World Blitz Championship Nov 7-8, 2008

As you can see to the left, I've added the newsfeed to the World Blitz Championship 2008 in Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan. I've been looking forward to this event, bad news for me is that I do have yet ANOTHER doctor's appt. on Nov, 7. I hope I don't miss too many games. I am going to try (to the best of my ability) to keep up with the games and post them on my website (this would be all of them) and special ones here. Here is the list of players committed to playing at this date.

Participants:

Amin Bassem (Egypt)*
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan)*
Krishnan Sasikiran (India)
Gata Kamsky (USA)*
Alexander Morozevitch (Russia)
Leinier Domiguez Perez (Cuba)*
Rafael Vaganian (Armenia)
Sergey Rublevsky (Russia)
Teimur Radjabov (Azerbaijan)
Vlad Tkachev (France)
Peter Svidler (Russia)
Alexander Grischuk (Russia)
Boris Gelfand (Israel)
Judit Polgar (Hungary)
Vassiliy Ivanchuk (Ukraine)
Murtas Kazhgaleev (Kazakhstan)
(Spelling of Names at Official Site)

* Known to have played TransWarp

Also, I wanted to update my list of World Junior Champions played by TransWarp. Order is: ICC handle; Real Name; Country Represented; Year Won; Site of Tournament.

Dlugy: GM Maxim Dlugy USA (1985) Sharjah, UAE
GMAlex: GM Emil Sutovsky Israel (1996) Medellin, Colombia
junior: GM Ilya Gurevich USA (1990) Santiago, Chile
garompon: GM Pablo Zarnicki Argentina (1992) Buenos Aires, Argentina
A-Adly: GM Ahmed Adly Egypt (2007) Yerevan, Armenia
tomcruise: GM Pentala Harikrishna (2004) Kochi, India
azerichess: GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2-time Winner (2003) Nahkchivan, Nahkchivan Autonomous Republic (2005) Istanbul, Turkey

These are of course the U-20 Champions who now are given the GM Title if they win the tournament as it's so strong. 1994's winner GM Helgi Grétarsson being the first to get the award (source Wikipedia). It's pretty cool to have had these GM's play TransWarp, No World Champion as far as I know, or other World Junior Champions...but with so many anonymous GM's playing, who knows! Of all the WJC's above, Dlugy has played TransWarp the most I would say, with 305 ICC searchable games, don't think he has played any bullet (again, these aren't saved on the server). TransWarp just passed 10,500 games with 2 games from former World u-18 Champion Robert Kempinski! As I look at the u-18, u-16, u-14, u-12 and u-10 World Junior Champions, I see many more who have progressed to FM, IM & GM status (Even untitled Jorge Sammour-Hasbun! Representing Honduras at the time, tied with John Viloria of the US in the u-10 category in 1988, ICC handle NECF-InSchools & 2 year in a row Dos Hermanas online tournament champion. Maybe I will do a post on all those Champions who have played on an even slower day! :)