CEO Report

[Andrew Bak]

Could the ECF not just stop grading the games of anyone who appears on the chessnuts site?

That's what it will be doing in effect. Only games played in events which sign up to £ 2 per game if a league, or £ 6 per head if a Congress will be graded.

Of course this leads this now leads to a situation where many more Yorkshire players will or have already become ECF members than in previous years but as a whole there will be fewer games graded by the ECF from the individual Yorkshire leagues.

I know the issue of having the games of non-ECF registered leagues and congresses not being sent for grading has been discussed elsewhere on the forum. Whether the ECF misled Yorkshire or whether Yorkshire misunderstood/misinterpreted the ECF, the fact is that the individual leagues have not been able to make a decision as to whether to continue with the status quo or be ECF-graded. This has led to an unfortunate situation where Yorkshire players who were previously and are still ECF members are going to have fewer games graded by the ECF.

There are successful games and pastimes that thrive without an obvious governing body. Isn't poker one of them?

No: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... n_of_Poker

In my experience of playing poker, tournaments are run by individual websites, casinos or organisations such as the World Series of Poker and are not really governed by any umbrella governing body.

This means that there are no set rules for poker and each casino and/or tournament has it's own variations which can get very confusing and lead to quite heated confrontations. I believe recently that an attempt has been made to publish a full set of official rules for poker, what effect this will have I don't know.

[Alex Holowczak]

There are successful games and pastimes that thrive without an obvious governing body. Isn't poker one of them?

No: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... n_of_Poker

In my experience of playing poker, tournaments are run by individual websites, casinos or organisations such as the World Series of Poker and are not really governed by any umbrella governing body.

This means that there are no set rules for poker and each casino and/or tournament has it's own variations which can get very confusing and lead to quite heated confrontations. I believe recently that an attempt has been made to publish a full set of official rules for poker, what effect this will have I don't know.

This isn't out of line with many other fledgling sports.

Cricket had various laws in force until the 1744 Laws of Cricket were written; specifically to cover a Kent v England game, and different areas used different laws.

The England v Scotland football match of 1872 was played under FA rules, and the Scots didn't like it, because they had their own rules. Eventually, the IFAB was set up with the aim of unifying all the rules, so everyone played by the same rules. IFAB fulfils this role to this day. FIFA came along much later.

Poker is on the grow, and has just got to the stage where a governing body is being set up within the last 5 years. It hasn't quite got around to doing what IFAB and the 1744 Kent v England match did yet for the rules of its game, but it needs time.

[IanDavis]

The very last thing the governing body was set up to do, in poker's case, was to govern the game.

[Andrew Bak]

In my experience of playing poker, tournaments are run by individual websites, casinos or organisations such as the World Series of Poker and are not really governed by any umbrella governing body.

This means that there are no set rules for poker and each casino and/or tournament has it's own variations which can get very confusing and lead to quite heated confrontations. I believe recently that an attempt has been made to publish a full set of official rules for poker, what effect this will have I don't know.

This isn't out of line with many other fledgling sports.

Cricket had various laws in force until the 1744 Laws of Cricket were written; specifically to cover a Kent v England game, and different areas used different laws.

The England v Scotland football match of 1872 was played under FA rules, and the Scots didn't like it, because they had their own rules. Eventually, the IFAB was set up with the aim of unifying all the rules, so everyone played by the same rules. IFAB fulfils this role to this day. FIFA came along much later.

Poker is on the grow, and has just got to the stage where a governing body is being set up within the last 5 years. It hasn't quite got around to doing what IFAB and the 1744 Kent v England match did yet for the rules of its game, but it needs time.

The difference between poker and the examples you mention is that poker is a truly global game and has been before the formation of the IFP (which I must confess I had never heard of before). Like Roger said earlier, poker has reached this global popularity without a governing body supervising, controlling or assisting its growth.

Trying to link back to the original point of whether sports require governing bodies and whether they require members to pay - all poker tournaments charge players a "registration fee", typically 10% of their entry fee to cover the costs of running the event and to make some profit. Cash games charge a "rake" (typically 5% or 10% of the amount bet per hand) or hourly rate to play, so in the case of poker all players have to pay to play.

[Alex Holowczak]

The very last thing the governing body was set up to do, in poker's case, was to govern the game.

Not according to its website: http://int.pokerfed.org/about-the-ifp--2

"Since its creation in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April of 2009, the International Federation of Poker (IFP) has grown in scope and stature to become poker's official governing body."

[IanDavis]

Yes, so it does! I wonder if it also details how the founder of modern sports marketing will bring the WMSG to London?

Not according to its website: http://int.pokerfed.org/about-the-ifp--2

"Since its creation in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April of 2009, the International Federation of Poker (IFP) has grown in scope and stature to become poker's official governing body."

[Roger de Coverly]

"Since its creation in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April of 2009, the International Federation of Poker (IFP) has grown in scope and stature to become poker's official governing body."

It's what you would expect them to say. Chess managed to set up rating systems without, in the UK at least, requiring a membership scheme alongside it.

Perhaps it's a signal that the growth of poker has slowed or halted.

Applying the same test to on-line chess sites, there's no attempt, not even by FIDE to govern them. So perhaps they can continue to grow.

[Roger de Coverly]

Trying to link back to the original point of whether sports require governing bodies and whether they require members to pay - all poker tournaments charge players a "registration fee", typically 10% of their entry fee to cover the costs of running the event and to make some profit. Cash games charge a "rake" (typically 5% or 10% of the amount bet per hand) or hourly rate to play, so in the case of poker all players have to pay to play.

That isn't really any different from a Chess Congress. All players have to contribute to the costs of hiring equipment, arbiters, premises and organiser's retention. It's only the National body that doesn't get a cut under the ECF's new schemes when all players are "members".

[Roger de Coverly]

Of course this leads this now leads to a situation where many more Yorkshire players will or have already become ECF members than in previous years but as a whole there will be fewer games graded by the ECF from the individual Yorkshire leagues.

The ECF or perhaps more precisely the CEO developed the ECF's scheme on an ad hoc basis. Attending various local AGMs, in May 2011 we thought we were voting for or against a scheme that wanted £ 18 or £ 19 as a condition of what?, inclusion in an ECF grading list perhaps. By August for another AGM, it was a system of various metal coded memberships, one of the key features being, like Yorkshire, that games were only graded/published for members. The very next day, almost, the proposed idea was that members were exempt from Game Fee, whilst an organisation permitting non-members to play chess would be hit for a £ 2 per game per head charge. At around the same time, by reusing the existing constitution the requirement for a 75% vote in favour could be evaded.

[Andrew Zigmond]

There is some drivel written on this forum sometimes.

There is now a cautious pro ECF majority within Yorkshire who are trying to promote the ECF and its events in a positive way. That should be seen as progress. Yes, there is a slight sticking point with regard to the eight satellite league (the root cause of which is that the new scheme is event led - events have to be game fee registered in the first place for any games in the event to be graded - rather than membership led, previous schemes were based around the principle that you paid your membership and your games were graded). It's ironic that the pro ECF majority are the players who will be losing out - taking myself as an example I've paid an ECF membership but at least ten of my games won't count towards my ECF grade because they're not in a game fee registered event, I'll just have to live with that.

So what would happen (as Paul Cooksey suggests) if the ECF deemed all chessnuts players as renegades and refused to grade their games? Answer - you'd hurt the pro ECF majority who are trying to build bridges and the anti (from apathy more than hostility) majority wouldn't care. The Yorkshire league will remain game fee registered and the ECF will receive the relevant income. Is that not good enough for now?

Twelve months is a long time. The ECF has to prove that it can implement this new scheme competantly. I for one want them to succeed. I also want to engage players with the ECF and give myself (as a club secretary) something more positive to sell than minutiae of the grading system. Then we can look at the next stage.

[Sean Hewitt]

There is some drivel written on this forum sometimes.

There is now a cautious pro ECF majority within Yorkshire who are trying to promote the ECF and its events in a positive way. That should be seen as progress. Yes, there is a slight sticking point with regard to the eight satellite league (the root cause of which is that the new scheme is event led - events have to be game fee registered in the first place for any games in the event to be graded - rather than membership led, previous schemes were based around the principle that you paid your membership and your games were graded). It's ironic that the pro ECF majority are the players who will be losing out - taking myself as an example I've paid an ECF membership but at least ten of my games won't count towards my ECF grade because they're not in a game fee registered event, I'll just have to live with that.

So what would happen (as Paul Cooksey suggests) if the ECF deemed all chessnuts players as renegades and refused to grade their games? Answer - you'd hurt the pro ECF majority who are trying to build bridges and the anti (from apathy more than hostility) majority wouldn't care. The Yorkshire league will remain game fee registered and the ECF will receive the relevant income. Is that not good enough for now?

Twelve months is a long time. The ECF has to prove that it can implement this new scheme competantly. I for one want them to succeed. I also want to engage players with the ECF and give myself (as a club secretary) something more positive to sell than minutiae of the grading system. Then we can look at the next stage.

This sounds really positive. I hope that the ECF majority can turn up at their local leagues AGM and secure a vote for those leagues to come into the fold. The experience in the rest of the country is that the minority will then follow suit, even if it is reluctantly.

[Alex Holowczak]

Applying the same test to on-line chess sites, there's no attempt, not even by FIDE to govern them. So perhaps they can continue to grow.

Of course, all such sites require you to be a member, with the basic right to use it being £0, and some of the more lucrative benefits costing something of the order of £20/year.

This is a model that the ECF could, in theory, use. You remove the constitutional obligation to operate a grading system. You then just FIDE-rate everything that people want to be FIDE-rated, and charge for those services. So you could play local league stuff for free, but the ECF wouldn't grade it. Of course, local areas could set up local grading lists. This would probably cause problems for non-rated congresses.

(I'm not saying that I think the ECF should do this, but some European countries are jettisoning their national lists in favour of internationally rating everything.)

[Roger de Coverly]

Of course, all such sites require you to be a member, with the basic right to use it being £0, and some of the more lucrative benefits costing something of the order of £20/year.

The point was that all such sites are independent. It's not as if ICC is official and playchess is unofficial, so that if you are a member of ICC, you aren't allowed to be a member of playchess as well. That's the monopoly model that many national bodies try to impose.

[Alex Holowczak]

The point was that all such sites are independent. It's not as if ICC is official and playchess is unofficial, so that if you are a member of ICC, you aren't allowed to be a member of playchess as well. That's the monopoly model that many national bodies try to impose.

Not all governing bodies have been successful in being a monopoly. For example, darts and boxing.

Darts was a monopoly until 1994, when the game split because professionals couldn't earn a living. This is the recurring theme in a governing body's success - if it keeps the professionals happy at the top, they get their monopoly.

The result of this has been that the BDO is basically an Amateur World Championship, whereas the PDC run the Professional World Championship. The BDO's World Championship always seems to be won by a plasterer or an electrician, whereas the PDC have at least 30 professionals.

So if the PDC has completely overtaken the BDO in darts, it can't have a membership scheme, right?

Well, the BDO has no membership scheme for individuals. It's funded by counties, rather like the old BCF.

By contrast, with the PDC, you have to be a member of the PDPA to play in any event. The fees to become a member are £250 for players not on the main tour.

So despite charging vast sums of money in a compulsory membership scheme, and the fact that it's on Sky and not terrestrial television in its biggest market, the PDC has overtaken the BDO. The reason for this is that the top players make far more money in the PDC - the PDC World Championship had a £1,000,000 prize fund in 2012, with £200,000 to the winner; the BDO World Championship had a £258,000 prize fund, with £100,000 to the winner - and so the best players are attracted to it, and young players are quick to head to the PDC in order to make a living out of the game (which they can't do with the BDO).

Membership schemes don't spoil governing bodies - a lack of money for professionals does.

[Roger de Coverly]

Membership schemes don't spoil governing bodies - a lack of money for professionals does.

That's the ECF stuffed then, FIDE as well probably.