Roger de Coverly wrote:[Back in the 70s], international opportunities for British players to play for IM/GM titles were limited and the BCF tended to share out what few it had as its disposal.
Yes, reading through the stuff from the period on my bookshelf and online, the impression is that the chances for IM/GM norms for British players were:
(i) Olympiads
(ii) Hastings
- and possibly (iii) World junior
Re another of Roger's comments above, interested to see Adams was in the team in 1990, when he was only 19. And Short in 1984 would also have been under 20. Of course, that is mostly telling you what tremendously fast/early developers they were as players - both already British Champions before their 18th birthdays, and Short I guess possibly already a GM in 1984. But you could argue it does also show that you could make the Olympiad side very young if you were good enough. It calls to mind the old cricketing adage about:
If you're good enough, you're old enough
Taking a different tack, what this whole conversation arguably shows is the importance of having a full-strength (or as near to as possible) British Championship, with most of the GMs playing. The point is that this means you can see which of the currently NON-GM players, including the ones who may not have had many chances to play international chess, have what it takes to hold their own against the GMs. If you think of the old USSR set-up, one way coming players 'announced themselves' used to be a top four finish in the old USSR championship, which was a super-strong mostly GM tournament and a match (from the 30s to the 80s) for almost any international event short of the candidates tournament.
Anyway, I can't help thinking that an event like that (this) every year would do wonders for the players in the sub-GM or younger-GM
'Wonder how far they could really go?' category. So the organisers must be due a big slap on the back for getting this group of players together for the British, and let's hope it can happen again next year, and the one after that.