24-04-2016, 04:41 PM
Andy Howie Wrote:Jonathan Livingstone Wrote:Hi Ian
I am like a broken record on this, but at least I am consistent. The single biggest issue with the Spens/Rich is surely about location and date uncertainty. So change it to a fixed date, at a fixed location (i.e. Grangemouth/Dunfermline/Livingston or wherever), and watch the team entries flow in (my own clubs entry will be the first one).
Jonathan ,
This is something we are looking at at the moment.
I am dead against this and Bon Accord probably wouldn't enter if this was implemented. If you are going to do a central venue then it has to be genuinely central i.e. Perth, not 40 minutes from Edinburgh and 2 and a half from Aberdeen (5 hours of driving every round). If you want to have Grangemouth as the finals every year as seems to be the case then thats fine but it's too much to have it every round. We already have the SNCL which is fantastic, we don't need to make a pale imitation of it which is all the Richardson would be if we held an event in the same way but with a fifth of the teams and half the rounds and no track record in this format.
The question "Why don't the top players play in the Richardson?" is the wrong question in my view. The correct question is "Why don't the top players play in Scotland?" (I don't have answers other than that most of them work for Quality Chess and understandably don't want to spend their spare time doing the same thing they do during the week). The Richardson in actual fact is the only tournament where the top players (Keti, Mcnab, Aagard etc.) do play consistently (when dates don't clash with 4NCL!).
N.B. This criticism of Grangemouth as a "central" venue is in no way sour grapes about yesterday - there is no way that 7-1 could have been turned around even if it was held in Bon Accord's home venue and I mentioned this problem after Bon Accord won in 2014 as well!