Tuesday 16 April 2013

Calendar Collision

For all the complaints of organisers of 'Super' tournaments, there seems to be a tendency to group events in the calendar. Whether this is sponsor driven, or due to other factors, I'm not sure, but with the Candidates tournament just completed, there are another 4 big events occurring from mid April to mid June. They are

  • Fide GP Zug (17 April - 1 May)
  • Alekhine Memorial (20 April - 1 May)
  • Norway (7-18 May)
  • Tal Memorial (12-24 June)
Now I know there was an attempt in the past to co-ordinate the calendars for these events via the Grand Slam organisation, but I haven't much about this recently. Certainly FIDE try and produce calendars years in advance (eg the 2014 Olympiad dates have been published) but even they fall victim to organisational difficulties (eg Grand Prix cancellations).
So I suspect we are now seeing a 'first in, best dressed' system, where organisers grab dates and hope that they hold up. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing from a spectators point of view, but it may prove damaging to tournament viability in the long term.
 

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