Blitz - the Formula One of Chess
Of course, blitz is first and foremost chess. The board still has 32 black and 32 white squares, and the knight still moves two ahead and one to the side. If you touch a piece you must move it, and if you have played a move you cannot take it back.
And yet blitz is not quite like regular chess. In regular games you can often see a player thinking for 15 minutes or more on his next move. In blitz this is not possible: After five minutes the opponent will exclaim: "You have lost on time!"
The reason for this is that in blitz each player only has five minutes for the entire game. As a game can often last for 60 moves or more, you cannot spend too many seconds on each move. In blitz the moves are executed at a rapid pace. This is why blitz is sometimes called "the formula one of chess".
If a player runs out of time the game is irrevocably lost: It does not matter what the position on the board is like. There is one exception from this rule, however. It is not possible to win a game without enough pieces to mate the opponent. If a player only has the king left when his opponent runs out of time, the game is drawn. A single pawn is enough to win, however. Since the pawn can become a queen it is quite possible to mate the opponent with king and pawn.
Some rules in blitz differ from regular chess. By far the most important difference is that in blitz, an illegal move loses the game. One way of making an illegal move is by moving a piece in an incorrect manner, such as moving the rook diagonally.
The most common illegal move is caused by overlooking a check. If a player does not spot the check and plays a move which leaves the king in check, the opponent can claim a win. You do not have to announce a check, so it pays off to be attentive!
