2012 British Blitz Championship

Details of upcoming UK events, please provide working links if possible.
Richard Bates
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Richard Bates » Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:19 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
The choice of software was basically either Tournament Director or Swiss Master. We concluded that the latter was preferable out of the two, because it did pairings properly. Double rounds are possible with this, but it's a bit of a faff. Hence single rounds. Neither software does double rounds particularly well.
Why do they find it so difficult? Isn't it just single round pairing rules without colours? How can that be a more problematic algorithm?

Richard Bates
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Richard Bates » Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:24 pm

Mike Truran wrote:I'm sure we could put the start time back an hour if that means a torrent of entries. On the other hand, the likelihood of missing out on dinner and on drinking time at the bar might deter an equal number of entries......
True, although the timing might be completely irrelevant if that is the consideration! And to be fair i'm speaking from the perspective of someone who is usually there on the Friday night, albeit after catching an off-peak train from London, and therefore judging by the (few) other people who are around when i arrive. And that's usually closer to 9pm than 7pm.

I guess your main target is people who don't normally arrive on Friday for other reasons, who if attracted may have no issues about getting there earlier.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Dec 16, 2011 8:27 am

Richard Bates wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:
The choice of software was basically either Tournament Director or Swiss Master. We concluded that the latter was preferable out of the two, because it did pairings properly. Double rounds are possible with this, but it's a bit of a faff. Hence single rounds. Neither software does double rounds particularly well.
Why do they find it so difficult? Isn't it just single round pairing rules without colours? How can that be a more problematic algorithm?
The software will do pairings for Round 1. At this point you can either enter the result as 1-0, 0-1 or 1/2-1/2. Unless there's a better way of doing it, the only way around this is to manually input the reverse pairings for Round 2, and put the result as 1-0, 0-1 or 1/2-1/2 again. (OK, you may have other variations, but you get the idea.) There's no option to put in 2-0, 1-1, 0-2, 1/2-1 1/2 or 1 1/2-1/2.

If you don't consider that to be a faff - I do - you still have a problem with this solution. If in Round 1 you were white, and Round 2 you were black, then in Round 3 you'd still be paired as if you were a white seeker, even though you're supposed to be colour neutral.

I'm sure it's not a particularly problematic algorithm to code, but it nevertheless isn't coded!

Mike Truran
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Mike Truran » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:17 am

I guess your main target is people who don't normally arrive on Friday for other reasons, who if attracted may have no issues about getting there earlier.
That's right - the hope is that we will attract greater bedroom occupancy on the Friday night by offering a not too serious event with some decent prizes (and of course a complimentary bottle of wine for all entrants who book a room on the Friday night). The thinking was that people wouldn't have to take too much time off work if they wanted to play, and would also still have time at the end of the day to unwind. We thought about splitting it between the Friday and the Saturday, but felt that on balance people would prefer to have the Saturday morning free.

Whether we've got the formula right though is another matter! Friday night bedroom bookings are already up from previous weekends, but we need to get to 50 bedroom bookings to make the event viable. So any and all support will be gratefully received.

For further details see 'Barcelo Blitz Friday' in the 'Congress Diary' section.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:23 pm

How did the topic drift from the 2012 British Blitz Championship to the 4NCL 'Barcelo Blitz Friday'? One event is in Quinton on 24 March 2012, the other is on 13 January 2012 in Hinckley. Maybe some of the posts here could be moved to this thread?

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3673

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Alex Holowczak » Fri Dec 16, 2011 3:34 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:How did the topic drift from the 2012 British Blitz Championship to the 4NCL 'Barcelo Blitz Friday'?
It's not that tangential. The format of the British Blitz was questioned, and I compared it to the format of another blitz event. There have been worse deviations on here!

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Fri Dec 16, 2011 4:08 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:How did the topic drift from the 2012 British Blitz Championship to the 4NCL 'Barcelo Blitz Friday'?
It's not that tangential. The format of the British Blitz was questioned, and I compared it to the format of another blitz event. There have been worse deviations on here!
Yeah. This one was rather subtle, though. I was only skimming the thread and when I got to end I thought - hang on, they seem to be talking about a different event. I had to go back and read the thread again more closely before I realised that the subject had changed. Hopefully you won't get people turning up to one event thinking it is the other one!

Steve Lloyd
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Steve Lloyd » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:54 pm

I'm pleased to know there will be a blitz championships in a fairly central location. I may attend. Just curious, what is the reason for the extra 3 second increment?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:15 pm

Steve Lloyd wrote:what is the reason for the extra 3 second increment?
Provided you can play semi-sensible moves within 3 seconds, it avoids the issue of having a won position with insufficient time to play it. Try 10.2 as a search term :) . Whilst Blitz used to be outside of the area where arbiters could determine results, recent changes have extended this to Blitz under some circumstances where there is no increment.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:49 pm

Steve Lloyd wrote:I'm pleased to know there will be a blitz championships in a fairly central location. I may attend. Just curious, what is the reason for the extra 3 second increment?
Roger is close.

Now is the time for the story in the Women's World Championship in 2008. (Roger will no doubt link to the Chessbase article!) The match in question had reached an Armageddon game; i.e. white has an extra minute, if black draws, black goes through. The position on the board was KN v KN, with white having more time. The Laws of Chess do not say that this is a drawn position, since there is a legal series of moves that lead to checkmate. And so, the game carried on apace. The black player couldn't bash out 50 moves quickly enough, or get rid of her Knight. (Of course, without her Knight it's a draw immediately!) You can't make a 10.2 claim in blitz, so she had no way out of the situation.

The three-second increment means that if you get to KN v KN, you don't have to fear losing a clock-bashing contest where neither player is trying to win (or where you're down to KN v KN or KB v KN, for example), because you won't lose on time. Any sensible people would thus agree a draw, being unable to win.

Why three seconds specifically, as opposed to any other increment? Because 5 minutes + 3 seconds (Bronstein) per move is a default setting on the clock, so we don't have to program it manually!

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:02 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:(Of course, without her Knight it's a draw immediately!) You can't make a 10.2 claim in blitz, so she had no way out of the situation.
The "adequate supervision" wording introduced by Stewart Reuben and others at the Rules meeting after the KN v KN experience, goes some way to introducing it.

Using a Bronstein setting is unusual in the UK, this means your clock time will stick for 3 seconds, but never increase.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:55 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:(Of course, without her Knight it's a draw immediately!) You can't make a 10.2 claim in blitz, so she had no way out of the situation.
The "adequate supervision" wording introduced by Stewart Reuben and others at the Rules meeting after the KN v KN experience, goes some way to introducing it.
Indeed, but in an Open Swiss, there would never be adequate supervision. Hence we need the increment!
Roger de Coverly wrote:Using a Bronstein setting is unusual in the UK, this means your clock time will stick for 3 seconds, but never increase.
Indeed it is unusual.

The DGT 2010 treats the delay slightly differently. Your clock always runs, but you start the game with 5.03 not 5.00. So what you see is what you've got. After you've pressed the clock, you can never have less than 0.03.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:07 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:The DGT 2010 treats the delay slightly differently. Your clock always runs, but you start the game with 5.03 not 5.00. So what you see is what you've got. After you've pressed the clock, you can never have less than 0.03.
So how does it work? Is it that it takes off the time actually used minus 3 seconds, but never adds? So if you start with 5.03 and take two seconds, you have 5.03 again. If you take four seconds, the clock counts down to 4.59 and then flips back to 5.02.

Ian Thompson
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by Ian Thompson » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:21 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:The DGT 2010 treats the delay slightly differently. Your clock always runs, but you start the game with 5.03 not 5.00. So what you see is what you've got. After you've pressed the clock, you can never have less than 0.03.
That doesn't seem very good compared to the Bronstein time delay clocks I've used in America. They would show 5 minutes at the start of the game. When the clock was started, the display would remain at 5:00 for 3 seconds and then begin to count down. The better clocks had a second time displayed on them showing how much of the delay time had been used - so the main time would show 5:00, while the delay time counted down 3, 2, 1, 0. That's pretty useful if your main time is down to, say, 1 second, and you're having to make your move before the delay time expires.

LawrenceCooper
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Re: 2012 British Blitz Championship

Post by LawrenceCooper » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:00 am

Having just played the European Blitz and Rapid I'm a big fan of double round 3 minute + 2 second increment. Even though twenty six games in a day was tiring it was great fun and although the round times were running about half an hour behind schedule I think they coped pretty well with 400+ players albeit it was a bit of a nightmare fighting your way to the pairings every round!