The first round of the Blitz Grand Prix Chess tournament, sponsored by Muscat Motors, was held last Sunday at the Malta Chess Federation headquarters in Sliema.

Blitz Chess is very fast Chess with players having only five minutes to finish an entire game. The Grand Prix is played over nine month after which the player with the highest number of points is declared as the Muscat Motors Blitz Grand Prix Chess Champion 2004.

The current Grand Prix Champion is FIDE Master Geoffrey Borg who conceded only one draw in all his games last year. Undoubtedly Borg is the man to beat and all the top players look forward to upset his record as the competition progresses.

The seven round event attracted only fourteen participants however some of the battles made up for this low turnout. Borg made it 7/7 yet again with Gauci coming close to taking half a point in a slightly superior end-game which he then lost terribly.

Dane Torben Sorensen managed six points out of seven and placed second overall while third and fourth were taken by Mark Cardona and Simovic Predrag respectively.