Due to a last minute change with room availability at the Parramatta RSL Club, the organisers of this years NSW Open have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. On the Monday (the final day of the tournament) there will only be space for 60 players. Now as the tournament usually attracts between 130 and 150 players, this has caused the formats to be rearranged. The Under 1600 event will now become a 2 day event (still 7 rounds), with a faster time limit of G60m+10s.
For the Open tournament, a slightly more novel approach is required. Borrowing from golf, the organisers have decided that after the first 5 rounds, only the top 60 players will go through to rounds 6&7. Players who 'miss the cut' will be entitled to a 25% refund on there entry fees. I think this offer will be extended to also allow players in the top 60 to voluntarily withdraw after round 5, to reduce the number of players unwillingly excluded from the tournament.
I've never been involved in a tournament where this has happened before, so it will be a case of trying to find the best way to handle this. One obvious question is what to do with tied players around the cut-off mark. If we follow the golf model, the normal practice is to set a filed size N, and then Nth ranked players, and all players on or above the same score make the cut. However this may be impractical if too many players are tied. Therefore the tournament organisers will announce a tie-break system before the first round (and it will probably be the same as a the normal tie-break system for trophies etc)
(NB I am the Chief Arbiter for this event).
6 comments:
Go Australia, innovators at heart. :)
It sounds like the RSL has acted in bad faith in changing rooms at the last moment. I'm glad I decided not to play.
I started a thread over here (http://chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=14772), as this seems an unusual thing to do - and more focus will be on the tiebreak method than is usually the case I am sure. There could well be a large pool of people around the 60 mark, and is 5 rounds enough for the systems to decide?? Yes I think the voluntary opt out is necessary idea (with the same refund).
I recall that there is a spacious Garema Place-like mall area a couple of blocks away, so somebody who runs Street Chess every week should be able to see another option.
Based on last year's scores the Group of Death would be 2/5 so the strategy would be to get to 2/4 and take a half-point bye, though if too many do that it may break it.
I would be happy to play my last 2 opponents via a web server located in the keno room, or the bar - hmm but then why even turn up - take out the venue issue entirely and run all 7 rounds over the net? We all trust each other to not use any aids, right?
Play street chess in Canberra instead
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