South Island Championship/Nelson Open 2013 Final report.

Just a quick report today, the Internet is painfully slow and some stupid automatic update stole most of my remaining data.

The players below won some section prizes. The ceremony started early as some people had to get to the airport.

Quentin “bony chicken” Johnson, who won the upset prize by beating yours truly, got the South Island champions title as well. Deservedly I may add.

Puchen “Pooch” Wang took first prize with a picket fence 9/9.

Ok, so with the formalities out of the way we got to do some tourism. Here we are at the local brewery.

The Cafe was great inside. There was a selection of different ales all made on the premises. We started with a Three Berries Cider and moved to a Vanilla and Coconut Dark Ale. The first one was better.

While we were drinking a musician called something like “typhoon panda” was playing in the background. He was quite good. Perhaps he’ll play in Mullumbimby one day. He would fit right in 🙂

So then Pooch needed to catch a flight and I was the only one left interested in seeing the sights! Chess-players! Sometimes I am ashamed to be one of them. Tell me if I am exaggerating but is this not one of the most beautiful places on earth? Is resting, checking  your emails or analysing your games really the best thing to do on a sunny day in this area?

Mapua got settled by Europeans in the 1840’s.

The pier has a long history, detailed on a noticeboard. Come and read it yourself.

There are several places to eat and/or drink. Tourism is the major industry here now.

We chose this place for some fish and chips. My recommendation, buy the fish and eat it raw or cook it yourself. New Zealand fish is the best…until New Zealanders batter and deep fry it.

Now a few words about my last round game before data runs out. Not much to say. Bruce was not on form this morning and gave me all his pieces. Maybe he also is not a morning person.