Scottish Blitz 2013

[Craig Pritchett]

I'd just like to add my words of thanks to Jonathan Edwards and organising team plus sponsors. A great event and a great coup to attract Michael Adams and Arkady Naiditsch to play. It's not often that you get the chance to play someone who's been in the world top ten for most of maybe the last 15 plus years or so - in Scotland. Looking forward to next year!

[Craig Pritchett]

Just one further thought on the time limit.

I think the last time I played in (what would now be) a FIDE-rated blitz (world seniors champs Opatija 2011), the time limit was 3 minutes + 3 seconds increment rather than Saturdays' 3 minutes +2 seconds.

I preferred the former, which seems to be closer to old-style 5 minute chess translated directly into an incremental format. 3 minutes + 3 seconds equates exactly to old-style 5 minute chess over a 40 move game.

With only 2 seconds increment it's 4 minutes + 20 seconds "only" for 40 moves (or 4 minutes exactly for a 30 move game). That's appreciably faster and accounts for the difficulty many players experienced (even playing pretty well "instantly") when they tried to "catch" up on time by making use of the increment ... unless your physical move and clock pressing technique is superbly fast, most "instantaneous" moves take most of us between 1 and 2 seconds simply to make!

I think both incremental limits are allowed by FIDE for Blitz rating purposes. My own view is that the 3 second increment improves the quality of the chess played. Food for thought.

[George Neave]

Just one further thought on the time limit.

I think the last time I played in (what would now be) a FIDE-rated blitz (world seniors champs Opatija 2011), the time limit was 3 minutes + 3 seconds increment rather than Saturdays' 3 minutes +2 seconds.

I preferred the former, which seems to be closer to old-style 5 minute chess translated directly into an incremental format. 3 minutes + 3 seconds equates exactly to old-style 5 minute chess over a 40 move game.

With only 2 seconds increment it's 4 minutes + 20 seconds "only" for 40 moves (or 4 minutes exactly for a 30 move game). That's appreciably faster and accounts for the difficulty many players experienced (even playing pretty well "instantly") when they tried to "catch" up on time by making use of the increment ... unless your physical move and clock pressing technique is superbly fast, most "instantaneous" moves take most of us between 1 and 2 seconds simply to make!

I think both incremental limits are allowed by FIDE for Blitz rating purposes. My own view is that the 3 second increment improves the quality of the chess played. Food for thought.

I think fairest is 3 mins + increment, where increment = quotient of [player age] divided by 10

[George Murphy]

Michael Adams is very complimentary about this tournament in his Chess column in today's Daily Telegraph Weekend Section, which was 'expertly arranged by youthful organiser Jonathan Edwards ...' He records that Arkady Naiditsch was 'the deserved overall winner' but Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant was 'the star of the show'.

Nice touch.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Scottish Blitz 2013 Photographs - Available here