Canadian Closed 2009 - Round 8 Reports!

[Christopher Mallon]

Breaking news: Jean Hebert has just defeated Raja Panjwani to take over clear 1st place in the tournament at 6.5. Mark Bluvshtein has 6.0 and there will be several at 5.5.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

I believe I saw posted somewhere Jean's involvement in the Canadian Closed early in his career some years ago. Was he ever previously Champion, or runner-up, and when was that, if anyone's memory goes back that far?

Jean seems to have amazing staying power over the years. In 2007 he was a quarter-finalist, who only got defeated by the new Champion, Nikolay Noritsyn after a marathon set of tie-break games. I guess he was giving notice then that he was aging, but far from gone !!

Bob

P.S. We old geezers have to stick together !!

[Christopher Mallon]

Bob,

He actually tied for first in the 2007 tournament, and technically was a semi-finalist for the title.

And yes, he won the Closed in 1978 and played in the 1979 Interzonal. 31 years apart would be incredible!

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

Thanks for the info and correction.

I may have to troop out to Guelph tomorrow to see the exciting finish to this run by " the old geezer " !

Bob

[Christopher Mallon]

We'd be happy to see you.

By the way, today's games are now up on the MonRoi site.

http://monroi.com/watch/?tnm_id=1310

[Philip Feeley]

I know you disagree with Kevin Spraggett's criticism of this years Closed, but there are still several questions left unanswered, principally, why weren't all the games live on Monroi from the beginning? And why do all the dates for this event still get reported wrong on various websites?

It was not until today that I was able to access any live games on Monroi. Was it a money problem? Monroi covers tournaments all over the world. Surely a major Canadian event should have been there from the beginning.

[Christopher Mallon]

That question was answered actually... basically it required someone with the ability to set it up on this end to be available at least an hour prior to the start of the rounds, and nobody was available until this weekend.

The dates are getting reported correctly, as the Canadian Championship began with the Women's Championship two weeks ago.

I suppose you COULD say it was a money problem in that they couldn't afford to pay me or Patrick enough to quit our jobs to be here to do the MonRoi...

[Philip Feeley]

So I take it that they weren't using the Monroi boards? I thought those devices recorded the games automatically - no need for human transcription.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

So I take it that they weren't using the Monroi boards? I thought those devices recorded the games automatically - no need for human transcription.

DGT makes electronic boards. http://digitalgametechnology.com/sit...ctronic-Boards
Monroi makes a device for entering moves (aka an electronic scoresheet). http://monroi.com/products/all-monro...-products.html

and both requires human input (setup) for an online transmission. At least Chris managed to do that at least for the dramatic last round. Thnx for that.

[Christopher Mallon]

The one fundamental flaw with the MonRoi is that some people don't like using them! DGT has the advantage of being basically "invisible" to the players. Although it is a fair bit pricier (650 euros for the wireless boards compared to $350 for a MonRoi device).