No it isn't, at all.Graham Borrowdale wrote:That's a bit like Manchester United playing towards the Stretford end at the request of Sky TV. No real harm done, perhaps, but this is supposed to be a serious competition, not an exhibition.Alex Holowczak wrote:According to the commentary, it is at the request of NRK, the Norwegian TV company broadcasting the event.LawrenceCooper wrote:
He seems to have a permanent place on board 1.
It's a bit like Andy Murray playing on Centre Court at Wimbledon rather than Court 15, because he's the British number 1, and that's what the fans watching TV want to see, and what the fans attending the event want to sit down and see. You put Ronnie O'Sullivan on the main table at an event like the UK Championship, not table 5-8 in the sports hall next door, because the cameras are in the main arena.
If you want to use a football-based analogy, it's like when two popular Melbourne teams play in the AFL playoffs - even if the Etihad Stadium is the ground of the team that's supposed to play at home, they'll play the game at the MCG because the capacity is higher - even if the away team's home ground is the MCG. This happened last year, when the Western Bulldogs played the Adelaide Crows - OK, not a Melbourne team! - at the MCG, even though the Etihad is the Western Bulldogs' home ground.
VIshy Anand was fixed on board 23 last year at Gibraltar in one of the rounds so that his game was on a live board; he'd dropped off them otherwise. If you have a marquee name, that people are logging on/turning on to watch, you put them on a board where the cameras are. I think that has to be the right approach, but you might do it for other reasons.
We fixed Mark Hebden on a board at the British this year because of the lighting. In the past, I had a situation last year where two players with untidy handwriting playing each other just off a liveboard, but in the same scoregroup as a game on a liveboard. So I bumped them up to play on a liveboard because the games-inputter threatened to go on strike if I didn't.