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South Australia had a return to its Battle of the Sexes tournament today. Those identifying with a more masculine gender won 31.5 games. Those identifying with a more feminine gender won 13.5 games.

OPEN

       5 games

       W     M                       Old   Chg  New

  1    4  +725 Daniel Piechnick     1812   -10 1802

  2    4  +635 Adam Kretschmer      1741   -10 1731

  3    4  +430 Michael Vnuk         1507    +4 1511

  4    4  +348 Antonios Syrigos     1457    +7 1464

  5    4  +337 Neal Whibley          941   +37  978

  6    4  +220 Dieter Jedamski      1198   +34 1232

  7    4   -69 Susan Roberts        1315   +30 1345

  8  3.5  +408 Tony Miller          1562   -15 1547

  9    3  +441 Antony Kimber        1542   -19 1523

10    3   +61 Jane Taylor          1501    +6 1507

11  2.5   -96 Rowena Vnuk          1166   +23 1189

12    2   +13 Carmel Dodd          1620   -32 1588

13    2   -85 Francoise Finlayson  1225   +11 1236

14    2  -197 Louisa Atsas          989    -2  987

15    2  -272 Paula Brown           776   +14  790

16    2  -279&Mary Jane Yaba      ( 500)     ( 699)

17    2  -386 Mel Leckie            752   +14  766

18    1  -102 Emanuel Atsas         885   -26  859

19    1  -215 Elana Jaremyn         949   -13  936

20    1  -286 Judy Mansfield       1128   -31 1097

21    0  -814&Julie Hambour       ( 508)     ( 519)

22    0  -817*Geraldine Slattery             ( 506)

High game Daniel Piechnick 582

High word Daniel Piechnick EXCELSIOR 104

Geraldine Slattery was previously unrated

Mary Jane Yaba is still provisional (12 games)

Julie Hambour is still provisional (16 games)

*as far as we can tell 😛

South Australia has held its annual Speedy tournament.  10 games played under speedy conditions (12 minutes per game).  Tracey Kneebone dominated; winning 9 out of 10 games, finishing 2 games ahead of Tony Miller in second and Carmel Dodd in third.

20 players converged on the Unley Bridge club for the tournament.  Because of the numbers, we played in a single open division with prizes in two ratings bands.  Adam Kretschmer was working hard as Tournament Director and computer operator making sure the next round was always available.  The tournament was paired as a lagged swiss draw so that people weren’t waiting and could jump into the next game.

There was a novelty prize for the 6 “fastest” words as judged by Adam.  Winners collected a block of chocolate.  Among the winners: JET, EMU, BULLET.

One highlight was in my game against Julie Robins who bonussed from the rack IIESSS? depriving me of a lot of premium tiles in a single move.

A quick run down of the winners:
1st Tracey Kneebone
2nd Tony Miller
3rd Carmel Dodd
High Game – Oliver Jenner-O’Shea – 565
High Word – Antony Kimber – MUFFLES 106
~1st Joyce Browett
~2nd Louisa Atsas
~3rd Margaret Gibson
~High Word – Victoria Gates – TRASHERS 92

Speedy Ratings are available in the resources section.

I love the 4/4/4 format.  To explain a little, it’s a tournament run in SA where participants can play any of a Morning, Afternoon or Evening session of 4 games.  8 games in a day is pretty standard and the 4/4/4 format gives people a chance to play during the day or start after lunch or even just pop in for a quick 4 games.  This year we had 10 brave players committing to playing all 12 games (and it was the first time that I’d play all 12.)  Huge props to all of those players.

The nitty-gritty of it has been fine tuned and refined by Adam Kretschmer.  But the key things of note: pairings are done as an open Swiss event.  Each session, prizes are given out to winners in ratings bands depending on the size of the sessions and there are overall prizes for the entire tournament.  Daniel Piechnick showed this year that it’s possible to snag an overall prize despite only playing 8 games, finishing on 7 wins with the best margin. Players joining the tournament for the afternoon or evening are given half wins (for pairings puposes) for the games missed for pairings purposes so they enter in the middle of the Swiss and likely playing someone else joining for the same session allowing them to quickly find their level and not entering from the bottom that would lead to uneven pairings.

One highlight for me was finding the bonus from the following position:

Hearty Congratulations to Francoise Finlayson who took out top spot winning the overall competition and to all the session winners and prize-getters.