Fast chess, also known as speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is allowed significantly less time than classical chess time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz chess, and bullet chess. Armageddon chess is a variant of fast chess with draw odds for black and unequal time controls, usually used as a tiebreaker of last resort.
As of December 2025, the top-ranked rapid chess player and the top-ranked blitz chess player in the open section is Magnus Carlsen from Norway, who is also the top-ranked classical chess player. As of December 2025, Magnus is also the reigning World Rapid Chess Champion and World Blitz Chess Champion.
As of December 2025, the top ranked rapid female chess player and the top-ranked blitz female chess player is Hou Yifan of China, who is also the top-ranked female classical chess player. As of December 2025, the reigning Women's World Rapid Chess Champion is Aleksandra Goryachkina from Russia and the reigning Women's World Blitz Chess Champion is Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan.
FIDE rules The World Chess Federation (FIDE) divides time controls for chess into classical, rapid, and blitz. , for master-level players (with an Elo of 2400 or higher), each player must have at least 120 minutes (based on a 60-move game) for a game to be rated on the classical list; for lower-rated players, this can be reduced to as little as 60 minutes. Games played at faster time controls can be rated for rapid and blitz if they comply with the time controls for those categories.
Unlike in classical games, players are not required to record their moves onto a scoresheet in rapid and blitz (A.2). The arbiter or their assistant is responsible for the recording in competitions, preferably electronically. (A.3.1.2, B.3.1.2).
Overview A fast chess game can be further divided into several categories, which are primarily distinguished by the selection of time controls. Games may be played with or without time increments per move. Each player's playing time is determined by adding their base time to the sum of the bonus times per move.
Rapid Time controls for each player in a rapid game are, according to FIDE, more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes based on a 60-move game. Rapid chess is called quick chess by the US Chess Federation. For the FIDE World Rapid Championship, each player has 15 minutes plus 10 seconds additional time per move starting from move 1.
Blitz Time controls for each player in a blitz game are, according to FIDE, 10 minutes or less per player based on a 60-move game. Before the widespread adoption of increment in the early 2000s, 5 minutes for the game was most common. Since then, 3 minutes with a 2-second increment has usually been preferred. The World Blitz Chess Championship has used this since 2009.
Bullet Time controls for each player in a bullet game are, according to Chess.com and Lichess, less than three minutes per player based on a 40-move game. The most common time-control for bullet games is one minute with no increment. Chess.com's Bullet Chess Championship has used this control since its inception. The lack of increment often encourages playing from a lost or drawn position in order to win on time, known as dirty flagging. Lichess has an additional designation for games with less than 30 seconds per player, called hyperbullet or ultrabullet.
Due to practical problems associated with playing bullet chess over-the-board such as players accidentally knocking over the pieces, bullet chess is almost exclusively played online. Playing online also allows premoving, which is committing to a move before the opponent has taken their turn.
Armageddon Armageddon chess is a variant of speed chess where a drawn game is counted as a win for Black. This guarantees the game ends decisively, so it can be used as a final tiebreaker game. It was used in tournaments such as the Chess World Cup as a tiebreaker. Since 2019, in Norway Chess, players play an armageddon game after each drawn classical game.
To compensate for giving Black draw odds, White has more time on the clock. Common times are six minutes to five minutes or five minutes to four minutes. If there is no increment, then difficult questions arise when players must try to dirty flag,Kaufman 2021, pp. 207–210 which happened in the Women's World Chess Championship 2008 in the match between Monika Soćko and Sabina-Francesca Foisor. Armageddon can also be played with a small increment, but the time odds needs to be larger to keep the situation balanced.Larry Kaufman, Chess Board Options (2021), chapter 30 Norway Chess has used 10 minutes to 7 minutes, with a 1-second increment starting from move 40.
Some tournaments utilize a bidding system for individual players of each match to decide how little time they would be willing to play with as black. The player with the lower bid for each match receives the black pieces with draw odds. This system can be seen as fairer than randomly allocating colors.
Armageddon chess does not scale well to slower time controls, as even in rapid the necessary time odds would need to be too large; in correspondence events or engine vs. engine events, it is simply unworkable. Larry Kaufman, Kai Laskos, and Stephen Pohl have tested an alternative solution using engines (Stockfish, Komodo, and Houdini), allowing for equal times: Black has draw odds, but is not allowed to castle kingside. Engine tests suggest that this is fair, although it has yet to be tried in practice by human grandmasters.
History and rules Before the advent of digital clocks, five minutes per side was the standard for blitz or speed chess. Before the introduction of chess clocks, chess club "rapid transit" tournaments had referees who called out every ten seconds. The Washington Divan (2445 15th St. NW) had regular weekly games and used a special clock that beeped every ten seconds to indicate the time to move. Players had to use their full ten seconds and move on the bell.
In 1988, Walter Browne formed the World Blitz Chess Association and its magazine Blitz Chess, which folded in 2003.
In some chess tournaments and matches, the final standings of the contestants are decided by a series of games with ever-shortening control times as tie breaks. In this case, two games may be played with each time control, as playing with black or white pieces is not equally liked among players. The short time controls in fast chess reduce the amount of time available to consider each move, and may result in a frantic game, especially as time runs out. A player whose time runs out automatically loses, unless the opposing player has insufficient material to checkmate, in which case the game is a draw. "Losing on time" is possible at even the longer, traditional time controls, but is more common in blitz and rapid versions.
Play is governed by the FIDE Laws of Chess, except as modified by a specific tournament. However, in case of a dispute during a tournament, either player may stop the clock and call the arbiter to make a final and binding judgment.
Chess boxing uses a fast version for the chess component of the sport, granting 9 minutes for each side with no increment.
USCF rules for Quick and Blitz chess The rules for fast chess differ between FIDE and the USCF. USCF also calculates playing time based on a 60-move game.
With the USCF, a game with more than 10 minutes affects the Quick rating, and the upper bounds for this rating is capped at 65 minutes per player. As 30-minute to 65-minute-per-player time controls are also under the Regular rating system, these games affect both the Quick and Regular ratings and are known as dual-rated games. However, the K-factor (a statistic used for rating calculations) is reduced by comparison, meaning that players will either lose or gain (or rarely both) fewer rating points compared to a solely Quick or Regular game. Any time control over 65 minutes counts under the Regular rating only.
In March 2013, the USCF added a separate Blitz class rating for any time control between 5 and 10 minutes per player. It is not possible for a game to be dual rated as both Blitz and Quick. Unlike Quick chess, 5 minutes can also mean game 3+2 (three minutes with a two-second increment).
World championships
Both official and unofficial FIDE-sponsored world championships for fast chess have been held since the 1970s.
World Rapid championships before 2012 In 1987, Garry Kasparov (the World Champion of classical chess at the time) and Nigel Short played a 6-game exhibition Rapid match ("Speed Chess Challenge") at the London Hippodrome, won by Kasparov 4–2.
The 1988 victory by Anatoly Karpov in Mazatlán was officially called the World Active Championship, but FIDE changed the word 'active' to 'rapid' soon after.
In 1992, FIDE held the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Budapest, Hungary. Both Rapid and Blitz Championships were won by Susan Polgar.
The 2001 victory by Garry Kasparov in the FIDE World Cup of Rapid Chess (organized by the French Chess Federation in Cannes) was held contemporaneously to the Melody Amber rapids (thus splitting the top players between the two events), and it is sometimes considered to be official, although it was never named as a "championship" but rather a "world cup".
Viswanathan Anand won the official FIDE 2003 Rapid Championship at the 6th Cap d'Agde event. After no bids in 2004, FIDE optioned the 2005 Rapid to Cap d'Agde, but it was not held. Teimour Radjabov won the 2006 7th Cap d’Agde Rapid Chess Tournament, but this had no FIDE status.
The yearly Frankfurt or Mainz events hosted by the Chess Tigers (2001–2010) were considered as the traditional rapid chess championship, and it often received world championship billing in the absence of an annual FIDE-recognized championship. In its last two years, the 2009 Grenkeleasing World Rapid Chess Championship in Mainz was won by Levon Aronian, and the 2010 Open GRENKE Rapid World Championship in Mainz was won by Gata Kamsky. The Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) also held a World Rapid Cup in some of these years, and the annual Amber chess tournament (1992 to 2011) also had a rapid segment. There was also occasionally a Eurotel Trophy or Intel Grand Prix event, each of which would be of high stature.
World Blitz championships before 2012 The first unofficial Speed Chess Championship of the World (or World Blitz Championship) was held in Herceg Novi on 8 April 1970. This was shortly after the first USSR versus the rest of the world match (in Belgrade), in which ten of these players also competed. Eleven Grandmasters and one International Master played a double round-robin tournament. Bobby Fischer won first place, with a score of 19 points out of a possible 22. Fischer scored seventeen wins, four draws, and one loss (to Viktor Korchnoi). Mikhail Tal was a distant second, 4½ points behind.Brady, 1973, p. 164 Fischer won both games against each of Tal, Tigran Petrosian, and Vasily Smyslov; all of them were past World Champions.
By 1971, the Russian and Moscow five-minute championships had been going several years, with Tal, Bronstein, and Petrosian all having success. That year, Fischer played in a blitz tournament organised by the Manhattan Chess Club, and scored 21½/22.Barden, Leonard, The value of blitz chess, The Guardian, 4 October 1971 There were also strong tournaments in Bugojno (in 1978), which was won by Karpov; and Nikšić (in 1983), which was won by Kasparov.
In 1987, the S.W.I.F.T. super-tournament was held in Brussels, Belgium; first prize was shared by Garry Kasparov and Ljubomir Ljubojević. The first FIDE-sponsored World Blitz Championship was won by Mikhail Tal in 1988.
In 1992, FIDE held the Women's World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Budapest, Hungary. Both Rapid and Blitz Championships were won by Susan Polgar.