2013 CNSC Early Bird

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Commentary: Before the Tournament

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Go to: Before the Tournament, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Award Ceremony.

Pre-event

This year's CNSC Early Bird is being held in a trio of meeting rooms on the lower level at the Bond Hotel in downtown Toronto. This 7-game event has attracted a few players who qualified for the CNSC (which begins this evening) and several others who didn't quite reach the rating break and want a chance to be part of the action. The one who qualifies on accent alone as having travelled the furthest is Caroline Polak Scowcroft (Australia). She is listed for this event as living in Winnipeg, MB, but she really is from Camberra, Australia (the nation's capital). When I press her she calls herself "homeless" and says she lives where she is. Based on that, she now lives in Toronto!

The Early Bird will be odd this year with 13 players.

Event codiector, Mad Palazzo, is busy setting up the part of the room we are not using for the Early Bird. The players are flexible about the flurry of activity around them.

T-shirts are to be counted and sizes noted. NASPA wooden racks and pens need to be ready to hand to each player. I see some tile bags, too.

The hotel is being extremely accommodating as we refigure out how to make this event work in this lovely space. We did run the event two years ago here, but enough time has passed that we can't quite remember what goes where and why.

The event projectors will be set up not in the lobby this time, but in the third of the meeting rooms. John has one set up now and once we relocate me, he'll have a second table at the other end of the room. This will leave the lobby less cluttered and the place where staff will gather and work. Two projectors will make it easy to list pairings on one and standings on the other. The early bird, with 13 players, and the main event, with only 52 players, will fit easily on these screens. For Las Vegas in July, we'll need larger screens!

John is now making quick announcements and the event will soon begin!