Monday, August 27, 2007

Parr Fires One at NSWCA

In his column today, Peter Parr fires one across the bow of the NSWCA:

There have been 11 different Sydney CBD venues in the last 40 years. 1999 saw 68 at Burwood, 2001 - 58 at Parramatta. Entries at Ryde-Eastwood 2002 - 2006 were 81, 72, 69, 45, 47. The solution is not easy with no permanent chess centre - 11 evening rounds as in the 20th century rather than afternoon rounds in the 21st century, a less crowded NSW calendar, state membership a requirement to be rated, a central venue, personal invitations to the leading players, a major sponsor and nine months planning are some ideas.

OK firstly, yes, that's exactly how it's printed so I'm guessing the column is a victim of some bad editing by an SMH staffer. But secondly, no, no way I support evening rounds. Bad idea Pete. As for a chess centre, we're not going there again, are we?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is it so bad to play on a weekday night?

This is common in other state championships.

DeNovoMeme said...

Not everyone will agree with ALL of Parr's suggestions. However, if you think most, or even half of them are needed, then you MUST agree that the NSWCA has a lot to answer for.

Anonymous said...

why attack peter parr? he is a good guy. one of the only ones in australia who actually have some understanding

Phil Willis said...

If a "state championship" tournament is held in one city over the course of one night a week for nine weeks, how can that claim to be a "state championship".

Nobody living outside the host city could possibly attend.

I'm lucky I live in Sydney, but in the current format the NSW state championship will never go to someone living further afield than Newcastle or Wollongong.

Nobody from Canberra, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga, Coffs Harbour etc has any realistic chance of enetering.

That's not to say there isn't room in the NSWCA calendar for "one round per week" tournaments - I happen to like them - I'm in one right now.

I just don't like the idea of them for state championships.

Anonymous said...

Well said Phil, I agree.
In my view, the NSW State Championship should take place over the NSW Labour Day weekend!
Perhaps even move it around the State occasionally!

Brian

Anonymous said...

Well I would argue that a state championship should only be for the strongest players and that the average club player should be playing in a reserves type event.

Their isnt a player in rural NSW who is any serious threat to players like Canfell,Xie,Bird etc.

Anonymous said...

NSW players living outside Sydney metro include IM Zong-Yuan Zhao, IM Gary Lane, IM Alex Wohl, FM Brian Jones, David Lovejoy, Fritz Van Der Wal and others!

Anonymous said...

As usual Peter Parr (the wise man of Australian chess) is close to the mark. If the NSWCA had taken on board his sound advice then they would have had a lot more than 34 players for the 2007 State Championships.

In particular a permanent NSW chess centre (preferably in the Sydney CBD which is easy to get to by public transport) would fix some of the problems bedevelling NSW Chess. Unfortunately I cannot see this happening, given the way that the NSWCA is literally throwing away its nest egg ($11k loss last year as reported by TCG and probably another $11k loss this year given the way things are going).

Anonymous said...

Brian,

Zong Yuan Zhao does not live outside the metro area!