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Blitz Events
#1
Dave Clayton is organising a series of evening blitz events. The Scottish ones are:

Ayr - Saturday 28 May
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Glasgow - Friday 3 June
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Edinburgh - Friday 24 June
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#2
Good to see the range of blitz events being expanded.

The homepage of the Edinburgh event indicates that it is a Saturday blitz event on 24 June. Assume it is Friday 24 June but important to get confirmed as planning to run a training seminar with Edinburgh CC that weekend.

Twice the reasons for chess players to visit Edinburgh on the weekend of 24 to 26 June!
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#3
JonathanIMGrant Wrote:Good to see the range of blitz events being expanded.

The homepage of the Edinburgh event indicates that it is a Saturday blitz event on 24 June. Assume it is Friday 24 June but important to get confirmed as planning to run a training seminar with Edinburgh CC that weekend.

Twice the reasons for chess players to visit Edinburgh on the weekend of 24 to 26 June!

Yes Jonathan, it is a Friday Evening 24 June. It is part of a mini series of 'Friday Evening FIDE Blitz' tournaments Fiona and I (and a few other volunteers) are organising. Except the Ayr one isn't on a Friday, its on a Saturday.

A bit of copy and paste obviously went wrong and the proof readers didn't spot it. But its corrected now.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

David
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#4
Alex, thanks for organising these blitz events.
I have just looked up my historical records and the Glasgow Blitz is the first time in my life I have scored 9/9 in an individual event.
The wonders of computers allow instant pairings and more rounds !
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#5
Dave Clayton is the one to thank.

He has been organising these events north and south of the border.

The next one is in Edinburgh. See <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://congress.popmalc.org.uk/congress/3/home">http://congress.popmalc.org.uk/congress/3/home</a><!-- m -->
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#6
For those of you who were at our Friday Evening FIDE Blitz Glasgow on 3 June, you can read about the feedback we received and our responses below. We wish to thank those who participated in the feedback as it will help us determine how we will format any future events, should we decide to run another series. We are always happy to take feedback from those who play at our event, and of course those who choose not to attend.

If you are unaware of our Blitz events, we decided to launch a small series of Blitz tournaments after a couple of experimental events earlier in the year.

We conclude with the final Blitz in our current series on Friday 24 June in Edinburgh. If you would like to join us, please visit our on-line entry and payment website. http://congress.popmalc.org.uk/congress/3/home

The summary follows the format of the questionnaire with a response from us after each section.


The Entry Process
Most of those entered on-line found the process easy to follow.

Response
The on-line entry and payment process has recently been developed and the organisers are aware of some payment issues during its roll out. It is our hope that everyone will enter and pay on-line so that all membership/registration and payment issues can be resolved before the event, thus relieving the work load of arbiters and organisers at the critical time just before the start of the tournament. Manual on the day payments will remain for access reasons.

Schedule
All agreed our start time of 7pm was about right, with only one considering our finish time to be too early. There were no dissenting voices suggesting our format of three playing sessions and two breaks wasn’t agreeable.

We did have one or two suggestions for alternative clock times, including giving black more time.

Response
Our schedule means the last game should finish at 9:30pm, however we advertise a finish time of 9:45pm in case we have any issues causing us a delay. If we believe an earlier finish time would encourage greater participation, by removing one of the breaks or reducing them in length, then we may adjust the playing schedule accordingly.

It is most likely we will stick to the standard 3 minutes plus a 2 second increment as this appears to be a standard for blitz.

Entry Fee and Prizes
The vast majority considered we had this about right, with one suggesting we should have a lower entry fee and one a higher entry fee. One suggested we should decrease our number of rating band prizes.

Response
The feedback suggests we appear to have got this about right. Hopefully we can build upon the numbers to increase our income so that we eventually cover our costs. We were hoping the lower rating band prizes would attract lower rated players, but so far, our Friday evening tournaments do not seem to indicate that we are attracting lower rated players in the numbers our trial events did. Something perhaps we need to analyse further if this continues to occur at future events.

Travel and Venue
Our feedback indicated that those travelling by car to the venue were in the minority.

All our feedback respondents indicated the venue was easy to find and provided an adequate playing venue.

Response
Choice of transport was an important item for us to receive feedback on. We had discussed the option of less central locations, with less or no public transport, in order to reduce our venue hire costs. Clearly, from the feedback we received, the need to locate adjacent to a chess playing catchment area, and within easy access to public transport must be a major factor for us consider in the future when we are choosing venues.

The feedback we received via the form and verbally, indicated there is no reason why we should not use this venue again in the future.

Overall Impressions and Suggestions for Future Events
The response suggests that Friday evening appears to be a popular time for the blitz event, but Saturday morning/afternoon and all day are also acceptable playing options.

Response
The Friday Evening FIDE Blitz team are happy to continue running events on a Friday evening. It does of course leave the weekend free for other activities, or more chess!

Also, we would need to change the name of our organisation if we ran them on other days!!
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#7
Hi David
Is the results for Glasgow available - cant see them or a link for them - probably missed it.

Other commitments or myself and kids would have entered - will try to make Edinburgh. The events look really good - be good to see more of them and more attending.

I assume it was not done but I would also encourage a video recording for top board for YouTube - Jonathan Edwards Scottish Blitz format was very good. - Realise organisers have a lot as it is but it should simply sit on a tripod - perhaps someone like Ian Brownlee or Andy Burnett might want to have a go add the technical side of getting it to YouTube.

Cheers Alex
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#8
Alex Gillies Wrote:Hi David
Is the results for Glasgow available - cant see them or a link for them - probably missed it.

Other commitments or myself and kids would have entered - will try to make Edinburgh. The events look really good - be good to see more of them and more attending.

I assume it was not done but I would also encourage a video recording for top board for YouTube - Jonathan Edwards Scottish Blitz format was very good. - Realise organisers have a lot as it is but it should simply sit on a tripod - perhaps someone like Ian Brownlee or Andy Burnett might want to have a go add the technical side of getting it to YouTube.

Cheers Alex

Hi Alex

We have a small article listing the prize winners on the CS News Article page: http://www.chessscotland.com/news/?p=5924

But we have not been as fast as we would wish to be regarding the production of crosstables and TPR's etc. Mainly because Fiona has not yet learnt how to do this from the pairings software and Malcolm (our IT developer) and I didn't put much thought into where to publish the results. We must have been concentrating on too much on the on-line entry and payment software.

However, when Fiona has mastered how to get the tables from the software she is going to get them to magically appear on the CS website by sending them to those who know how to do these things.

This small series of events, including one run in England, are a bit of a learning ground for us all. So whilst me might be a little slow in some areas and have failed to address some aspects appropriately, nothing has been serious enough to stop the competitions running. We hope to make some improvements if we run some more events later in the year, and perhaps venture over into some more technical areas as you suggest, which will help improve the presentation of our events.

Hope to see you in Edinburgh.

David
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#9
WIll there be a report on Edinburgh Blitz or is the one liner on the home page all that there is to say?

For example, what happened to Adam Bremner who seems to have been motoring along before vanishing after round 5?
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#10
Travelling yesterday and today. Checked my mail and there was a prize list sent to me and I have uploaded it. Wasn't there so no idea I'm afraid
"How sad to see, what used to be, a model of decorum and tranquility become like any other sport, a battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee"
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