Vale Blayney

Having recently reported positively on the increase in tournament numbers in Australian weekenders, it comes as a shock to be informed that the Blayney tournament isn't being held this year. The reason is one that afflicts a number of tournaments, in that the hard working organiser of previous years events has simply run out of puff. And while getting players to tournaments is a critical factor in their success, having someone organise them in the first place is obviously just as important.
My real concern is that we may be seeing a swing back towards 'Capital City' chess, where tournaments in large cities do well, but the country events disappear. This happened in NSW in the 1980's when Orange, Armidale, Blackheath, Albury etc fell off the calendar, and a couple of new country events (Blayney and Coff's Harbour) are now going the same way. It is a real shame that this seems to be happening as at least for me I am at that age where the venue and ambience are as important as the field and prize money.
For NSW players it also means the next weekend event on the calendar isn't until the October long weekend. However it isn't too late to book a trip to the nations capital to play in this weekends ANU Open. Hopefully we Canberran's will be able to fill the void.