Saturday 3 October 2015

Bomb scare stops play

Street Chess has had a number of odd happenings this year, and to the list you can now add a new one. Bomb Scare!
While I was in Sydney at a Correspondence Chess League of Australia meeting, the event was being run by Stephen Mugford and Harry Press. Around 2 o'clock Harry rang me to tell me that the tournament had been abandoned due to a bomb scare. Apparently a package had been left unattended outside a nearby restaurant and the police were evacuating the area. At first the players moved to our backup venue before the evacuation zone was expanded, at which point entry fees were refunded an everyone went home.
A bit of a shame as apparently the 17 player event was running quite well, and the Canberra weather was excellent for outdoor chess.
So to the list of reasons for stopping a tournament (that previously included thunderstorm, heart attack, and stolen laptop) bomb scare can now be added.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What next! And presumably the suspicious package was benign?
AO