English Chess Forum

E Michael White wrote: f) arbiters must not carry dinner menus into the playing venue.

Just menus? I'm sure lunches and dinners have been spotted, if not at the British, then elsewhere. At one tournament, the local organisers were quite impressed as a Chinese takeaway had been sourced, despite there not being any immediate local option.

"It's all very well voting for an APA, but it would be helpful to hear from those voting in favour as to how they think it would be funded."

True - but that wasn't the question!

I can understand and support the reasons for getting rid of the "tail" in the British Championship, but as part of the "tail" myself, I have to pay an entry fee this year of £200 (rising to 300 if my rating drops again). This is again understandable, but if you get rid of 20 players like me next year, you lose £40 - £60K. So how is that funded? Is it assumed (wrongly) that everyone will play a different event at the British?

Edit - arithmetic a bit wrong! This shows that it is not a good idea to post when you're half asleep and still thinking about a loss to someone graded 88 points lower the night before...

20 x £200-300 = £4-6K.

So to sum up:

Most people think an all play all is the most befitting format for our national championships but there isn't the funds to do it. (Would be my ideal choice)

The majority of stakeholders would like to streamline the ugly tail as it doesn't seem befitting of a national championships; however there are no funds to replace the significant entry fees they pay - that ultimately attract stronger players into the field.

The presence of the unbecoming, ugly and thoroughly undeserving tail has no bearing on the outcome of the championships.

So what would the benefits of the cull be again?

Uh, Swiss is currently beating all-play-all in the poll (9 votes for Swiss, 6 for APA, 2 for match).

Mike Truran wrote:20 x £200-300 = £4-6K.

20 x £166.67-£250 would be the correct calculation.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:Uh, Swiss is currently beating all-play-all in the poll (9 votes for Swiss, 6 for APA, 2 for match).

Oh! I stopped looking at the poll after the OP gave up on it

Alex, financially, what realistic options do you think we have?

Alex Holowczak wrote:

Mike Truran wrote:20 x £200-300 = £4-6K.

20 x £166.67-£250 would be the correct calculation.

There is pedantic and there is pedantic! But it seems that Kevin H had a decimal in the wrong place, so maybe a £4k shortfall is not so bad in the scheme of things.

It seems that the assumption that the tail would play in the Major Open or something similar does not stand up. To encourage the tail to want to play would, I think, require something different, I don't know, a 'British Division 2' or something (although they would not pay £200-£300 for the privilege). Presumably that was the idea of the Major Open when it was originally started.

The point has also been made that the presence of the long tail does not, in reality, effect the outcome of the Championship to any great degree. The real task would seem to be to replace the ugly tail with a rather better one, which means enticing the 2250-2400 players back, or alternatively, attract a sponsor to allow a 10 or 12 player APA, which would still leave the 2250-2400s out in the cold. Perhaps a sponsor for an APA, plus a 'British Open Championship'. I am guessing that a sponsor for an APA might want to bill it as a separate event though, play it in London, which looks pretty much where we are with the British Knockout championship at the London Classic.

No easy answers, I think - just beware of throwing the baby out with the bathwater!

I just did a FIDE search on our 2250-2400 group. There are 176 England-registered players with ratings in that range, but only 64 if you exclude inactive players. This may be part of the problem; it's not that those players are not playing the British so much as they are not playing at all.

Having a tail isn't too bad a thing, but I do believe currently the volume of U2200s is too high (at 70%), personally I would like this percentage to be the other way around for the competition to be a good representation of the national championship

This can only be acheived by a more structured qualification format, which is the aim of the proposals

One example would be 25 U2200s qualify and play, therefore you require 50 >2200 (which is 20 more than last year), so will having a reduced tail entice the 20 more FM/IM to participate because of norm possibilities (possibly), and with the possible additional players of the reduction to 9 rounds (chess players are generally penny-pinchers, lower accommodation costs (10 nights v 14 nights)); so it all comes down to the congress accepting the income hit if fee paying entries are lower

Make the British a big 9 round Open to all nationalities, with good prizes and conditions for titled players. If you have an APA in the future you can make it a qualifier.

Adam Raoof wrote:Make the British a big 9 round Open to all nationalities

So who is the British Champion?

I like the idea of an all-play-all. But if it must be a swiss, then you need reasonable numbers, certainly at least 40, though preferably much fewer than 80.

Sponorship seems to be shrouded with secrecy in England these days. It is not ideal, because it prevents fully informed discusions on matters such as this, though since so much of it is from individuals rather than companies, I can understand it. Anyway, I think we have to assume that the cash might be there for an APA unless told otherwise.

The national championships seems to work well as an Open in other countries;

http://www.newzealandchess.co.nz/NZChamp123/