English Chess Forum

LozCooper wrote: No one ever did explain to me why my k factor is 15 despite my first ever rating being 2430 Perhaps it has to be over 2400 after a certain number of games, maybe 30??

As an IM, presumably your rating had to be above 2400 at some stage. Perhaps as a first rating it broke the system. I did notice that your fellow Cooper (JG) also has a K of 15. Did he get the title (1984) when the threshold was 2350?

I have a lot of personal experience of this. For many years I played for my office team in a low division of the local league, with many of my opponents graded more than 40 points lower than me. Then I moved to a club where we have a lot of decent players but no really strong ones, and I find myself top board in the first division playing people more than 40 points better than me.

Certainly I have always thought the 40 point rule should only apply when the stronger player wins. When I beat a player graded 54 points higher than me I felt robbed of 14 grading points - but only until I reasoned that the effect on my grade over 30 games was less than half a point. What would make a bigger difference would be if it was a 45 point rule, or if there was a sliding scale over 40. But even for someone like me that would make only a couple of points difference. It hardly seems worth the trouble of changing.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Sebastian Stone wrote:should I have both the desire for such a title and be a member of the ECF, neither of which will happen

Were you aware that the ECF Council has just voted that you have to become a member (at a cost of £18) from September 2012?

Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

Sebastian Stone wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Sebastian Stone wrote:should I have both the desire for such a title and be a member of the ECF, neither of which will happen

Were you aware that the ECF Council has just voted that you have to become a member (at a cost of £18) from September 2012?

Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

Where do you play chess right now, Sebastian?

Adam Raoof wrote:

Sebastian Stone wrote: Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

Where do you play chess right now, Sebastian?

Sidmouth Chess Club and 2 tournaments a year. 2009 (Exeter and Exmouth) 2010 (Paignton and Torquay) 2011 (Portsmouth and Exeter).

And erm...chess.com.

Sebastian Stone wrote:

Adam Raoof wrote:

Sebastian Stone wrote: Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

Where do you play chess right now, Sebastian?

Sidmouth Chess Club and 2 tournaments a year. 2009 (Exeter and Exmouth) 2010 (Paignton and Torquay) 2011 (Portsmouth and Exeter).

And erm...chess.com.

We haven't even begun looking at the way we might implement membership, and Council only voted to investigate this option. So make your own mind up when the time comes, but ignore doom-mongers.

One possibility (pay-to-play, which is what some other countries do) is that these excellent tournaments will simply charge you extra for playing if you are not a member - differential pricing already exists of course, for players who enter late, and they could put the entry fees up any time of course. This might mean that the entry fee is £5 extra for non-members, so it would cost you £10 extra to play over a year.

If you play graded games with Sidmouth Chess Club, such as leagues, then the arrangement might be similar. It might be easier administratively if clubs register a list of members with the ECF directly, so that Leagues don't have that admin burden (rather like clubs enter leagues at the moment and the Leagues assume membership for all players, they don't have to check it with each club). The membership of Sidmouth might be £X for ECF members, and £X+£Y for non-members, with £Y being anything from a full priced £18 to an equivalent of the pay-to-play option for congresses above. Or clubs might have a separate lower membership for those only intending to play internal games and (for instance) an annual club championship (which the ECF might grade for free, as I think all clubs should be encouraged to have one for all members).

If you played in the Paignton Premier you'd have to be a member already, as it's FIDE rated.

Adam Raoof wrote:We haven't even begun looking at the way we might implement membership, and Council only voted to investigate this option. So make your own mind up when the time comes, but ignore doom-mongers.

Could you explain please what the vote in favour of Option 1 means then?

Those who dislike the concept of pay to play seem to think that they were voting to discard it. Surely Option 1 was a very clear proposal that in order to play graded games of chess you had to be a member of the ECF? It's what the North and Sean have been agitating for years. There were only a couple of minor exceptions in Option 1, namely the £5/6 for Congresses and the ungraded players for leagues.

Whilst it's absolutely right for the ECF directors to listen to public opinion, the voters in favour of Option 1 have to as well.
The general proposition of hybrid schemes of which numerous are possible only got 45% of the vote.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Adam Raoof wrote:We haven't even begun looking at the way we might implement membership, and Council only voted to investigate this option. So make your own mind up when the time comes, but ignore doom-mongers.

Could you explain please what the vote in favour of Option 1 means then?

Those who dislike the concept of pay to play seem to think that they were voting to discard it. Surely Option 1 was a very clear proposal that in order to play graded games of chess you had to be a member of the ECF? It's what the North and Sean have been agitating for years. There were only a couple of minor exceptions in Option 1, namely the £5/6 for Congresses and the ungraded players for leagues.

Whilst it's absolutely right for the ECF directors to listen to public opinion, the voters in favour of Option 1 have to as well.
The general proposition of hybrid schemes of which numerous are possible only got 45% of the vote.

It means we voted for membership, but we have to put detailed proposals to Council in October where I believe we have to get 75% of the votes available at that meeting to pass it.

Adam Raoof wrote: It means we voted for membership, but we have to put detailed proposals to Council in October where I believe we have to get 75% of the votes available at that meeting to pass it.

If the ECF board are intending to dilute the core principles which are stated as

(1)All players wishing to play in graded competitions would be required to become members of the ECF. This is essentially the situation in areas currently covered by Membership Organisations (MOs) and the Northern Membership Scheme (NMS).

(2)The cost of membership would be £18.00 for adults and £12.00 for juniors.

then they should say so, sooner rather than later.

The price rise and the premise that they provide all the ECF's future funding as a per head levy may well prove unacceptable to club players. The very threat may cause clubs to either fold or go ungraded.

I am sick and tired of all these doommongers stating as facts that players will stop playing because of membership.My club has lost no members because of compulsary MO membership even people who play no league games pay up.
Also i dont know of anybody giving up in the whole north east because of compulsary MO membership.
Why should the rest of the country be so differant than up here i am having real difficulty understanding that.

William Metcalfe wrote: Why should the rest of the country be so differant than up here i am having real difficulty understanding that.

You could read Neill Cooper's thread here. http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2943

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Adam Raoof wrote:We haven't even begun looking at the way we might implement membership, and Council only voted to investigate this option. So make your own mind up when the time comes, but ignore doom-mongers.

Could you explain please what the vote in favour of Option 1 means then?

Those who dislike the concept of pay to play seem to think that they were voting to discard it. Surely Option 1 was a very clear proposal that in order to play graded games of chess you had to be a member of the ECF? It's what the North and Sean have been agitating for years. There were only a couple of minor exceptions in Option 1, namely the £5/6 for Congresses and the ungraded players for leagues.

To be fair it could be argued that many who disliked the concept of pay to play objected to the principle of "have" to pay to play. Extending membership rights to cover the grading of league games removes that principle.

Sebastian Stone wrote: Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

In the interests of market research, are you prepared to say why? I don't think it's exclusively financial given the number of games you played in 2009-10.

Sebastian Stone wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Sebastian Stone wrote:should I have both the desire for such a title and be a member of the ECF, neither of which will happen

Were you aware that the ECF Council has just voted that you have to become a member (at a cost of £18) from September 2012?

Yes. This means there's a good chance that after September 2012 I'll never play rated chess again.

Why?

You meen the thread where neill now agrees membership will acually be good for juniors and meen there grades will be more accurate