4NCL season 2012-13

[Matthew Turner]

Jonathan,
You haven't told me about teams having budgets, what is this all about then?

[Jonathan Rogers]

Jonathan,
You haven't told me about teams having budgets, what is this all about then?

Obviously they don't: by the word "budget" the report is simply referrig to the amount of their own money which they choose to spend on their own team. It isn't very much, in White Rose's case, and a number of teams spend more, but I can't believe they spend less than most of the teams in division one.

I ws also a bit surprised to read of their recent good score against our first team (it is three losses, one draw and one win in the last five matches) but I don't know, perhaps that's better than they expected!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

So is it possible to actually say how many of the teams in division 1 are professional or amateur? Or it is only possible to estimate this sort of thing and resort to phrases such as "semi-professional" or "part-professional"? Are any division 1 teams wholly amateur, or do they all have to do something to retain the services of titled players/juniors/female players that might otherwise decamp to other teams?

[IM Jack Rudd]

So is it possible to actually say how many of the teams in division 1 are professional or amateur? Or it is only possible to estimate this sort of thing and resort to phrases such as "semi-professional" or "part-professional"? Are any division 1 teams wholly amateur, or do they all have to do something to retain the services of titled players/juniors/female players that might otherwise decamp to other teams?

It's probably not possible to say this with any certainty, because club finances are not public knowledge. I would expect there to be a number of wholly amateur Division 1 teams.

[Matthew Turner]

Chris,
As a guess for the 1st division I would say

Wood Green 1 and Guildford 1 are wholly professional

Barbican (1+2), Cambridge 1, Warwickshire Select, BCM dragons, South Wales Dragons are wholly amateur

The rest are Semi-professional. However, that term really covers a whole multitude of different arrangements. Barbican are clearly an oddity, but in simple terms if you cannot pay a couple of players then you are not going to survive long in division one.

[Joey Stewart]

Is there a rule that you have to work a high roller job in "the city" to be in the barbican team?

[Matthew Turner]

I do hope so - I'm open to offers

[Jonathan Rogers]

Is there a rule that you have to work a high roller job in "the city" to be in the barbican team?

No, but somehow or other, those subscription fees must be paid

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Randomly, I decided to look up when I first played in the 4NCL. Unless records on the 4NCL site go back more than two years (I thought they did, maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?), then I first played in the 2002-3 season, for the ADs. Won the first three, lost the next three. Most were for ADs 3 in division 4, though one of the games was for the ADs 2 in division 2! I had thought that was the only time I played in division 2, but it seems that I did play a game or two in the 2010-11 season as well (for Cambridge University 2). Looking at the 2010-11 4NCL website, it says "This is the website for the 2010/11 season. All material will be retained for the time being." Hopefully they will be archived somewhere at some point (this sort of archival service is what the ECF could usefully provide). I was trying to look back at some of the earlier 4NCL history, but that doesn't seem possible.

[Roger de Coverly]

Randomly, I decided to look up when I first played in the 4NCL.

You could use the game archive at:-
http://www.4ncl.co.uk/download/All_4NCL_1996_2010.pgn

Earlier games have the team abbreviations in the event field, but from 2010 onwards, this has been dropped. I could agree that it's a pain to input, but if skeleton PGNs are being created automatically from the team sheets, it adds value to the historic record to have the team noted.

The ecfgrading site records the squad name, so the data isn't totally lost.

[Mike Truran]

More Information > News Archive Pre 2010 gets you into the old website, where all the 2010 information and earlier information about the 4NCL has been preserved.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Randomly, I decided to look up when I first played in the 4NCL.

You could use the game archive at:-
http://www.4ncl.co.uk/download/All_4NCL_1996_2010.pgn

Earlier games have the team abbreviations in the event field, but from 2010 onwards, this has been dropped. I could agree that it's a pain to input, but if skeleton PGNs are being created automatically from the team sheets, it adds value to the historic record to have the team noted.

The ecfgrading site records the squad name, so the data isn't totally lost.

Thanks. I thought the 4NCL started before 1996? I have a vague memory of 1992? I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but does anyone know when the major national chess leagues were all started? Ones like the Bundesliga, the French national league, possibly some other ones as well. Anything that is truly national and has GMs and IMs playing in it.

OK, I decided to be less lazy: "When a National Chess League was proposed by Chris Dunsworth in 1992, the BCF endorsed the proposal and gave Chris a grant towards the formation. The League began in October 1993." That is from here:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 057#p83918

So the 4NCL was proposed in 1992 and started in October 1993. Have the games from the first three seasons been lost forever then? Turning to other national leagues, I failed completely to find any history on the German and French national leagues.

To come back on topic for this season, Leonard Barden has a piece out with the Guardian on the recent conclusion to this season's 4NCL:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ma ... hirov-4ncl

(Thanks, Mike for the link to earlier stuff!)

[IM Jack Rudd]

Earlier games have the team abbreviations in the event field, but from 2010 onwards, this has been dropped. I could agree that it's a pain to input, but if skeleton PGNs are being created automatically from the team sheets, it adds value to the historic record to have the team noted.

They're still in the PGN files, but not in the Event field: they're in the WhiteTeam and BlackTeam fields, where they should be.

[Roger de Coverly]

They're still in the PGN files, but not in the Event field: they're in the WhiteTeam and BlackTeam fields, where they should be.

WhiteTeam, BlackTeam appear to be relatively new ChessBase extensions. So if you are using older versions or not ChessBase at all, this data may disappear.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

They're still in the PGN files, but not in the Event field: they're in the WhiteTeam and BlackTeam fields, where they should be.

WhiteTeam, BlackTeam appear to be relatively new ChessBase extensions. So if you are using older versions or not ChessBase at all, this data may disappear.

Are they not PGN database fields? What are these ChessBase extensions you are talking about? Do you mean ChessBase changes to accommodate/recognise new PGN fields, or were those fields always there? I remember once looking at the full PGN specification, and thinking that half of the fields are not normally used, but it would be nice if they were. I've sometimes wanted to record full competition details (board number, number of boards in the match/tournament). Even match results as well, which is not strictly needed for a personal games database, and should be built from skeleton entries for the other games. Is there some software out there that tries to do such things and more? For games recorded on live boards, you would want some way of recording the move time after each move. I suppose that is now possible. Possibly the actual start time in local time, and the GPS co-ordinates as well... (along with links to archived live videos and/or post-mortems, as is becoming common). Oh, and recording all draw offers - does any software do this at all yet? I suppose Google Glass might one day, though using those in a chess tournament has obvious drawbacks!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass