2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

The very latest International round up of English news.
LozCooper

2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:31 am

2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

I am pleased to announce that the 2nd Big Slick International will take place from the 25th June to the 3rd July at the following address:

BIG SLICK, UNIT 10 ROYAL OAK CENTRE, BRIGHTON ROAD, PURLEY, SURREY CR8 2BG

Unlike the 1st event held in June 2009 when there was one all-play-all and a weekend tournament, this year there will be three ten player nine round all-play-alls with one section where it is possible to get GM norms and at least one additional section where IM norms will be possible. It will, of course, also be possible to get WGM and WIM norms in those sections.

The entry fees for the events are as follows:

GM norm event: £200 for titled players (IM/WGM/WIM/FM/WFM); £300 for non-titled.

IM norm events: £100 for titled players (WGM/WIM/FM/WFM); £150 for non-titled.

Rated events: £50 for all players.

The Chief Arbiter will be International Arbiter David Sedgwick. Simon Williams and I will co-organise the event.

The time limit will be 40 moves in 2 hours followed by a further 30 minutes for all remaining moves. All rounds will start at 12.30 and finish by 17:30. Players arriving one hour or more after the start of a round shall lose, unless the arbiter decides otherwise.

I would like to thank The Friends of Chess and the John Robinson Trust for their kind offers of financial support for the event.

I encourage Grandmasters who are interested in playing to contact me regarding conditions at [email protected]

The winner(s) of the rated section(s) will receive free entry to the 2012 Big Slick IM norm section and the winner(s) of the IM norm section(s) will free receive entry to the 2012 GM norm event.

Lawrence Cooper
Big Slick Co-organiser
29th March 2011

PS Please make cheques payable to Mr L Cooper and send to the following address:
Mr L Cooper
11 Sandringham Close
Baswich
Stafford
ST17 0AB
Last edited by LozCooper on Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:34 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Gareth Harley-Yeo
Posts: 307
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:58 pm
Location: Wales
Contact:

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Gareth Harley-Yeo » Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:11 pm

will Simon be putting up lists of registered players on his gingergm site?

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:36 pm

Gareth Harley-Yeo wrote:will Simon be putting up lists of registered players on his gingergm site?
I hope that will be the case. I'll be keeping him updated and doing most of the organising myself prior to the event.

Simon Ansell
Posts: 509
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 10:27 am

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Simon Ansell » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:43 pm

Tournament website http://www.gingergm.com/bigslick will hopefully be updated regularly!

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Tue Apr 19, 2011 5:19 pm

Please note that I will accept entries from non-titled but rated players to the IM section(s) for £100 if payment is received by the 30th April. It will help me decide if two IM sections are required. Please contact me if you wish to take advantage of this at [email protected] or via private message on here.

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Sun May 15, 2011 12:20 pm

http://www.gingergm.com/2011/05/11/2nd- ... f-players/

List of players entered/registered so far.

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:39 am

Some amendments to the information above; round times are now 12:30-17:30, all players will now pay £50 to enter the rated event including unrated players and due to the poker times it won't be possible to hold a blitz event after round 9.

I am currently looking for one norm seeker for the GM event (due to a withdrawal this week) with a rating of 2400+ although others may be considered and there is the possibility of a place for a norm seeker in the IM norm section rated 2093+. There are also several places available in the rated section for both rated and unrated players.

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:49 pm

Some slight amendments to the player requirements:

GM norm section: 1 player of any nationality rated 2401+

IM norm section: 1 player of any nationality or rating + 1 rated 2173+ (if I promote a player from this section to the IM norm event)

Rated section: Places still available for rated and unrated players. I may also consider players who can't play the full nine days so it's worth contacting me if you only want to play over the weekends or part of the nine days.

Mark Howitt
Posts: 829
Joined: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:20 pm
Contact:

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Mark Howitt » Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:14 pm

Shows just how little money there is in chess if an IM has to pay 200 pounds to play in an event!

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:44 pm

That's cheap for an IM to play an all-play-all for GM norms.

Mark Howitt
Posts: 829
Joined: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:20 pm
Contact:

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Mark Howitt » Sat Jun 11, 2011 10:42 pm

Well.... if I was an IM I'd want to be paid for playing in a tournament!

Seems to me in the UK, being an IM still means chess is a hobby- if you just want to play, not teach anyway. Someone who's an IM is obviously very good at chess... but by playing there are very few ways for him to make money. Even if he reaches GM level, he'd have to get to at least 2600 to make at least an OK living at it... so playing in GM norm events isn't a very prudent investment, moneywise.

Wish there was a bit more money in chess, but at least one of the IMs in the tournament makes a lot from poker so he is doing nicely financially!

Sean Hewitt

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Sean Hewitt » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:07 pm

Mark Howitt wrote:Well.... if I was an IM I'd want to be paid for playing in a tournament!

Seems to me in the UK, being an IM still means chess is a hobby- if you just want to play, not teach anyway. Someone who's an IM is obviously very good at chess... but by playing there are very few ways for him to make money. Even if he reaches GM level, he'd have to get to at least 2600 to make at least an OK living at it... so playing in GM norm events isn't a very prudent investment, moneywise.
I think you need to be realistic. A rating of 2480 world rank you 1000 in the world. In tennis, the player ranked 1000 is a chap called George Morgan. He happens to be a Brit (ranked 27 in Britain). Do you know what his ATP tour winnings are this year? $1000. Given that he has played 8 tournaments and has to pay his own way in them, he is definitely showing a net loss. Your 2480 chess player probably makes a better living than the tennis player does (in terms of earnings from playing anyway).

In any individual sport you have to get to the very top echelon to make a serious living from playing.

LozCooper

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by LozCooper » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:08 pm

Mark Howitt wrote:Well.... if I was an IM I'd want to be paid for playing in a tournament!

Seems to me in the UK, being an IM still means chess is a hobby- if you just want to play, not teach anyway. Someone who's an IM is obviously very good at chess... but by playing there are very few ways for him to make money. Even if he reaches GM level, he'd have to get to at least 2600 to make at least an OK living at it... so playing in GM norm events isn't a very prudent investment, moneywise.

Wish there was a bit more money in chess, but at least one of the IMs in the tournament makes a lot from poker so he is doing nicely financially!
It's not just the UK. If you play in the First Saturday tournaments in Hungary you pay £300 or more if you want to play for a GM norm. The difference with the all-play-alls to an open is that you are guaranteed to play the necessary titled players to be guaranteed a chance of a GM norm. You could play in an open but play unrateds or not enough GMs.

If you want a fee as an IM in these types of events then you play in sections offering IM norms but then you don't have a chance to make a norm.

Of course it would be nice to have a sponsor and then I could run these events without having to put my own money in but until then I can only finance them as best I can and that means having to charge entry fees to recoup some of the money paid out to the GMs.

Mark Howitt
Posts: 829
Joined: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:20 pm
Contact:

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Mark Howitt » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:42 pm

Yeah- it's tough to make it to the top in tennis- but at least you know that if you DO reach the top ten you'll be earning millions of pounds each year... bit more than chessplayers!

I'm sure there are many more chessplayers than tennis players in the world too, so in terms of numbers it's harder to reach the top in chess.

Look at chess in the UK. There are at most three people who make a 'reasonable' living from it- Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Luke McShane. I haven't calculated their total amount of tournament winnings in a year (and chess isn't very transparent when it comes to earnings, as there are hidden 'appearence fees' in tournaments, and the amount players get for playing in leagues isn't known)... but I'd guess in terms of actual 'chess playing winnings' Adams might have got somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 last year. Short doesn't seem to play that many tournaments purely for the money these days- I'd take a guess at his 'chess playing winnings' being about £40,000-£70,000, McShane maybe about 35,000 to 50,000.

(I'm being generous in these figures and I'm sure they are a lot more than what is publically available for the amount they've won.)

They will probably have some 'non chess playing winnings' too... hard to quantify, but say Adams £10,000-20,000 Short £10,000-20,000 and McShane £5,000- again probably overestimated! (Anyone who can be bothered to add up how much they've won in tournaments or who has more info feel free to comment).

Of course it's tough to make it to the top in any individual sport, but the rewards are pretty big if you do so. Poker has quite a few similarities to chess, and there are quite a lot of people in the UK making a lot of money from it. I'm pretty certain the top 50 UK Pokerplayers all make £75,000 plus a year. In fact, probably more than that. Young British poker player has just won a 'triple crown' of poker tournaments- he's made millions of dollars in about a year.

Chess really cannot compete for anyone who wants to persue it as a way of making money- even Luke McShane, third best player in the UK, can get more money going back to his old job. Seems to me for a lot of IMs, they more or less just break even playing chess- maybe some even lose money! 99% of people who play chess in this country, at least... probably more like 99.5, lose money doing it. Shows how much you have to love the game to keep playing!

Alex Holowczak
Posts: 9085
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 5:18 pm
Location: Oldbury, Worcestershire
Contact:

Re: 2nd Big Slick International 25th June - 3rd July 2011

Post by Alex Holowczak » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:54 pm

Mark Howitt wrote:Yeah- it's tough to make it to the top in tennis- but at least you know that if you DO reach the top ten you'll be earning millions of pounds each year... bit more than chessplayers!
You reckon Anand doesn't earn £millions per year? He'll get something like £1 million just from any World Championship title defence he makes.
Mark Howitt wrote:I'm sure there are many more chessplayers than tennis players in the world too, so in terms of numbers it's harder to reach the top in chess.
Citation needed. There are only about 1500 World Ranked tennis players. The FIDE-rating list has tens of thousands of people on it.
Mark Howitt wrote:Chess really cannot compete for anyone who wants to persue it as a way of making money- even Luke McShane, third best player in the UK, can get more money going back to his old job. Seems to me for a lot of IMs, they more or less just break even playing chess- maybe some even lose money! 99% of people who play chess in this country, at least... probably more like 99.5, lose money doing it. Shows how much you have to love the game to keep playing!
I don't think you read what Sean wrote. IMs are almost insignificant on the global stage in terms of world ranking. I think you'll find that 99% of tennis players play it for the love of the game, and don't earn any money from it at all. In fact, they will probably pay a lot more for their tennis to the LTA than an equivalent chess tournament.

Post Reply