NZ grand prix

[Tony Dowden]

From Murray Chandler & Helen Milligan's site:

There has been an important change to the Grand Prix rules for 2010. The requirement for a tournament to have three players in a division before Grand Prix points are awarded has been removed. This will benefit strong players who travel to the more distant events - Open Grand Prix points will now be awarded even if there are fewer than 3 players rated over 2000.

This change is overdue but also very welcome. I'm pleasantly surprised because I argued several years ago that the NZ grand prix system heavily favoured Aucklanders and that restrictions like having to have three players in a division led to distortions but it fell on deaf ears (despite clear evidence for my case). Since then the vast majority of prize-winners each year have been Aucklanders, with the unsurprising result that the annual grand prix has failed to spark much interest outside Auckland.

Here in Australia a few players (like me) might win events in Tasmania or WA and score a few admittedly 'soft' grand prix points but the Australian experience clearly shows that this has little or no bearing on the overall result in any given division.

[SHump]

The 2010 Grand Prix is almost finished and 2 Hamilton chess club members are in the running for some prizes. Michael Budd is currently in 4th place in the Under 1700 category, still within striking distance of 1st. In the senior category, Gary Judkins is also in 4th place, breathing down the neck of the leaders, just 6 points away from 1st. So anything could happen in the remaining GP event for 2010, the MIT Rapid on 4th Dec.A full scoreboard can be found here.

[Tony Dowden]

The 2010 Grand Prix is almost finished and 2 Hamilton chess club members are in the running for some prizes. Michael Budd is currently in 4th place in the Under 1700 category, still within striking distance of 1st. In the senior category, Gary Judkins is also in 4th place, breathing down the neck of the leaders, just 6 points away from 1st. So anything could happen in the remaining GP event for 2010, the MIT Rapid on 4th Dec.A full scoreboard can be found here.

Interesting to hear but it might take a couple more years yet for the GP culture to become genuinely national instead of Auckocentric.

[Craig_Hall]

I don't think it can ever really become not Auckland-centric, simply because of demographics - there are more clubs, players and population in Auckland than in the South Island, for example, so it's not surprising that the results are dominated by Auckland.