• Events for Less Experienced Players

Which events can we enter if we are a less experienced pair?

The Summer Festival is Australia’s premier national event and is not just open to pairs who have been playing for a long time with lots of masterpoints.  There are several events where:

  • there are specific restrictions (on masterpoints earned or Grand Slam ranking achieved) which keep very experienced players out altogether –these are:
    • NOVICE events below 100MPs or less than 50% Grand Slam ranking;
    • RESTRICTED events below 300MPs or less than 54% Grand Slam ranking
    • INTERMEDIATE events below 750MPs or less than 59% Grand Slam Ranking

These events are not mutually exclusive i.e. you don’t need more than 100MPs to enter a restricted event or more than 300MPs to play in an intermediate event.  This allows people who want to play above their stated level in more experienced fields, to do so. This can be more beneficial in terms of improving your own standard. For this same reason, Intermediate players are encouraged to play in Open events. 

  • for less experienced players the other important thing is that all teams and most pairs events are what we call “Swiss” events where who you play in the next match is generally determined by your position in the field ie 1v2 3v4 and 19v20 etc (unless you have played them before).  In larger fields this means you tend to play against pairs or teams that are closer to your standard. So, players with under 20MPs entering U100MP Novice events should expect to find several other pairs with under 20MPs.  So, don’t be put off entering because you feel you will be the only inexperienced pair playing.

Prize Categories – it is also very exciting to win a prize and a medal so for all our events for less experienced players, we have two or three sub-categories to encourage participation such as:

  • in NOVICE events, there are Super Novice (U20 MPs), Rising Stars (U50 MPs) and Novice (U100 MPs) categories.  Eligible Grand Slam Members will only be considered for the Novice Category.
  • in RESTRICTED events, there will be two categories, U300 MPs and U100MPs with eligible Grand Slam members only being considered for the U300 MPs prize category.
  • in INTERMEDIATE events, there is the U750 MPs category and the U300MPs category with eligible Grand Slam members only being considered for the U750 category.

Now that you know what you can enter, the next step is to Click on the link below that best suits your current MP or experience level: