Things you might have missed

[LawrenceCooper]

4) Did David Howell make it to 2700 when he beat James Adair yesterday?

I put this to http://www.2700chess.com/ who replied that David still needs another 2.2 points.

A mere Feller game annulment away

[Christopher Kreuzer]

On the subject of 'Things you might have missed', I noticed a passing comment in the May 2015 CHESS magazine that James Adair looked to be "well on course for his second [GM norm]". I see in the final weekend that Adair drew with WIM Veronica Foisor (2250) and beat GM Robin van Kampen (2617) and then lost to GM David Howell (2687) in the final round. I was surprised that there hasn't been more publicity about this (nothing on the 4NCL website or the ECF website as far as I can see). I Googled "James Adair" and "GM norm" and found he did get his second norm, as announced on Twitter by John Saunders:

https://twitter.com/johnchess/status/594888685679726593

Is this definite, and were any other norms achieved?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Five norms in total, I think:

James Adair (GM)
Iain Gourlay (IM)
Tom Eckersley-Waites (IM)
Carlos Suarez Garcia (IM)
Isaac Sanders (IM)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks. It is slightly ironic that this wasn't brought up in the thread 'The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?' Three of those players are ENG and one SCO (Gourlay). Suarez Garcia is registered ESP. Let's hope the next ENG title is not far off, and that changes needed to ensure a steady stream of new titled players at a young age are being considered. (Looking at the ages of those achieving norms tells you something - I think only Sanders is a junior at 16-17 years old). Adair is 22-23, is his rate of development about right or ahead or behind the curve?

[Mike Truran]

Well, to be fair it's not quite the same as having (at least four) seventeen/eighteen year olds on the cusp of or over 2500. Our top U18 on the FIDE rating list comes in at 2342 as far as I can see.

[MartinCarpenter]

Adair? Seemingly 174 in July 2008 so you can see not massive junior coaching He then arrived at York University ~4 years ago rated +-210 and was very obviously well worth that. Made beating 190/200's look very easy.

Fairly sure he collected all his norms/a bundle of FIDE rating points while at (full time) University using just the British/4NCL. Now he's finished Uni and got a 'real' job but still seems likely to get to GM, due to how strong he is.

Would intensive pre coaching have made a big difference? Dunno. Can obviously see how he could have got to GM by now with a bit of focused effort, but you have to imagine he'd still have gone to University and then into 'real' work after it, so I doubt you'd have seen such a big long term difference.

I imagine its the same with an awful lot of our stronger juniors. They'll mostly reach roughly as strong as they would have anyway with that sort of German effort, just more slowly and maybe a lower peak for some.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I should really have tried to recruit James Adair some years ago. I expect that I couldn't imagine having a fight with Slough Sharks

[Mike Truran]

The last couple of posts seem to have ignored (or intentionally missed the point about) my attempted comparison between Germany's and England's respective efforts to develop our juniors, but what do I know?

[MartinCarpenter]

More questioned the point actually

Yes, you'll develop juniors into IM's/GM's more quickly if you throw effort into it. Long term gains? Much less clear cut.

[Jonathan Rogers]

The last couple of posts seem to have ignored (or intentionally missed the point about) my attempted comparison between Germany's and England's respective efforts to develop our juniors, but what do I know?

What is there to be said? we are far behind so many countries and have been for many years. But what with this new government as well, I can't face contributing to all the different internet discussions about how depressing the future seems to be.

[Neil Graham]

It was rumoured that the 4NCL had a Division Three; indeed possibly even two based in the North and South.

I say this as Division Three has around 100 more games per round than those in Division One and Two combined - however can anyone find a report on or indeed a game from Division Three quoted anywhere; probably not. The 4NCL website promised on 02/04/2015 "photos from Division Three" to follow but indeed if they were following they must have got lost somewhere. When the ECF Yearbook for 2015 arrived, I looked eagerly for news of Division Three but after the scouring of five pages of 4NCL games, photos and tables I found details of the top four places (out of the 63 teams who played) wedged into the middle of page four. Reports in Chess or the BCM ? No. At one time Division Three met with the two superior Divisions in the final rounds so we could rub shoulders with the GMs and pretend we were proper chess players. But latterly the Third Division has been shunted off to fend for itself; to Daventry and in 2015/16 to Telford and has spawned an even lower Division - the dreaded Division Four. Division Three North has also been thrown out of the nest to see if it can survive without assistance of it's Southern counterpart. Indeed last season one player refused to play for me in Division Three - "if I can't go and watch the grandmaster games and listen to the commentary count me out" he said. I did explain that he could watch my game instead but the commentary I got for that is not suitable for a responsible message board.

In the dim and distant past, there was a regular report (by Matt Lunn) of the goings-on in Division Three. Indeed I recall I was mentioned mostly along the lines of "Neil Graham played an interesting game.....but lost". Is there any possibility of someone taking on this responsibility? In the interim despite what I've said here, players of my standard have the opportunity to play in the 4NCL and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers and the arbiters for getting the show on the road. I'm sure that everyone would join with me in this. But any chance of more reporting/publicity please?

[Brian Towers]

In the dim and distant past, there was a regular report (by Matt Lunn) of the goings-on in Division Three. Indeed I recall I was mentioned mostly along the lines of "Neil Graham played an interesting game.....but lost". Is there any possibility of someone taking on this responsibility?

Perhaps ask one of the arbiters? They are in the best position to see what are the most interesting games. Anybody else (apart from a spectator who was there also keeping an eye on all the games) would have to do a fair amount of research to get to an arbiter's starting point of knowledge regarding what went on. Or would this be too controversial a task for an arbiter to take on?

[LawrenceCooper]

It was rumoured that the 4NCL had a Division Three; indeed possibly even two based in the North and South.

I say this as Division Three has around 100 more games per round than those in Division One and Two combined - however can anyone find a report on or indeed a game from Division Three quoted anywhere; probably not. The 4NCL website promised on 02/04/2015 "photos from Division Three" to follow but indeed if they were following they must have got lost somewhere. When the ECF Yearbook for 2015 arrived, I looked eagerly for news of Division Three but after the scouring of five pages of 4NCL games, photos and tables I found details of the top four places (out of the 63 teams who played) wedged into the middle of page four. Reports in Chess or the BCM ? No. At one time Division Three met with the two superior Divisions in the final rounds so we could rub shoulders with the GMs and pretend we were proper chess players. But latterly the Third Division has been shunted off to fend for itself; to Daventry and in 2015/16 to Telford and has spawned an even lower Division - the dreaded Division Four. Division Three North has also been thrown out of the nest to see if it can survive without assistance of it's Southern counterpart. Indeed last season one player refused to play for me in Division Three - "if I can't go and watch the grandmaster games and listen to the commentary count me out" he said. I did explain that he could watch my game instead but the commentary I got for that is not suitable for a responsible message board.

In the dim and distant past, there was a regular report (by Matt Lunn) of the goings-on in Division Three. Indeed I recall I was mentioned mostly along the lines of "Neil Graham played an interesting game.....but lost". Is there any possibility of someone taking on this responsibility? In the interim despite what I've said here, players of my standard have the opportunity to play in the 4NCL and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the organisers and the arbiters for getting the show on the road. I'm sure that everyone would join with me in this. But any chance of more reporting/publicity please?

I hastily checked back to my reporting days (I stood down at the end of the 2012-13 season) and found to my relief that I always had a summary of Division Three, albeit only one or two paragraphs at the end of a long article that I suspect not many people read from start to finish Maybe it's up to captains to fill the void, perhaps one captain per weekend to write something. Although most of my 4NCL captaincy has been in the top divisions I quite enjoy the Division Three weekends albeit I suspect that my squad may shrink with the move from Daventry to Telford. I've been able to give a lot of juniors and women, most of which were previously without a team, a chance to play in the league and hope to continue next season and beyond.

[Mick Norris]

I always read and enjoyed Loz's reports, he was right to focus on the top divisions, but at least he has some interest in the mass market as it were

Both SoA and Yorkshire Chess carry reports which include Div 3

Both of these are mainly Div 3 North, of course, which had reports from Steve Kee of Aigburth/Ferry previously too - and Dave Pardoe often provides reflections for the Manticores - Holmes Chapel used to blog similarly, not sure if they still do - maybe says something about the excellent camaraderie in Div 3 North

There are lots of teams in Div 3 South, so surely some of them produce something?

[Mike Truran]

Neil has kindly volunteered to try to find someone. If anyone else would like to do the reporting, or knows someone who would, I'm sure we can find our way to crossing their palms with (a small amount of) silver.