The kind of meeting that takes place over a couple of pints of Ale in a friendly environment. An environment where the ideas flow and the crazy becomes possible.

This is the kind of environment that lead me to building this website, making a DVD and running the 1st Big Slick International.

And guess what, another idea has been born…

I love chess and I want to play chess in a friendly environment where I can enjoy a drink but still hope to improve my game – where do I go?

Maybe a weekend tournament, somewhere.

The only problem with that is that I have to give up my weekend and I also might have to travel miles away.

Bring on the 2nd Big Slick International!!!!!!!!

Ok this is the idea…. Of course it is only an idea at the moment and some changes will have to be made but what do people think of the concept below? Please leave comments.

1) A 1 day event.

2) 5 minute or 15 minute games being the menu of the day.  

3) You can play for an hour or the whole day.

4) You are guaranteed to play a Grandmaster.

5) Minimum entry £5 – Maximum entry, at you and the GM’s discretion.

6) You turn up and play the ‘nominated GM’ in a 5 min game. The clock times/money odds are decided on grade. So even a 1600 has a chance against a 2600, for example,

Time Odds

1000-1800: 1.30-5

1800-2000: 2.30-5

2000-2150: 3.00-5

2150-2300: 3.30-5

2300+: 5-5 or to be decided between the individuals…

Money Odds

1000-1800: 8-1

1800-2000: 5-1

2000-2150: 3-1

2150-2300: 2-1

2300+: evens or to be decided between the individuals…

7) You can pick your stake against the GM. While you wait you can play blitz against anyone else.

£500 added prize fund

9) The GM is the ‘Bounty Prize’; whoever beats the GM gets the ‘snowball prize. This starts at £50 for the first game and builds up £2.50-5 per 5 min game the GM plays. Who ever beats the GM gets the pot!!!!

For example, if you get a game at 2pm and the ‘snowball pot’ is £300 pounds. lets say your rating is 1798, the GM is tired you play for £5 and win at money odds, you win £340 in under 10 minutes!!!

10) You do not have to play for money, just turn up and enjoy some blitz chess!

11) Lunchtime Lecture by a Grandmaster 1 – 1-30 free!!!!

12) There are also prizes going on with any friendly games/side games!!! For example,

a) The person who scores the most points in friendly games over the day gets £50/100. Each friendly game must be noted by ‘x’. You can not play the same player for more than 4 games to be counted and you can only register a game every 15 minutes.

b) Mini tournament!! To be decided on the day. Lets say 5 players want to play a 30minute tournament / 5 round tournament, ok!! lets go! We will make sure an organiser keeps an eye on events.

13) This tournament is meant to be a good fun tournament, where people are allowed to talk (within reason and not to any players during there games!!) there also might be some background music!! Lets have some fun and play some chess!!!!!!!!!!

Ok just an idea for now so changes will probably be made but;

What does everyone think????????????????????????????????

Galego 1/2 Cherniaev
Poobasalingam 1-0 Ansell
Rudd 1/2 Gormally
Kjartansson 1/2 Slavin
Arkell 1/2 Eames

Round 6

Ansell 1-0 Rudd
Cherniaev 1-0 Eames
Slavin 1/2 Arkell
Gormally 1/2 Kjartansson
Galego 1/2 Poobasalingam

Cherniaev 1/2 Arkell
Eames 1/2 Kjartansson
Slavin 1-0 Rudd
Gormally 1/2 Poobalasingam
Ansell 1/2 Galego

Alexander Cherniaev, Keith Arkell and Alexei Slavin lead on 3/4.

Rounds 1-4 games are available for download via the crosstable.

First of all I would just like to make one thing clear. I was not forced to run the chess tournament by some ‘wise guys’ in order to pay back a gambling debt that I owed to the poker club! (This was suggested by one player!) I actually chose to run the event in order to get something going in the London area!

Anyway now that is cleared up onto the event!

The FIDE weekender was headed by 3 times British championship winner Jonathan Rowson.

It was great that Jonathan decided to enter. He lives in London and has recently become the proud father of a 4 month year old son. Most people expected him to walk the event but he came up across tough competition.

In round 1 he was paired against my girlfriend Alexandra Wilson (not my doing!) The game was fascinating with Aly going for a dangerous hack attack.

Jonathan managed to defend and scored the all important win. Jonathan only managed a draw in round 3 against Fonseca Rodriguez which opened up the whole tournament. After 3 rounds there was only one player on maximum,  Paul Dupre. Paul used to be my team mate around about 15 years ago! Unfortunately Paul lost his last two games which obviously must have been a disappointment but chess can be a cruel game that takes no prisoners!

Round 5 was a real nail biter for all concerned. Rowson won a tough game against George Salimbeni which left Mark Rich and Mark Ruston fighting it out for second place.

Mark Rich eventually won which meant that he shared first place with Rowson, a great result and well deserved. To add a bit of spice to the tournament they played a five minute Armageddon game to decide who would take the title home. This is an idea I got from Irish weekenders, they are intended to be a bit of fun and good entertainment for the crowd. Jonathan overcome Mark even though Mark missed a mate in 1! What a result that would have been! Thanks to Alexis Harakis for filming the encounter that can be seen below. Can you spot the mate?

The full list of prize winners for the weekender was:

1st Jonathan Rowson (by playoff) Mark Rich.       £170 each.

3rd-4th Alexis Harakis, Chris Ross                 £40 each and free entry into the next Big Slick tournament!

Grading Prizes:

2100-200 George Salimbeni, Mark Ruston             £30 each

2000-1600  Simon McCullough, David Coates        £30 each

Unrated    Khalid Kamara, Sainbayar Tserendurj    £30 each

An extra £100 was added to the advertised prize fund.

There were some slight problems on the way. One thing that I didn’t count on was the gym next door. As I have only played poker in the evening I didn’t realise that they had a loud gym class in the morning that gave off noise that could be heard through the walls! It didn’t last long but it was amusing to see some people visible enjoying the experience by nodding along and others finding it rather hard to concentrate!

The other interesting moment came when one player made the unusual but very loud outburst, ‘You’re a f###### freak!’

This was then followed by a 2 minute rant at everybody around the area! I have come to expect that kind of thing in the poker but not in chess! Anyway as the experienced organiser that I am, I thought that it would be a good idea to immediately take a photo of the individual rather then ask him to be quiet or leave the venue!

Anyway I think that things went well, it would be interesting to get some feed back and I fully intend to run another tournament in the future. It was a good turn out with 50 players plus the masters.  I will leave some photos below and do a full report at a later date!

Rowson chatting away in the bar area.

Gary O’Grady having a read!

Taking on the poker dealers with a small bet… They have taken enough of my money in the past so I did not feel guilty!

The analysis area!

The playing area.

The Gormaliser!

Mike Basman made an appearance!

It is good to see that even British champions can enjoy the odd drink of Guinness!

A sample of the playing conditions!

One of the owners of the Big Slick club, Nick Clark came down with his son to enjoy a game of chess!

And finally a picture Aly demonstrating to me how to use a camera….. ‘You press that button you plonker!!!’

I would like to thank the following people/parties:

Everyone for coming, any comments, good or bad would be appreciated.

The arbiters, Peter Ackley and David Sedgwick

Anyone who made a donation. Obviously this helps greatly to get an event like this going.

The venue, The Big Slick club. They must be thanked for supporting the event and letting a lot of chess players use the venue.

The bar staff.

Jack Rudd for letting me use some of his photos.

John Saunders for letting me use some of his photos. Check out www.bcmchess.co.uk.

I am sorry if I have forgotten anyone, please forgive me! I will do an update on the master section soon and a more extensive report at a later date! Please leave some comments!!

Keith Arkell and Alexander Cherniaev lead with 2.5/3.

Jonathan Rowson and Mark Rich finished on 4.5/5 in the Open, Rowson won the blitz play-off.

Gormally 1/2 Cherniaev
Ansell 0-1 Slavin
Galego 1-0 Eames
Poobalasingam 1/2 Arkell
Rudd 1-0 Kjartansson

Mark Ruston and Paul Dupre lead the Open with 3/3, Jonathan Rowson on 2.5.

Pairings: Round 1 FIDE open

1. WILSON, Alexandra 2040/163             v                               ROWSON, Jonathan 2589/246
2. WALL, Gavin 2301/212                        v                               HAYWARD, Alan 2019/157
3. COATES, David 1999/167                    v                               COOLEY, Chris 2265/205
4. SANCHEZ-ROJO 2227/-                        v                               WEIMEIHER, Manuel 1973/-
5. O’GRADY, Gary 1918/125                    v                               FRANKLIN, Michael 2225/183
6. HALDANE, Robin 2155/181                  v                                MCCULLOGH, Simon 1905/158
7. KAMARA, Khalid 1900/130                  v                               STEFFENELLO, L 2128/-
8. BERNHARDSSON, Sten 2117/-            v                              BISHOP, Geoffrey 1838/127
9. JONES, Jeremy 1635/87                     v                               ATAKO, Chino 2111/159
10. PURTON, Ben 2110/176                    v                              SAINBAYAR, Tserendorj (1928)/166
11. STAPLES, Daniel (1776)/147             v                              BARUCH, Andy 2082/179
12. SHEPLEY, Julien 2069/167                v                              SYDNEY, Jacob (1728)/141
13. BRIDGES, Paul (1648)/131                 v                             BAILEY, Kevin 2064/167
14. DONOVAN, Nigel 2058/169                v                              KAREL, Ayse (1336)/92
15. SAINBAYAR, Annurai (1144)/68         v                             RODRIGUEZ-FONSECA, J 2051/-
16. JOSSE, Mark 2045/181                      v                             SAINBAYAR, Amukhulan (752)/19
17. KUMAR, Shankar –/-                         v                             DUPRE, Paul 2045/166

At the moment there is one full point bye but it is very likely that Gareth Harley-Yeo will get to play a game. In a tournament such as this people might pull out or there will be more last minute entries. Even though there are no entries being accepted on the day and all players must be registered to the club 48 hours in advance.

HARLEY-YEO, Gareth 2043/158 – Full point bye (at the moment)

Half Point Bye:

ROSS, Chris 2195/185
RIZVI, Nasir 2165/151
RICH, Mark 2132/180
BONAFONT, Phillip 2097/184
RUSTON, Mark 2092/176
YURENOK, Maria 2033/161
MARSHALL, Chris 1828/118
KELLY, Paul (1864)/158
HEALEAS, Simon (1600)/125
WARD, Matthew (1416)/102
GOMEZ, Ramon –/-

EDEN, Tomer 2146/181

A couple of people have commentated on the late entry fee which is an extra £10. This can be found on the original entrance form (Go to http://www.gingergm.com/big-slick-chess/ and then download flyer. It is mentioned there). Late notice does give extra work to the arbiters and it is usual in any weekend event to have such a fee.

Any other late entries should contact me directly as registration for the tournament is coming to a close.

Anyway I hope that everyone is ready and I look forward to seeing you all at the venue!