Having spoken to IA Gary Bekker, the following titles from the 2007 Oceania Zonal will be awarded. In the Open Zonal the IM title goes to Puchen Wang (NZ). The FM titles go to Gene Nakauchi (AUS) and James Morris (AUS). The CM (Candidate Master) titles were earned by Max Illingworth (AUS), and Alex Mendes da Costa (AUS).
In the Womens Zonal Alexandra Jule (AUS) earns the WIM title, while Sue Maroroa (NZ) and Rebecca Harris (AUS) become WFM's. The CM titles go to Vivian Smith (NZ), and Imelda Flores (PNG).
Both Igor Goldenberg and Bob Smith earned IM norms, and as this is a zonal, these count as 20 game norms.
There has been some debate about the tie break systems used. The tie breaks used were specified in the FIDE Handbook in Section D.1.01 World Championship General Provision
Subsection 5.1.17 describes the standard tie-break regulations as follows
For Swiss tournaments where the players involved have all played only against rated opponents, after eliminating the lowest rated opponent, find the sum of opponents` ratings. The highest total wins. If still tied, eliminate the rating of the next lowest rated opponent(s) until a decision is possible.
1. For other Swiss tournaments, the sum of progressive scores. The highest total wins. If still tied, deduct the first round score, and if necessary the second round and so on.
2. For other tournaments, including Round Robins, elimination of scores against opponents in the lowest final score-group. The highest total wins. If still tied, eliminate scores from the next lowest final score-group, and so on. If the tie remains unbroken, decide by lot.
For the IM title in the Open tournament the players tied on 6.5 had all played only FIDE rated opponents so the "Sum of Opponents Ratings" was used. For the Womens Zonal this wasn't possible so Sum of Progressive Scores was used. Even then Rebecca Harris and Vivian Smith were still tied, so the first round result was dropped. Now in the first round Harris lost her game, while Smith had drawn. This meant that Harris edged out Smith for the second FM title.
Now what is odd about the Harris-Smith tie break is the Sum of Progressive Scores is supposed to reward players who start off with a high score, indicating that they are likely to play a harder field in later rounds. So dropping the first round doesn't make any sense in this system. Surely dropping the final round seems more logical. The organisers plan to ask FIDE about this.
4 comments:
How come the Fiji zonal produced a swagful of norms (never mind the titles) but the Sydney Open with its 9 GMs only produced a solitary IM norm? Would the 2008 version of the SIO be better split into two sections (maybe above and below 2000) or would using accelerated pairings for the first 2 or 3 rounds do the trick? Basically, what would generate a decent number of norms?
Shaun, thanks for clarifying the title and norm results in Fiji.
Tournaments don't generate norms, the players themselves have to perform. There were a number of players at SIO who could have scored norms if they performed a bit better.
A divisionalised tournament would produce more chances, but the players still have to take the chances presented.
Accelerated pairings may not make any difference due to the rating uplift used when calculating norm performances.
Vivian Smith already has the WCM title.
So Shirley Wu should get the second WCM title.
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