Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Open or closed?

In a single careless moment, the current Australian Chess Federation president, Denis Jessop, had this to say:

What I am suggesting tentatively is that the qualification rules for a restricted entry tournament cause so much wasting of time on these kinds of discussions that I can't see why the Championship isn't an Open every year. It's already much of the way there as there is no limit on the number of players and in the last couple, at least, several players have been let in whose rating was well below the cut-off and the present by-laws allow the ACF to invite anyone it wants to play. Thus with the current Closed event actually Semi-open why not go the whole way?

And with that, Australia's most fave chess bulletin board is suddenly ablaze after days of quietude.

Let the record reflect that the world famous Closet Grandmaster is entirely opposed to the highly esteemed president's idea. It is a step backwards and makes our situation quite laughable to outsiders. If the president has no better things to do than to put the problem in the "too-hard" basket, then perhaps he should now begin to reconsider his own position?

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