There was a time when the post Christmas period was either for playing in the Australian Open/ Championship or not playing chess at all. Then a decline in numbers for these events made potential organisers think that no one really wanted to play chess in the period between Christmas and New Year, and for the last few years the Australian Open/ Championship has started in the New Year (usually the 2nd).
However other organisers decided that people did want to play in the period between Christmas and New Year (even if they didn't want to play in the Australian Champs/Open), and began to slot events into that period.
One event that is taking advantage of this gap is the Gold Coast International. This event has attracted a field of 55 players, with a couple of strong players at the top (GM Zong Yuan Zhao, IM George Xie), a group of up and coming junior players (Ly, Ikeda, Morris, Brown and Nakauchi), and a then a field consisting mainly of Queensland players.
The event started today, with the first two rounds being completed. Results have gone mostly to seedings, although a couple of players in the top 10 were held to second round draws. One nice feature of this event is the live coverage of the top 10 boards, (using the Monroi devices), meaning I can divide my time between chess and the cricket (shudder!).
Here is a game from round 2 where 4th seed FM Junta Ikeda demolishes his opponent after an unwise two pieces for rook and pawn exchange.
Ousmand,T N (1757) - Ikeda,Junta (2262)
2010 Gold Coast International Chess Tour Gold Coast (2), 26.12.2010
1.d4 g6 2.c4 d6 3.Nc3 a6 4.e4 Nd7 5.Be2 Bg7 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 Qa5 8.Qd2 Rb8 9.f4 b5 10.cxb5 axb5 11.Nxb5 Rxb5 12.Bxb5 Qxb5 13.Rb1 Ngf6 14.Bxf6 Nxf6 15.Nf3 Nxe4 16.Qe2 Qb4+ 17.Nd2 Nxd2 18.Qxd2 Qe4+ 19.Kf2 Bd4+ 20.Kg3 Be3 0-1
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5 comments:
The Australian Championships/Open used to start on the 27 or 28 December which is very logical as it would finish in the first week of Jan and leave would be easier to obtain for the working person. To have it start on the 2nd of January means you would have to take an extra week leave. No wonder the Gold Coast Open is a success.
The tournament is the Gold Coast International Festival, run by Amir Karibasic.
It is not the Gold Coast Open, which is held on the last weekend in June and is run by Graeme Gardiner.
Please do not confuse the two events.
I am not sure that 55 entries is a success, considering the number of free entries, tonnes of publicity.
Some other tournaments up here have gotten over 50 entries with substantially less prizemoney.
Surely this tournament has to be running at a loss.
I guess it depends on what you define as success.
Cheery (read spiteful) little post.
The correction is informative. The balance is more for the assessment of the organisers against their own criteria.
In response to anon post #2 i apologise for not communicating my thoughts the way i wanted. What i really wanted to say is that i think the australian open/championships should start in the last week of Decmeber.
Yes,Australian Champiosnhip should start December 27.Is Amir Karabasic tournament is a success? Not sure about that as numbers are pretty low even for QLD standarts!
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