02.13.11 It's fast paced. It's fun. It's maddening. It's blitz chess of course. At the Bangor Blitz Championship, held at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor on February 13th, fifteen players each played eighteen games at five minutes a side. Winners in the Open section were Steve Abrahams, Andrew Seavey and Dan DeLuca. Zach Hamilton, Josh Audibert and Haley DeLuca Lowell took first, second and third respectively in the merged U1000 section.

Each player played two games (one with the white pieces and one with the black pieces) against nine opponents at G/5. (That's a total of five minutes for each side for the entire game.) There was no increment, that is there was no added time after each move, and no delay time. Illegal moves called by an opponent immediately lost the game. It was rough and tumble chess and lots of fun.

We hope to see more of these events in Maine in the near future.

This tournament was organized and directed by Steve Abrahams and Andy Bryan.

USCF Crosstable of this event

Tournament winner Steve Abrahams and...

...Tournament Director Steve Abrahams

Winners in the merged U1000 section (left to right) Josh Audibert (second), Haley DeLuca Lowell (third) and Zach Hamilton (first)

Second place finisher Andrew Seavey (right) plays Haley DeLuca Lowell in the seventh round.

Yuri Riabkov (right) and Jiawei Zou begin their game in round seven.

Josh Audibert (right) chats with Nicolas Kawamura before beginning their game.

Nicholas Kawamura

Deanna Power (left) plays MECA President Andy Bryan.

Deanna Power on the move.

Players gather to check the pairing sheet.

University of Maine student Gabriel Noblesmith

Jiawei Zou

Bill Gallagher (left) plays Rob Shore.

Haley DeLuca Lowell