During the past one year, other than 新加坡象棋总会, 文礼 C.C., 甘榜格南 C.C., 丹戎巴葛 C.C. and红山 C.C. (to include 白沙东 C.C. too if also to count 1-day 2-round team event), all other teams are just the participants of the various events, we should show our appreciations to the organizers so that they are more than happy to continue with the events in future years, just to be critical without giving suggestions or solutions is not a proper act by any xiangqi lovers.
If we look at those 个人赛 in the past one year, other than 象总全国个人赛, only 2009 丹戎巴葛 C.C.个人快棋赛 and 2009 红山 C.C. 个人赛 are considered as 全国个人赛 with 新加坡象棋总会 as 协办單位, 甘榜格南 C.C. 个人赛 is not considered as 全国个人赛 as it opens to invited players only.
No body can stop any 大师, 甲级, 乙级 and 无级 to join 2009 象总全国个人赛, 2009 丹戎巴葛 C.C.个人快棋赛 and 2009 红山 C.C. 个人赛. For someone not joining any of these three competitions definitely is due to own personal reason or age limit if any.
As for 甘榜格南 C.C. 个人赛, if the organizer is happy with the existing rules after some amendments in the past years and no plan to treat it as 全国个人赛 after more than 10 years, we are not in any position to be so critical about it only due to not opening to 大师 and 甲级, in actual fact 2009 甘榜格南 C.C. 个人赛 will be having many good 乙级 and 无级 players on 6 and 13 Sep 2009 …… Do you think it is better not to have 甘榜格南 C.C. 个人赛 than having it ? 甘榜格南 C.C. may have concern regarding a drop of number of participants after the inclusions of 大师 and 甲级 and as C.C. organizers, they like to see the numbers, e.g. I heard that 25 is the minimum number required currently for any C.C. activities to be counted especially for those funded events ……. A few changes to the rules of 2009 红山 C.C. 个人赛 has confirmed the number of participants is still carry more weights.
When 吕瑞展 called me regarding list of players given for Boon Lay Team Event before 2009 National Open could use the grades before promotions if any. I told him that our concern more on whether we could have enough players (for 4 days at Boon Lay) but not the “promotion” concern. This is just one of the examples of different concerns from the various teams as some teams may have concern regarding their players promoted in 2009 National Open. All xiangqi lovers are happy to know that Boon Lay C.C. reach the target of 8 to 10 teams for the coming team event on 15, 16, 22 and 23 Aug 2009, the number of teams is still carry more weights.
Regarding the issues of 大师, 甲级, 乙级 and 无级 in the various competitions, this is not a new issue, I heard about this issue when I started to join National Open in Oct 1998, more than 10 years ago.
Could this issue started due to 6-board 团体联赛 as 乙级 and 无级 could play in any of the six boards. If this is the main reason, then 新加坡象棋总会 and those organizers, e.g. 文礼 as the organizer for the coming 6-board event, should sit together to discuss about this matter. (6-board issue is another separate matter.)
2009 is considered a good year if we consider the xiangqi events organized so far within Singapore, as players, we hope to have more …… :)
