To all chess players
The 59th Begonia Open Chess Tournament is now only a few weeks away. It will be held from 8th to 10th March 2025 at Ballarat Tech School situated at 136 Albert Street in Ballarat, Australia.
A reminder to anyone who has not entered yet, that the early bird discount entry fee expires on 21st February. After that date entries are still possible up to Thursday 6th March, but they will be $20 per player more expensive. Leaving it until closer to the event to enter can also be risky since there is a maximum number of entries of 250 players.
We have received entries from over 100 players to date, so we are expecting a large field, possibly close to last year’s record entry of 224 players. We are very pleased to confirm that Grand Masters Zong-Yuan Zhao and Darryl Johansen will be competing along with a number of strong International Masters.
I have attached a flyer and an information sheet and invite you to participate. Entries and payments can be completed online via the TryBooking link . This is the only way which you may enter the tournament. Further current and historic information about the event can be found on the tournament website at www.begoniaopen.com . Entries can be followed at the ‘Pairings and Results’ tab on the website as well as the pairings and results for each round during the tournament.
Again, this year Box Hill Chess Club are generously adding to the prize pool by sponsoring special prizes of $200 each for the top scoring adult, top scoring female and top scoring junior players who are members of that club and who do not win another prize. We appreciate their support for our event.
Due to the number of entries exceeding 132 players, the pairings will be accelerated. The rationale for this is quite simple, it is to ensure that we do not finish up with 2 players on 7 points after 7 games who have not played each other. The FIDE accepted acceleration system is the Baku Method. In a seven-round tournament, the pairings for four rounds are accelerated. The top half of the players are assigned one virtual point in the first two rounds, and half a virtual point in the next two rounds. The last three rounds will be normal swiss pairings.
The tournament will be both ACF and FIDE rated. FIDE ratings will be used in preference to ACF ratings for pairings when they are available, otherwise ACF ratings will apply.
We are pleased to confirm that Grandmaster Ian Rogers will again provide his very popular live commentary on games. IA Dr Peter Tsai will be our Chief Arbiter supported by 5 national arbiters.
If you have not already secured your accommodation for the weekend, then we encourage you to arrange it immediately since it is always very busy in Ballarat during the Begonia Festival period.
We thank our sponsors for supporting the tournament. These include PPT Accounting and Financial, Federation University, Northern Star Chess, Box Hill Chess Club, and the Friends of Begonia.
Please contact me if you have any queries about the event.
Kind Regards
Kevin Perrin
Tournament Manager
0418 533 517
Ballarat Chess Club Inc
Download Begonia Open 2025 information sheet
Download Begonia Open 2025 Flyer