English Chess Forum

I doubt Maze will actually play for Gonzaga unless they need him for a crunch promotion match in the final weekend. He did play three matches in the Armstrong Cup (chief Irish league) this year but Gonzaga would have won the competition easily without it. There will probably be quite a lot of competition among their regular players to get into the six.

Can somebody explain the "Junior" flags in the Registrations list? What is the age cut-off? Enniscorthy have only a few of their players flagged as j but their eldest players were born in 1999 and one of them is flagged j. If it's under-20 they should all be j.

You want each of the 9 top seeds to meet the other 8, so over the first 2 weekends you might want them meeting 1 of the 8 each weekend; you then have 7 rounds left and meet the other 6, plus whichever of the teams out of the top 9 proves to be stronger than expected?

So, I don't see the first weekend matches 3Cs 2 v Ched 2, MM1 v SoA B, H&B v MM2 and Gonzaga v AB1 as a problem, really

That seems precisely how you'd expect it to work, yes Presumably trying to keep the sum of the seeding totals that everyone plays over the two matches roughly equal.

AB1 as 6th seeds seems entirely plausible but not much in it really. ~175 over the top 8 players. MM2 say are slightly stronger if we take them as registered boards 11 to 18 and even someone like Jorvik can hit 172 with our top 6, we do drop off rather past that.

The real difference with 3S vs 3N is the presence of a handful of genuinely weak teams. Probably more really strong teams too, they just don't tend to stay around for very long!

Tim Harding wrote:
Can somebody explain the "Junior" flags in the Registrations list?

It isn't actually a junior flag, rather it indicates that the team have elected to use a national rating or converted ECF grade for board order purposes for that player. The idea being that if a player is a quite a few FIDE Elo points above or below their perceived strength, it doesn't mess up the preferred board order.

Tim Harding wrote:I doubt Maze will actually play for Gonzaga unless they need him for a crunch promotion match in the final weekend. He did play three matches in the Armstrong Cup (chief Irish league) this year but Gonzaga would have won the competition easily without it. There will probably be quite a lot of competition among their regular players to get into the six.

Can somebody explain the "Junior" flags in the Registrations list? What is the age cut-off? Enniscorthy have only a few of their players flagged as j but their eldest players were born in 1999 and one of them is flagged j. If it's under-20 they should all be j.

"junior players who are under 18 years on 1st January 2017." As Roger has mentioned the "*" means teams have opted to have their ECF grade converted (*7.5 +700) to allow them to play on a higher board/team. The same can be done with adult players.

Some interesting team selections today

The MM teams had to be rejigged this week with the 1st team weakened slightly

Dave Pardoe is in hospital so we hope he gets well soon

Mick Norris wrote:Some interesting team selections today

You're not kidding! Manx Liberty, for heaven's sake. GM, IM, IM at the top. That's got to be the strongest top 3 in Div 3 ever - with a 600, 550 & 400 Elo gap on those three boards. Gonzaga are strong too, as expected. How many go up? Two. Could be even harder work in Div 2 next year

Dave Pardoe is in hospital so we hope he gets well soon

We all hope so, speedily I'm sure

Manx must be the biggest drop between top and bottom half of the team

I assume that is the seedings out of the window after today's results

Mick Norris wrote:I assume that is the seedings out of the window after today's results

Seven of the nine matches went with seeding; MM2 losing to Enniscorthy was the one loss that might not have been anticipated. The teams in the drawn fixture were closely matched based on FIDE rating.

MM 2 loss was disappointing but Manx look stronger than seeding and SoA B were seeded to win

Still can be done more accurately for weekend 2

Tomorrow will be interesting as we see if anyone changes lineups significantly

Mick Norris wrote:Manx must be the biggest drop between top and bottom half of the team

The whole thing is a bit fascinating They do have some decent mid/lower boards not playing, so presume it isn't a straight promotion push.

I heard some talk the GM might simply have been the 6th player they could find......

From what I gather these titled players play for the German team in the Bundesliga that Dietmar organizes

http://www.schachbundesliga.de/verein/232/522

Alan Walton wrote:From what I gather these titled players play for the German team in the Bundesliga that Dietmar organizes

http://www.schachbundesliga.de/verein/232/522

Ivanchuk will be welcome in Division Three North!

Neil Graham wrote:

Alan Walton wrote:From what I gather these titled players play for the German team in the Bundesliga that Dietmar organizes

http://www.schachbundesliga.de/verein/232/522

Ivanchuk will be welcome in Division Three North!

He probably is waiting for Blackrod rather than going to Wakefield