2013 British Chess Championships (Torquay)

[Andrew Zigmond]

I agree it was unfortunate in an event as important as the British and Keith Arkell deserved an apology. However I hope this thread has not been revived simply for this year's round of arbiter bashing.

[Roger de Coverly]

The issue was with the colours in a pairing being accidentally transposed, which is both the sort of thing you want a validation process to pick up on, and one which you can easily program a computer program to pick up on.

Swiss Master was presumably in use because of its facilities for web publishing. I'm aware that arbiters seem to think they know better than its built in pairing routines, but why not try letting the program do the pairings? Is this a reaction to the supposedly odd pairings generated in the last round of the Scottish.

[JustinHorton]

Has anybody considered doing them with a ouija board?

[Sean Hewitt]

Is this a reaction to the supposedly odd pairings generated in the last round of the Scottish.

You'd have to ask the arbiters in charge. In response to a query, I checked the pairings produced for the last round of the Scottish at the time and found them to be correct according to the FIDE pairing rules (albeit it was a complex set of pairings). However, they were not correct according to British pairing rules and I'm not sure which rules were being used in that event.

Brian Moore wrote a very intelligent article this week. One particular section resonated because it could easily be applied to chess - indeed, I've said this to a number of arbiters who support the use of British pairing rules

If they want this, they should have the courage to propose and persuade the IRB to pass different laws.
They should not seek to force the rest of the game to accept what they want through selfish disobedience.

Interestingly, the response I got back was "We tried that, but they wouldn't listen to us."

[David Sedgwick]

Is this a reaction to the supposedly odd pairings generated in the last round of the Scottish.

You'd have to ask the arbiters in charge. In response to a query, I checked the pairings produced for the last round of the Scottish at the time and found them to be correct according to the FIDE pairing rules (albeit it was a complex set of pairings). However, they were not correct according to British pairing rules and I'm not sure which rules were being used in that event.

Both the pairings and the FIDE pairing rules are complex. The matter has been debated previously on this Forum.

I wouldn't have accepted the pairings in question, even had I been using the FIDE pairing rules.

I'm hoping that the specific case can be discussed at the meeting of the Swiss Pairings Programs Commission at the forthcoming FIDE Congress in Tallinn.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm hoping that the specific case can be discussed at the meeting of the Swiss Pairings Programs Commission at the forthcoming FIDE Congress in Tallinn.

As with any computer program that produces an unexpected result, you have to establish
(a) whether the program is correctly following the agreed rules and procedure
(b) if (a) whether the rules and procedures themselves are defective.

One easily understandable difference between "British" and "FIDE" rules is the treatment of floaters where "British" will try to float the median and "FIDE" the lowest and highest rated. For the leaders and the middle of the tournament I would have thought there's more merit in the "FIDE" approach. For the award of a bye to the bottom score group, would it not improve the "FIDE" approach to introduce a dummy filler to even the numbers? The top down process would then pair the player at the halfway mark of the score group against the filler, which avoids giving the probably weakest players in the tournament extra points.

[Roger Mylward]

On a very different note, it would appear that a record that was set in Torquay for the longest time gap between winning two Championship titles, albeit that in both cases the titles were shared.

In 1959, Graham Chesters (Crewe) shared the U-15 title with D Ian W Reynolds. In 2013, Graham (Hull) shared the Senior (60+) title with Roger Emerson, David Friedgood and Paul Timson. Has this time gap of 54 years ever been exceeded?

Roger Mylward

[Roger de Coverly]

In 1959, Graham Chesters (Crewe) shared the U-15 title with D Ian W Reynolds.

His co-winner is still an active player, so the record could yet be broken!

[David Gilbert]

On a very different note, it would appear that a record that was set in Torquay for the longest time gap between winning two Championship titles, albeit that in both cases the titles were shared.

In 1959, Graham Chesters (Crewe) shared the U-15 title with D Ian W Reynolds. In 2013, Graham (Hull) shared the Senior (60+) title with Roger Emerson, David Friedgood and Paul Timson. Has this time gap of 54 years ever been exceeded?

Roger Mylward

Brilliant story! Well done Graham Chesters. The Seniors championship was a fantastic success this year with a record 64 entries, and played in great spirit. Graham wasn’t the only ex-champion doing well in Torquay. Michael Basman turned out and won the Atkins weekender and he was Under-21 champion back in 1963. That’s about when Julian Hodgson was born, maybe he’ll make a come back some day!

[Andrew Bak]

Ben Finegold has an interesting take on the most recent British Championships:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSYFXKm4Wk

His discussion of the British Champs start at about 38:30 into the clip and last for a couple of minutes.

[Colin Patterson]

Someone needs to remind him that if you strip out all of the 'non-US born' players from the US Championships, then Ray Robson would be playing ... Ray Robson. So I don't know why he thinks our championship is so inferior!

[Andrew Bak]

Someone needs to remind him that if you strip out all of the 'non-US born' players from the US Championships, then Ray Robson would be playing ... Ray Robson. So I don't know why he thinks our championship is so inferior!

Look at the flak that Jack Wilshere took for making a similar argument in the football world.

Whilst he's rather blunt, it's interesting to see how outsiders view how we do things.

[Roger de Coverly]

Whilst he's rather blunt, it's interesting to see how outsiders view how we do things.

Before the US Championship got a permanent patron, they were using a more explicit version of our qualification system. If you paid extra to enter in a tournament, you were included in the contest for a qualification place. Also you could enter directly if you paid several thousand dollars as an entry fee.

I suppose it must have been influenced by US sport, but one of their stranger set ups was to divide the field into two, have two separate tournaments and then a play off between the respective winners.