Post
by Kevin Thurlow » Wed May 15, 2019 7:46 am
"Does that really rank alongside, say, the Thanet Open? As a closed event, would the Civil Service event have qualified for the BCF Grand Prix of that year"
No idea what BCF rules were. In CS championship, there were about a dozen regions, and two qualifiers were allowed from each region, each region had to have a minimum number of competitors (although that was ignored the first year - 1991), and you had to be a member of the CS Sports Council, not just someone who had been employed by Civil Service. CSSC would happily allow an ex-CS member to play, (if they had retained CSSC membership)but someone who had worked for CS for 20 years, but had allowed their CSSC membership to elapse for 6 months and one day, would not be allowed to play ever again. But that description should go on a long time...
I think Charlie was graded about 170 and scored 5/5, beating several 180s on the way, one of them very quickly, so it was a very good result, in quite a strong event. But in the 20 or so years of the event, Andrew Ledger was the only titled player to participate, winning both times, once with 5/5. He and Charlie were the only two to achieve that. So, it wasn't as good as the average Thanet Open, but it's not the same as a small club event.
Arguments about what constitutes an "Open" could go on. It may be the wrong argument. A county championship is not "Open" and in many cases would be stronger than a weekend "Open". Every time I won a CS event, I considered myself the best player in the CS, even though some guy working in the Benbecula hospital was unable to compete in the event...