May 2011 FIDE Rating List

The very latest International round up of English news.
Mark Howitt
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Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by Mark Howitt » Mon May 16, 2011 8:45 am

And no I wasn't being 'entirely serious' about hot housing the players. Although to an extent, that's what all successful chess countries do- if not literally hot housing them then at least giving them extensive training and some kind of financial support. Much easier to do that in a country where it's harder to make money in 'normal' ways and chess has a higher social status than it does here.

Michael Jones
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Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by Michael Jones » Tue May 17, 2011 7:09 pm

Mark Howitt wrote:I actually made that other comment before reading Mr Shepherd's lol. Yep, by 'promise' I meant being a GM which in today's chess world means 'good player'- not enough to make a good living though unless you're 2650 or over! I'd put money on any on that list apart from Williams and Zhou not making it to GM- at the very least not until they're in their 30s unless the GM title is watered down EVEN more!!
Given that there are currently 96 players in the world rated 2650+, one can expect that only the few countries which take chess most seriously will have more than three or four of them, and England certainly isn't one of those few. To be honest I'd prefer that we encourage juniors to play and give them access to coaching, tournaments etc., but also try to ensure that they don't get too obsessed and have some sort of life outside of chess, rather than insisting that every penny 'invested' in junior chess should be seen as a step towards producing a future GM. If a promising junior doesn't get beyond a certain level, or gives up playing completely, I don't think it should be seen as a failure either on the part of the player or of the system - they've enjoyed playing chess, hopefully they've benefited from it, and if they want to want to go off and do something else that's up to them. It's certainly better than "hot housing" juniors to become GMs at all costs. A country's "success" in chess should not just be measured by the number of GMs or Olympiad medals, but the number of people who play it and enjoy it at whatever level.

In case anyone should misinterpret the above, I'd better make it clear that I'm not trying to say that anyone above a certain level must by definition be an obsessive with no life away from the chessboard, but there is a danger of creating such obsessives by placing too much emphasis on realising talent/reaching one's potential etc. Some time ago I beat one of England's promising juniors in a rapidplay, and the length and apparent intensity of his post-game analysis session with his mum suggested to me that he (or his mum) might be taking it a little too seriously.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 17, 2011 7:35 pm

Michael Jones wrote:Given that there are currently 96 players in the world rated 2650+, one can expect that only the few countries which take chess most seriously will have more than three or four of them, and England certainly isn't one of those few.
There is an issue though, that from about 1980 or earlier to 2000 or so, there were usually 5 or 6 English players in the world top 100. A possible list runs

Miles
Stean
Nunn
Speelman
Chandler
Short
Hodgson
Adams
Sadler

You might be able to add brief appearances by Mestel, Hebden and Conquest.

What was done that was "right" then but no longer works?

Alex Holowczak
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Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue May 17, 2011 7:43 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:What was done that was "right" then but no longer works?
In about 2000, computing and the Internet became de rigeur. Games consoles (Playstation/Xbox) were popular. Nothing went wrong. Times just changed. If you look at the numbers of juniors playing chess, there are far fewer now than there were in the 1990s - regardless of any numbers Mike Basman points to.

If we had 25,000 graded players instead of about 10,000, we'd have a lot more players in the top 100.

Richard James
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Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by Richard James » Tue May 17, 2011 8:34 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:What was done that was "right" then but no longer works?
At last someone's asking the right question.
Alex Holowczak wrote: In about 2000, computing and the Internet became de rigeur. Games consoles (Playstation/Xbox) were popular. Nothing went wrong. Times just changed. If you look at the numbers of juniors playing chess, there are far fewer now than there were in the 1990s - regardless of any numbers Mike Basman points to.

If we had 25,000 graded players instead of about 10,000, we'd have a lot more players in the top 100.
Partly, but if that was the main reason why have we seen an increase in chess strength and depth in other West European countries such as France and the Netherlands?

It's not so much what we did 'right' then that no longer works. It's more that for the past 30 years we've been doing far too much low level competitive and semi-competitive chess in primary schools, giving children some limited short-term interest in chess (or possibly more an interest in mascots and fluffy pencils) at the expense of long-term development.

This has been sanctioned partly by chess teachers and other members of the chess community who have an unhealthy obsession with producing 'prodigies' and grandmasters and therefore want to start children playing competitively as early as possible, and partly by primary school teachers with little or no knowledge of chess who have read somewhere that 'Chess Is Good For You'.

Instead we should be promoting a regional network of junior chess clubs along with providing incentives for children to take up competitive chess in secondary schools.

LozCooper

Re: May 2011 FIDE Rating List

Post by LozCooper » Tue May 17, 2011 8:37 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Michael Jones wrote:Given that there are currently 96 players in the world rated 2650+, one can expect that only the few countries which take chess most seriously will have more than three or four of them, and England certainly isn't one of those few.
There is an issue though, that from about 1980 or earlier to 2000 or so, there were usually 5 or 6 English players in the world top 100. A possible list runs

Miles
Stean
Nunn
Speelman
Chandler
Short
Hodgson
Adams
Sadler

You might be able to add brief appearances by Mestel, Hebden and Conquest.

What was done that was "right" then but no longer works?
On the July list it is very likely that England will have six 2600+ rated players on the rating list which is still a decent amount and arguably as strong as we have ever been. The break up of the Soviet Union resulted in many players flooding into Europe and elsewhere made a big difference as did the emergence of India and China as major chess playing countries. The concern I have is if we can keep producing players of the quality of McShane, Howell and Jones so that we can close the gap on the superpowers who are at the top.

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