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Eastern Ontario Open: the event announcement
Hi chess friends, we have finally posted the details for this year's Eastern Ontario Open on the EOCA website! All the delays should be blamed on me! ;)
My apologies for announcing these details so relatively close to the tournament weekend. For those of you closer to me, you know what is transpiring healthwise within my family. Thanks to many of you for kind words and understanding. I must say that I am really looking forward to this event as a break!
For local players who find it convenient to pay me in cash at the RA Chess Club on a Thursday evening, here are my currently expected hours there :
- Thursday, June 18th: 830pm-9pm
- Thursday, June 25th: 8pm-930pm
This weekend event will be largely similar to my previous events this season, but there are a few of tweaks that I am trying in the interest of making the whole weekend smoother for everyone. As always, I am open to feedback, but I would like to try out the following ideas at least this once. Most of these were kind of finalized during observations at our recent Ontario Open, and I am grateful to the players, especially ones I hadn't met before, for their input :
1) The registration/payment model of registering by email, then paying later seems to be working better and better. And in light of me posting the event details so late, I will do the initial pairings later, at 645pm on the Friday. This is much closer to the time of the first round than in the past, but when people have registered by email beforehand and renewed their CFC membership with the office, well their onsite payment goes quite fast. Please note though that this new 645pm cutoff for initial pairings will have to be quite firm, as I do not want to risk starting the round late for those who have already paid! ;)
2) As these Ottawa weekend events grow in size, the equipment logistics unfortunately have a way of distracting me from my prime tasks, which are to ensure the fair fun of all of the participants, from the titled players on the top boards, to the young newcomers who might not be as familiar as they could be with tournament etiquette, and would benefit from more of my attention. So, please do plan to bring a chess set, a chess clock, and a pen or a pencil!
3) Another by-product of bigger tournaments is bigger prizes, even in the lower sections, and that means that more of the games in the last round can get quite serious. For example, the very last game to finish in the Ontario Open would decide/confirm the $600 worth of prizes in the U1600 and U1400 sections. I need to be completely immersed in TDing such situations. Therefore, all cash prizes will be paid by cheque, to be mailed out later that evening. Any player who thinks they might have won money, simply has to address an envelope, and I will be providing such envelopes for exactly this mechanism.
All right then, that's all for now, please feel free to start firing in those email registrations, and I will post lists of registered players every few days or so.
All the best, Aris.
--------- original event announcement ---------
The Eastern Ontario Chess Association (EOCA) organizes the EOCA Grand Prix, a series of weekend tournaments, over the 2008-2009 chess season.
The next EOCA event in Ottawa will be the Eastern Ontario Open, on June 26th-28th. It will consist of 5 rounds, with flexible bye and Amateur options.
We have multiple sections, and class prizes for every 200 rating points from 2200 to 1400. Every player will be submitted for both CFC and FIDE rating.
For more details on this event, and a great webpage for all of the events in the 2008-2009 EOCA Grand Prix, please consider bookmarking this weblink:
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments%202008-09.html
For local players who normally register at the RA chess club on a Thursday evening, please note that I now often work evenings. Therefore, whenever I do expect that I will be dropping by the RA chess club, I will post my schedule at the ChessTalk site: http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=2
Aris Marghetis
- Organizer/TD
- EOCA President
My apologies for announcing these details so relatively close to the tournament weekend. For those of you closer to me, you know what is transpiring healthwise within my family. Thanks to many of you for kind words and understanding. I must say that I am really looking forward to this event as a break!
For local players who find it convenient to pay me in cash at the RA Chess Club on a Thursday evening, here are my currently expected hours there :
- Thursday, June 18th: 830pm-9pm
- Thursday, June 25th: 8pm-930pm
This weekend event will be largely similar to my previous events this season, but there are a few of tweaks that I am trying in the interest of making the whole weekend smoother for everyone. As always, I am open to feedback, but I would like to try out the following ideas at least this once. Most of these were kind of finalized during observations at our recent Ontario Open, and I am grateful to the players, especially ones I hadn't met before, for their input :
1) The registration/payment model of registering by email, then paying later seems to be working better and better. And in light of me posting the event details so late, I will do the initial pairings later, at 645pm on the Friday. This is much closer to the time of the first round than in the past, but when people have registered by email beforehand and renewed their CFC membership with the office, well their onsite payment goes quite fast. Please note though that this new 645pm cutoff for initial pairings will have to be quite firm, as I do not want to risk starting the round late for those who have already paid! ;)
2) As these Ottawa weekend events grow in size, the equipment logistics unfortunately have a way of distracting me from my prime tasks, which are to ensure the fair fun of all of the participants, from the titled players on the top boards, to the young newcomers who might not be as familiar as they could be with tournament etiquette, and would benefit from more of my attention. So, please do plan to bring a chess set, a chess clock, and a pen or a pencil!
3) Another by-product of bigger tournaments is bigger prizes, even in the lower sections, and that means that more of the games in the last round can get quite serious. For example, the very last game to finish in the Ontario Open would decide/confirm the $600 worth of prizes in the U1600 and U1400 sections. I need to be completely immersed in TDing such situations. Therefore, all cash prizes will be paid by cheque, to be mailed out later that evening. Any player who thinks they might have won money, simply has to address an envelope, and I will be providing such envelopes for exactly this mechanism.
All right then, that's all for now, please feel free to start firing in those email registrations, and I will post lists of registered players every few days or so.
All the best, Aris.
--------- original event announcement ---------
The Eastern Ontario Chess Association (EOCA) organizes the EOCA Grand Prix, a series of weekend tournaments, over the 2008-2009 chess season.
The next EOCA event in Ottawa will be the Eastern Ontario Open, on June 26th-28th. It will consist of 5 rounds, with flexible bye and Amateur options.
We have multiple sections, and class prizes for every 200 rating points from 2200 to 1400. Every player will be submitted for both CFC and FIDE rating.
For more details on this event, and a great webpage for all of the events in the 2008-2009 EOCA Grand Prix, please consider bookmarking this weblink:
http://www.eoca.org/htm/tournaments%202008-09.html
For local players who normally register at the RA chess club on a Thursday evening, please note that I now often work evenings. Therefore, whenever I do expect that I will be dropping by the RA chess club, I will post my schedule at the ChessTalk site: http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=2
Aris Marghetis
- Organizer/TD
- EOCA President
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