Fast chess
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, 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 divides time controls for chess into "classical" time controls, and the fast chess time controls., for master-level players the regulations state that at least 120 minutes per player must be allocated 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 faster than these time controls are rated for rapid and blitz if they comply with the time controls for those categories.Players of fast and blitz chess are exempt from the requirement to record their moves onto a scoresheet. The arbiter or their assistant is responsible for the recording in competitions. Electronic recording is preferred.
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.Rapid (FIDE), quick (USCF), or active
Time controls for each player in a game of rapid chess are, according to FIDE, more than 10 minutes but less than 60 minutes. Rapid chess can be played with or without time increments for each move. When time increments are used, a player can automatically gain, for instance, ten more seconds on the clock after each move. Rapid chess was called active chess by FIDE between 1987 and 1989.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 game of blitz chess are, according to FIDE, 10 minutes or less per player. This can be played with or without an increment or delay per move, made possible by the adoption of digital clocks. In the case of time increments, the total time per player for a 60-move game must be 10 minutes or less.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.
Either blitz or bullet is sometimes called lightning chess.
Bullet
Bullet chess games have less than three minutes per player, based on a 40-move game; some chess servers rate one-minute-per-player games separately. Lower time controls are called "hyperbullet" and "ultrabullet" for 30-second-per-player and 15-second-per-player games, respectively. Other common time-control options for bullet games include two minutes with one-second increment, one minute with a two-second increment, or one minute with one-second increment. The use of increment in bullet chess is primarily to avoid issues with latency, as well as to discourage playing from a lost position in order to win on time.Online bullet chess avoids practical problems associated with live bullet chess, particularly players accidentally knocking over the pieces. Playing online also allows premoving, or committing to a move before the opponent has taken their turn.
Armageddon
A variant of blitz 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.To compensate for giving Black draw odds, White has more time on the clock. Common times are six minutes for White and five minutes for Black or five minutes for White and four minutes for Black. This can also be played with a small increment. If there is no increment, then difficult questions arise when players must try to flag in trivial draws, which happened in the Women's World Chess Championship 2008 in the match between Monika Soćko and Sabina-Francesca Foisor. With a small increment, the time odds need to be larger to keep the situation balanced: Norway Chess has used 10 minutes to 7 minutes.
Some tournaments utilise 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 minimises the perceived unfairness of Armageddon time controls that are decided in advance before a tournament with colours randomly allocated. Such an idea is reminiscent of the logical use case of fair cake-cutting.
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 using engines an alternative solution, allowing for equal times: Black has draw odds, but is not allowed to castle short. 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 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.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 is reduced by comparison, meaning that players will either lose or gain fewer rating points compared to a solely Quick or Regular game. Any time control over 65 minutes counts under the Regular rating only. All of these time controls include the delay added to the time control, such as a 60-minute game with a 5-second delay, which is still considered to be a 60-minute game, not a 65-minute game.
As of March 2013, the USCF has also 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.
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 and Nigel Short played a 6-game exhibition Rapid match 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 was held contemporaneously to the Melody Amber rapids, 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 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 also held a World Rapid Cup in some of these years, and the annual Amber chess tournament 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.