The 2012 Asian Nations Cup began today in China. I suspect both the Open and Women's sections were smaller than the organisers would have hoped, with 14 team in the means and 10 in the Womens. While China, India and and Vietnam are present in the Open section a couple of other strong countries (Phillipines, Australia) are missing. I suspect a combination of reasonably short notice (countries were only sent invitations on the 13th of March), and the closeness of the Olympiad had a lot to do with the size of the field. PNG attempted to get a team together, but with such a small pool of players to call upon, it was either this, or the more important Olympiad.
However I am surprised that some larger countries do not plan for this as a regular event, and have an Olympiad II team on tap to take part. It would provide an ideal opportunity for players who are just below Olympiad level (or miss out on selection) to take part in an event that would prepare them if they do move up to the next level. Of course this does mean a sacrifice in time and money, but on the other hand, it is reasonably strong competition, and the organisers do provide board and lodging.
As for the tournament itself, the official home page seem to only be in Chinese,and the ability to read Chinese is one thing that was not handed down to me by my Chinese great-grandfather. So I am following the results via this link at chess-results.com
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3 comments:
How often is this tournament held?
I would have thought about going if a few players were needed (to the embarrassment of Australia)
:)
New Zealand would have tried to send a junior team or a 'B' team if we had had about six months to organise it - the few weeks we were given was definitely not enough!
@Chris - The scheduling seems somewhat irregular, with the last event in 2009, according to Olimpbase. In fact the turnout for this year seems quite good (despite my initial comments), as the last event with more teams was in 1999 (16 teams). The 4 tournaments held this century have averaged 9 teams!
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