2012 British Blitz Championship

[Alex Holowczak]

The British Blitz Championship will take place at Quinborne Community Centre, Ridgacre Road, Quinton, West Midlands B32 2TW on Saturday, 24th March.

There will be 11 rounds at a time control of 5 minutes + 3 seconds (Bronstein) increment per move from move 1.

There is a prize fund of more than £600, which may increase depending on entries. The entry fee is £15; £10 for juniors; and free entry for holders of all FIDE playing titles that Stewart Reuben didn't invent. (I.e. GM, IM, FM, WGM, WIM, WFM)

The event will be FIDE-rated towards the new FIDE Blitz Rating List. Players do not need to be ECF members to participate in this event.

The 16th Birmingham League Rapidplay will be played in the same venue the following day, with a prize fund in excess of £1,000, and a FIDE-rated Open section.

The website is http://www.britishblitzchess.co.uk

You can enter online via the website, or download an entry form and post it.

[Roger de Coverly]

The event will be FIDE-rated towards the new FIDE Blitz Rating List. Players do not need to be ECF members to participate in this event.

Assuming non-members play enough relevant games to get a rating, will it be published by FIDE?

[Alex Holowczak]

The event will be FIDE-rated towards the new FIDE Blitz Rating List. Players do not need to be ECF members to participate in this event.

Assuming non-members play enough relevant games to get a rating, will it be published by FIDE?

Until FIDE start charging for people to appear on the Blitz list, I'm under the impression that it will.

In any case, I don't think it'll happen in practice; there aren't enough rounds.

[Roger de Coverly]

In any case, I don't think it'll happen in practice; there aren't enough rounds.

It's 9 games to qualify isn't it and all existing rated players ( including inactives?) are deemed provisionally rated. So play 9 games out of 11 against players with existing long play ratings, then you get a Blitz rating. That was my understanding of it anyway and why Stewart Reuben is suggesting that Club Blitz evenings can be used to get FIDE Blitz ratings.

[Alex Holowczak]

In any case, I don't think it'll happen in practice; there aren't enough rounds.

It's 9 games to qualify isn't it and all existing rated players ( including inactives?) are deemed provisionally rated. So play 9 games out of 11 against players with existing long play ratings, then you get a Blitz rating. That was my understanding of it anyway and why Stewart Reuben is suggesting that Club Blitz evenings can be used to get FIDE Blitz ratings.

You're right. What I meant was, 11 rounds maybe, but finding 9 rated opponents in those will be difficult if you're currently unrated.

[Alex McFarlane]

Does it have to be 9 games if you have a current FIDE rating?

FIDE have said that your initial Blitz rating will be your standard play rating. This can be taken to mean that even one game by a rated player will get a 'full' FIDE Blitz rating.

Will there be the anomoly of people appearing on the Blitz list who are delisted on the standard list?

[Roger de Coverly]

FIDE have said that your initial Blitz rating will be your standard play rating. This can be taken to mean that even one game by a rated player will get a 'full' FIDE Blitz rating.

The logical way of doing this and I think what is intended would be that you only get an official Blitz rating by playing 9 opponents with ratings, which includes, at least initially, those with estimated ratings equal to their standard play ratings.

Wouldn't the Scottish domestic grading system do something similar? So if you had a player with a FIDE rating taking part in Scottish domestic chess, they would count for their opponents at their FIDE rating, but would not have their own Scottish Elo as well until they had played the necessary minimum games.

(edit) The text of the FIDE announcement is on the Chess Scotland forum at
http://www.chessscotland.com/forum/view ... f=11&t=158
This appears to imply that all players with existing FIDE ratings will have new Blitz and Rapidplay ratings, but they will be the same as their standard rating unless they play a game. (/edit)

[Alex McFarlane]

This appears to imply that all players with existing FIDE ratings will have new Blitz and Rapidplay ratings, but they will be the same as their standard rating unless they play a game.

So my thoughts that you might then get a full blitz/rapidplay rating on one game would hold water.

Roger you are correct that you would need to fully 'earn' a Scottish grade but I'm not so sure the same is true for a rapidplay grade when your full Scottish grade is initially used.

[Neville Belinfante]

I'm confused. The announcement at the start of this thread says that ECF membership is not required. However correspondence with Howard Grist in relation to other rapidplay events says that ECF membership is required if the event is to count toward the new FIDE list.

I hope that someone can clarify this point.

[Alex Holowczak]

I'm confused. The announcement at the start of this thread says that ECF membership is not required. However correspondence with Howard Grist in relation to other rapidplay events says that ECF membership is required if the event is to count toward the new FIDE list.

I hope that someone can clarify this point.

Neville,

You're right. ECF membership is required for FIDE-rated Rapidplay events, but not for Blitz. This is because we ECF-grade Rapidplay events, but not Blitz events. That's what I was told, anyway.

We're running a FIDE-rated Rapidplay the day after this, and all English players will need to be ECF members to play in it.

[Richard Bates]

One of the great advantages of blitz tournaments is normally that colours are irrelevant because conventionally each round consists of two games. Why differ from this? 11 games is an unnecessarily small number IMO. Why not play 3'+2" (or even possibly 4'+2") double round which could still be fitted into the timetable with computer pairings?

[Alex Holowczak]

One of the great advantages of blitz tournaments is normally that colours are irrelevant because conventionally each round consists of two games. Why differ from this?

The software we're using handles single rounds better than double rounds. Given it generates FIDE-rating files, we were always going to use this software.

The blitz event at Hinckley Island alongside the next 4NCL weekend also has single rounds, so it's not that unique.

11 games is an unnecessarily small number IMO. Why not play 3'+2" (or even possibly 4'+2") double round which could still be fitted into the timetable with computer pairings?

Given the answer above, we thought 3' + 2'' would result in players spending more time waiting for the next game than playing. Dave T and I agreed that with 5' + 3'' format would need 25 minutes per round. Given how long the room was available for, we did numHours/(5/12), and came up with a number of rounds.

The other thing that appealed to me: 11 rounds is the same length as the British Championship and the British Rapidplay Championship.

[Richard Bates]

One of the great advantages of blitz tournaments is normally that colours are irrelevant because conventionally each round consists of two games. Why differ from this?

The software we're using handles single rounds better than double rounds. Given it generates FIDE-rating files, we were always going to use this software.

The blitz event at Hinckley Island alongside the next 4NCL weekend also has single rounds, so it's not that unique.

11 games is an unnecessarily small number IMO. Why not play 3'+2" (or even possibly 4'+2") double round which could still be fitted into the timetable with computer pairings?

Given the answer above, we thought 3' + 2'' would result in players spending more time waiting for the next game than playing. Dave T and I agreed that with 5' + 3'' format would need 25 minutes per round. Given how long the room was available for, we did numHours/(5/12), and came up with a number of rounds.

The other thing that appealed to me: 11 rounds is the same length as the British Championship and the British Rapidplay Championship.

Well fair enough it's your tournament. Of course 11 double rounds is still 11 rounds, just with five possible results from each individual contest rather than the normal 3. Personally i would think that designing a tournament partly around the software and some pretty meaningless FIDE ratings is putting the cart before the horse, but there we are. Of course, if necessary, manual pairing are a lot easier in double round contests because you can ignore colours.

It will be interesting to see how many entrants the 4NCL tournament gets - I reckon it is starting a bit early in the evening for many people who might possibly otherwise have entered.

[Mike Truran]

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......

[Alex Holowczak]

Personally i would think that designing a tournament partly around the software and some pretty meaningless FIDE ratings is putting the cart before the horse, but there we are. Of course, if necessary, manual pairing are a lot easier in double round contests because you can ignore colours.

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.

Manual pairings is a commitment. Not only do you have manual pairings, but you have manual wallcharts. As the busy organiser I now am, I would end up spending longer writing up wallcharts and pairing cards before the tournament than the entire tournament would last! This is undesirable to me in every way. I'm not convinced that once you've got that far, the manual pairings will be quicker than the computer can do them.

Anyway, we shall see.