Monday 6 June 2011

Three days of chess

At the top level, playing more than one round a day is an outrage, while further down the ladder, playing only one round a day is not enough chess! The distance between both positions is most evident in Australia over the Queens Birthday Weekend. Taking advantage of the long weekend, a number of tournaments are being held around the country. Queensland is holding the State Championship (with a particularly strong field this year), while other states are holding big weekenders. Both NSW and Victoria are holding their state Open's, and both events normally attract large fields (almost 150 at the NSW Open last year).
However the schedule can be brutal, with 2-3-2 as the number of rounds on each day. Sunday sees 3 rounds played with a 90m+30s time control, so it is hardly surprising that a games are still going after midnight, even with the 10 am start to the day! Not conducive to perfect chess, but no denying that players are getting value for money.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The NSW Open has 9.30 start on the Sunday.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a pretty brutal schedule. the huge problem with the battery cage weekenders is the lack of social atmosphere - sometimes decidedly anti-social.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps a 3-2-2 schedule would be less fatiguing, as in the first two rounds the rating differences in each of the games is quite significant.