Wednesday 21 September 2011

Intra tournament travel

Travelling between tournaments can be hard enough on the system, but travelling within tournaments makes even less sense to me. It has certainly happened a few time throughout history, but it seems to be more prevalent in recent times. The 2011 Grand Slam Masters Final, which starts in a few days, is split between Sao Paulo in Brazil, and Bilbao, in Spain. There is a 4 day gap between the two halves of the event, but even then, having to travel between continents may disturb a players equilibrium.
The record holder for such travel, at the highest level at least, would certainly go to the AVRO Tournament in 1938. Every round was held in a different city/town in The Netherlands, with players often having no rest days on which to travel. Of course The Netherlands is a small country, but moving about would make preparation hard.
In Australia, probably the best example of this system (multiple venues), would be the Victorian State Championship, which is shared between a number of clubs in Melbourne. At least in that case the players do not have to change accommodation between rounds, although I suspect work and commuting schedules would still cause some angst.

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