British Chess Championships 2010

[Ian Thompson]

Wimbledon is not sponsored. Its huge net income is from gate money, TV, advertising and hospitality tents. I had better add an etc.

IBM would disagree with this statement. "IBM, as Official Internet Technology Sponsor of the Championships ..." (http://aeltc2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/in ... index.html).

As would Slazenger. "Slazenger is pleased to continue ... as the official ball sponsor for the tournament." (http://aeltc2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/ab ... enger.html)

If you go http://aeltc2010.wimbledon.org/en_GB/ab ... liers.html you'll see that Wimbledon has 13 official suppliers, who clearly pay for this privilege - "The income from the Official Suppliers is an important part of The Championships’ surplus ..."

[Simon Ansell]

The World Cup has 32 teams in it, of which about 10 have a realistic chance of winning the event.

Denmark won Euro 1992. Greece won Euro 2004. Would you have given those teams a "realistic chance" before the tournament?

Congratulations to Adam on the GM norm! He made decent start. The point I made earlier was that after a bad (or even indifferent) start, the tournament is effectively over for someone like me - I can't win it, I can't make a GM norm and I'm stuck somewhere I'd rather not be for two weeks. Maybe Richard Bates can comment on whether he enjoyed his first 7 rounds here - after losing the first he played another 6 unbeaten before meeting a titled player.

Edit: Also Jonathan Hawkins drew his first game then won his next two vs a 2100 and a 2200, so any GM norm hopes are effectively over after drawing the first round.

[Alex McFarlane]

A few comments:

The qualification rules for 2011 have been tightened. This brought considerable criticism earlier. There is a difficult balance between generating income and weakening the event.

The event is generating considerable Internet attention – over 5 million hits in a day would imply that it is some way short of being the Mickey Mouse event that some people are alleging.

Obviously with sponsorship the event could be improved. But let's consider what normally appeals to a sponsor. Sponsors like to have lots of participants. Sponsors like having shock results which eliminate one of the favourites. A good 'run' by an underdog is manna from heaven for a sponsor. Very much with tongue in cheek I would suggest that an APA is a non starter and so is the Swiss – in the later rounds of both there too many meaningless games between players who have no chance of winning – a KNOCK-OUT is the winning format. It's got everything a sponsor wants, sudden death play-offs, the opportunity for shock results eliminating favourites, etc, etc.
Now how many people read the above and thought “Mmm that might be worth a try”. How many others thought “Didn't we savage that format when it was tried at Hastings?”

As an aside, to register with FIDE a 12 player all-play-all would cost €200, a twenty player Swiss would cost €20. The difference in these amounts makes little sense to me.

Stewart has stated many of the points I would have made had I had the time to reply yesterday so I won't repeat them.

Anyway, I hope that you are enjoying the coverage of this year's event. Despite a very strict budget we continue to try to introduce improvements. It would appear to me that the vast majority of the participants are enjoying the event. All things considered, that perhaps is the most important point.

[Richard Bates]

Congratulations to Adam on the GM norm! He made decent start. The point I made earlier was that after a bad (or even indifferent) start, the tournament is effectively over for someone like me - I can't win it, I can't make a GM norm and I'm stuck somewhere I'd rather not be for two weeks. Maybe Richard Bates can comment on whether he enjoyed his first 7 rounds here - after losing the first he played another 6 unbeaten before meeting a titled player.

Hey, I thought i was playing a model Swiss gambit! (until i mucked up in round 7). Whilst i tend to agree that the tail is too long, from a personal enjoyment point of view it doesn't bother me too much - with a shameful lack of ambition and/or confidence in my own abilities, I prefer winning against weaker players than losing against stronger players. The problem is more when i can't even do the former consistently. For most of the tournament i've probably been half a point off being in the bottom half of the draw and playing strong opposition - going unbeaten against my post round 1 field really isn't much of an achievement. Also despite your comment of "can't win it", I would say that the realistic prospect of a good finish leading to the chance of playing for a prize in the last round is some compensation.

If anything the problem in this tournament is the number of the stronger players who are really not playing particularly well, and are playing even worse when coming up against Michael Adams.

[Alex Holowczak]

The sponsorship thing is a different point. I'm quite happy to accept Stewart's (and your) view on the possibilities of a 12 player APA not neccessarily being more likely to generate more investment.

In which case, this is a pointless argument, because you're never going to get your 12-player APA without a heap of investment. This leaves us with no choice regarding the current format of the Championship. Even if we agreed it was better, which we don't, we couldn't do it.

[Simon Ansell]

For most of the tournament i've probably been half a point off being in the bottom half of the draw and playing strong opposition - going unbeaten against my post round 1 field really isn't much of an achievement.

Really?

Also despite your comment of "can't win it", I would say that the realistic prospect of a good finish leading to the chance of playing for a prize in the last round is some compensation.

I agree to some extent, I'm yet to make the prize list in the British Despite some (very) decent starts!

If anything the problem in this tournament is the number of the stronger players who are really not playing particularly well, and are playing even worse when coming up against Michael Adams.

Adam's been easily the second best player in this tournament and I'm sure he'll have a proper go at Mickey, hopefully it won't be so easy this afternoon!

Edit: By the way, tell Dave I was impressed with his game yesterday and good luck with the rest!

[Richard Bates]

For most of the tournament i've probably been half a point off being in the bottom half of the draw and playing strong opposition - going unbeaten against my post round 1 field really isn't much of an achievement.

Really?

No probably not

[JustinHorton]

See, what bothers me is not people preferring the Swiss format to the APA. There's arguments for either. It's people saying that the APA is a non-starter, it has to be done this way, there's no choice. Is the current system really so successful there is no case for looking at another way of doing it? I don't believe so. Are the claims that it can't be done any other way thoroughly thought through? I don't think so either. I'd like possibilities of a change of format to be looked into seriously and open-mindedly.

Back at the chessboard, or at least at the leaderboard - as far as I can see, Adams can only clinch it today if he wins and the next three boards are all draws. So that record at least looks likely to remain. Now what's the record winning margin again?

[Alex Holowczak]

It's people saying that the APA is a non-starter, it has to be done this way, there's no choice. Is the current system really so successful there is no case for looking at another way of doing it?

It clearly isn't a non-starter, because several other countries use this format already. France, for starters. It would be worth thinking about if it could be afforded.

Jack and I were looking at who would make the APA 12 if we go by rating list from Britain. We didn't include the Commonwealth, because it'd basically become an Indian Championship mark 2.

The 12 would be:
Michael Adams 2706
Nigel Short 2690
Luke McShane 2624
David Howell 2616
Jonathan Rowson 2576
Gawain Jones 2568
Mark Hebden 2556
Stewart Haslinger 2552
Nicholas Pert 2551
Stephen Gordon 2534
Jonathan Parker 2531
Jon Speelman 2524

Jacob Aagaard might even get in despite now switching allegiance to Denmark again. At 2542, he'd get in rating-wise, but I'm not sure about his eligibility. No Conquest, Williams, Wells, Gormally, Arkell... no female players at all. So you'd probably need a separate Ladies' Championship for Houska, Arakhamia-Grant, Hunt etc. Would this also be in the form of an APA? If so, you'd have to fund that too. Otherwise, they'd all get thrown in to the Major Open. This may or may not be a bad thing, but this is a side-effect of an APA British Championship.

[JustinHorton]

Indeed, a stronger Major Open seems to me to be one of the necessary side-effects of having an APA. Now there's all sotrs of questions to be asked about that, like for instance would the GMs be prepared to play in it? Would they be offered conditions to play in it, and if so how far down would that extend? And so on.

But I'd like at least to see these questions asked. And of course it's also possible to ask the federations of other countries how it works where they are.

[Kevin Thurlow]

The idea of a rating floor has been used elsewhere. (Rating flaws are commonplace.) I played in Krakow a couple of years ago, and (from memory) the top section was "over 2100", the second section "2200-1800", and the third Under 1800. (I believe the Aeroflot event in Moscow was similar.) I played in Section A to get the good opposition, but played pretty awfully. But I wouldn't have found Section B interesting. I have only qualified for the British once so far and obviously knew I wouldn't win, but it was nice to play in it...

[Alan Walton]

Alex,

The APA suggestion what you came up with is the thoughts that I originally had, the first year you would have to select off ratings (maybe use an average over a couple of years though), but then you only guarantee the top 6 or 8 a place the following year, then have four qualifying places (2 from the Major Open, 1 each from the London Classic and Hastings). Admittedly you need good sponsorship for the tournament though, but would this give something to aspire to for the player not originally in the top 12

Another way of doing it is like the American Champs where you have a 20-30 player Swiss, this will mean you will have all the GMs and then all the top IMs, from this there is a significant chance of 2/3 of the IMs competing for GM norms, and the odd high 2300 player getting an IM norm

BTW, If Adam H has got his norm, well done

[Sean Hewitt]

Alex,

The APA suggestion what you came up with is the thoughts that I originally had, the first year you would have to select off ratings (maybe use an average over a couple of years though), but then you only guarantee the top 6 or 8 a place the following year, then have four qualifying places (2 from the Major Open, 1 each from the London Classic and Hastings). Admittedly you need good sponsorship for the tournament though, but would this give something to aspire to for the player not originally in the top 12

The format is not the issue. As Justin says there are arguments for and against all formats. The issue is finance. The current British has it's prize fund covered by the so called no-hopers who pay an entry fee to play. How would an all play all be funded? And please don't say sponsorship! We don't have any, and have to work on the assumption that we won't have any.

[Sean Hewitt]

The event is generating considerable Internet attention – over 5 million hits in a day would imply that it is some way short of being the Mickey Mouse event that some people are alleging.

The great thing with stats is that you can get them to say anything you like, especially meaningless ones like the one above. Looks impressive, but tells us nothing.

The fact is that the DGT live games software refreshes the webpage showing the live games every time a move is made. If you watch the live games for one hour you might expect 20 moves to be made by each player in each of 20 games. That's 800 hits in 1 hour which sounds great, until you realise that you actually only have one person viewing your website.

A far more meaningful number is how many unique visitors a day does the website get? My guess is perhaps 10,000 which is still pretty darned good, but let's not kid oursleves as to how big our audience is, or how valuable the event would be to a commercial sponsor.

[Alan Walton]

Sean,

True, in the current climate the only way of having the British is the current model, the only way funding an APA would be by sponsorship either through companies or a individual benefactor, but I think having the top players in an APA would be a more attractive tournament to get sponsors (it is like any sport where elite events always get more coverage and higher prize funds)