I prefer to give, on average, half a timing device each to each competitor in a tournament.

We're much more liberal with our clock use in Birmingham.

"Use digital clocks and set them to something like 30 seconds initial plus 10 seconds delay or increment. Increment might work better as you can then ignore the clock provided you are moving quickly enough. "

perhaps misses the point... But we have settled on 0 + 20 seconds addition, as being least bad, apart from buying a new buzzer for an annual event. 10 seconds wasn't enough as everyone panicked and moved after 4 seconds, as you don't have time to look at the clock.

Our lightning tournament was an an annual fun event near Christmas - people can play blitz any time.

Kevin Thurlow wrote:"Use digital clocks and set them to something like 30 seconds initial plus 10 seconds delay or increment. Increment might work better as you can then ignore the clock provided you are moving quickly enough. "

perhaps misses the point... But we have settled on 0 + 20 seconds addition, as being least bad, apart from buying a new buzzer for an annual event. 10 seconds wasn't enough as everyone panicked and moved after 4 seconds, as you don't have time to look at the clock.

Try delay mode instead (sometimes called Bronstein mode). That delays the counting down of the clock until the free time is used up, and seems ideal to use instead of a buzzer. You just build in a few minutes/seconds of 'reserve' time that people can use up if they chose to do so, though you would expect people to move as soon as their time starts decreasing (this is equivalent to the buzzer going). Ideally, the clock would buzz or beep at the point the free time (the 'delay') is used up, but it can be seen visually as well for those who might not hear that.

I'd like to return to the pure form with buzzer and say 10 secs. per (half) move and benefits of a Championship.
Like Kevin T and others above, I've played in a club Swiss and my opinion is that serious Lightning is better suited to matches.
Most games would be over within 10 to 30 mins. Even very long games (up to 180 moves) take less than an hour.
As games are played at an even tempo, like baseline tennis, the audience wouldn't have to wait a random time, nor struggle to then digest a flurry of moves!