Speedy Tournament 2002 (unrated)


Report from Richard Birch, host & organiser

Speedy Tournament started at 09.10 Saturday, October 12, 2002 with 18 players presenting and ready to go.

It was decided that a parallel ratings system be implemented for Speedy Play and everybody started this tournament with a nominal rating of 1200. As can be seen by the results posted below this is quickly changed. Any new players entering the fray in future tournaments will be allotted this rating. It will be open to all comers and have no connection to their conventional rating.

As the day progressed, it became clear that everybody was becoming used to the strict time limit. Because time was of the essence in getting as many games in as possible, a round robin was worked out in advance with 17 games so that everybody played everybody.

A penalty system was introduced where 10 points was deducted for the first minute, 20 for the second, 30 for the third then capped at 30. I quickly learnt that going over time by 4:59 cost me 120 points which saved me brain power on at least three more occasions. One unfortunate player had the dubious distinction of recording 1 point after deductions, but it nonetheless kept the games rolling on time.

We finished about 6pm.

The dynamics of the game changed considerably. I found that in my game against John Barker I was behind quite a bit, and agonising over my play which gave John time to think in my time so that when I played my word and hit the clock he immediately played his word and hit the clock. So I was still placing my new tiles on the rack in my time which kept the pressure up.

What amazed me was that when it was all over and a few of us lingered over pizza, some stalwarts played a few relaxing games of speed scrabble to while away the time.

Challenges were done by either self lookup on the computer, by consensus around the room, or by checking Chambers. The slightest glitch in, for example scoring anomalies, meant that time was advancing without the effort being put in to playing the word, so there was a fair bit of clock stopping which was even more important now.

As far as I can make out, most, if not all, players would certainly come back next time. I would hope to hold another at a similar time next year, and others have indicated that they would be willing to also host it, so perhaps we could make it at least twice a year.

The results I am keying in manually because the Swiss program developed a glitch. Bob Jackman will post normal results when it gets sorted.

Many thanks to those who helped out in set up and in particular George Khamis for cleaning up afterwards. Thanks also to Jan Serisier who donated a magnificent trophy for first prize, and Rod Talbot for donating three great books for Shortest Time, (Victor Tung, 2:52); Highest Losing Score, (Tony Hunt, ???) and Highest Scoring non Bingo (Louise Kobler, ????)

No   Player                 Wins    Margin
1    Paul Cleary            16      2570
2    Bob Jackman            14      1694
3    Rod Talbot             13      1105
4    John Barker            13       656
5    Elizabeth Ho           11        72
6    Rene Chelton           10       464
7    Louise Kobler          10       413
8    Jan Serisier           10       337
9    Tony Hunt              10        40
10   Victor Tung             9       253
11   Hanne Marks             7       425
12   Richard Birch           7      -930
13   Barbara Berlin          6        81
14   Jean Balmer             6      -780
15   Sunny Wright            6      -848
16   Liz Jackman             3      -979
17   George Khamis           2      -963
18   Jacquelin Hochmuth      0         ?

On the basis of a starting rating of 1200, initial speed ratings would be:

  1    1 Paul Cleary          1525   17
  2    2 Bob Jackman          1422   17
  3    3 Rod Talbot           1370   17
  4    4 John Barker          1368   17
  5    5 Elizabeth Ho         1275   17
  6    6 Jan Serisier         1245   17
  7    7 Louise Kobler        1245   17
  8    8 Rene Chelton         1245   17
  9    9 Tony Hunt            1245   17
 10   10 Victor Tung          1215   17
 11   11 Hanna Marks          1155   17
 12   12 Richard Birch        1155   17
  1   13 Barbara Berlin       1125   17
 13   14 Jean Balmer          1125   17
 14   15 Sunny Wright         1125   17
 15   16 Liz Jackman          1035   17
 16   17 George Khamis        1005   17
 17   18 Jacqueline Hochmuth   945   17