Not Sure Championship Relevance?

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Mike Truran
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:44 pm

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by Mike Truran » Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:25 pm

If life imitates art, I imagine that Roger's chess style would be somewhat akin to Ulf Andersson's in his palmiest days. :)

John McKenna

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by John McKenna » Fri Mar 02, 2012 1:56 pm

Uber kool?

E Michael White
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Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2007 6:31 pm

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by E Michael White » Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:58 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:No surprise there. But presumably because of lack of entries, not the intervention of the ECF. I don't recall the Congress in question, but it's likely to have had an unpleasant atmosphere, to judge from the wording. The various notices at the London Classic or BUCA didn't fall into that league. Or do you have to know that they were a parody?
When Arbiters become unaware of what distracts players , be that noise or irritating jokes, this can be the culmination ( see Tviakovs notes re Bogata ) :-

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7768

Unfortunately there is a growing band of "take it or leave it" or as described by Tviakov "“Don't like it, quit the tournament”. Having Andrew Farthing as CEO and Alex H as an active arbiter has its unfortunate side in that neither has played chess at a higher level than mid county AFAIAA. As a result they are not completely aware that small inappropriate actions, comments or noise can distract top level players trying to concentrate, whereas outside the tournament hall those elements are acceptable. I expect Andrew Farthings complaints procedure will be designed on a corporate governance model primarily to protect the ECF, rather than the playing environment but we shall have to wait and see.

Juniors, ie up to 16/18 for motivation need to see different levels of tournaments from fun blitzes through more serious club championships - county matches = week end tournaments - to top level events including 4ncl and e2-e4. If top level events are conducted with the same level of arbiter frivolity as a blitz there will be less reason to self motivate into proceeding to a higher level. Who wants to pay £120-200 for more of the same. I don’t agree with you that arbiters and organisers should feel free to express themselves with irrelevant and irritating jokes in higher level events.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Mar 05, 2012 12:28 pm

E Michael White wrote:As a result they are not completely aware that small inappropriate actions, comments or noise can distract top level players trying to concentrate,
In practice, most of the players in the London Classic Open would have a robust attitude to distractions. The arbiters desk was the other side of the room so not something you were aware of when playing.

E Michael White wrote: I don’t agree with you that arbiters and organisers should feel free to express themselves with irrelevant and irritating jokes in higher level events.
You probably don't agree either that having a formal complaints procedure would only encourage feuds over trivia.

To my mind, it would have been appropriate to raise the issue of the signs or notices on this forum during the event. This would have gauged whether the protest had any support and might have caused the organisers to remove the offending signs or notices.

John McKenna

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by John McKenna » Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:10 pm

I support Michael's original post (in another thread) about the mobile phone incident at the London Junior Championships at the end of last Dec. There needs to flexibility depending on the type of event such things happen in, but there also needs to be constistency, too.
I participated in the same FIDE-rated Open (which doubles as the U-18 Championship) some years ago. During play in one round a mobile phone could be heard. It was in a player's bag. He couldn't believe it had happened and adamantly explained that he had turned it off before putting it in. Unfortunately I cannot remember the decision of the person arbiting but I think he accepted the player believed he really had switched it off and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I have played in other sections (U-150) in the event in past years and have seen how difficult it was for the team running it. Junior tournaments seem more hectic than adult ones (London Champs combine both) and I thought the team needed to be on rollerskates to get from on room to another quickly enough to run things smoothly and on time.
If the event Michael posted about suffered from a last round mini-meltdown in the sense that one game was defaulted due to mobile phone noise then re-instated and continued after a male player from a Mediterranean federation had taken exception to being defaulted it is no surprise to me. Everyone involved is under pressure in such situations (being paired against a young female opponent could be a potential problem for a player from a 'macho' culture) and minds can change for the sake of expediency or to avoid seemingly worse outcomes.
Michael seems to be saying if the event is FIDE-rated then a higher standard of performance should be expected from the organisers/arbiters, I would hope that would be the case, but as the section in question is run in parallel with several others then something may have to give.
I think Michael posted on the forum in the hope that he would get a meaningful dialogue with organisers, arbiters and perhaps other (ECF) officials about how to resolve the unpleasantness of that, and other such incidents, with some consistency.
However, once mobile phones are mentioned a host of suggestions, anecdotes, etc. take over and can lead to discussion in a less than serious manner.
I'd just add that humour, in its various forms, is a human reaction designed to defuse the situation when it becomes too difficult to resolve. And, FIDE seem to have given out some controversial rules of late that may have increased the pressure on arbiters in particular.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:53 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:You probably don't agree either that having a formal complaints procedure would only encourage feuds over trivia.
I'd hope there is a middle ground.

As I have suggested in other posts, it seems to me that English chess has a history of decentralisation. So I think the ECF has to find a role that influences its member organisations to run chess in the interests of English players, but without burdening itself with more work than it can handle.

I think the ECF could reasonably set standards for different types of competition. One good point Michael made amongst his flailing punches, is that, if someone pays £100 or more to enter a tournament offering norms, they expect something very professional. They'd probably accept a little less from, say, a £30 rated weekender. They'd expect something entirely different from a £10 "enter if you've nothing on this evening" blitz.

In my opinion, one of the ECFs conditions for recognising an event should be that it has a formal complaints procedure. The ECF would then set itself up as a higher authority, whose role is to ensure events deal with complaints fairly. I think it is normal for higher courts to ensure lower courts are acting fairly, rather than second guess their decisions. (I'm conscious one forum regular is substantially better qualified to comment on legal structures than I am :-) ).

It seems to me the ECF will never have the resources to run everything, and it should not try. But by setting the standards for events that want to be graded or rated, it can do something very positive.

John McKenna

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by John McKenna » Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:51 am

It seems that above Paul continues to advocate a small government, improved governance route for the ECF.
In these difficult economic times the former makes sense but it is hard to do more with less resources unless there is a concentration of effort into the area of governance.
The ECF looks unwieldy in that sense - I mean board/council dual control - and the idea giving an increased mandatory membership the one-member-one-vote system would add another tier to the structure not streamline it. Quo vadis?

E Michael White
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Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by E Michael White » Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:05 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:You probably don't agree either that having a formal complaints procedure would only encourage feuds over trivia.
I would half agree. A well written event context process would not do that whereas a purely procedure driven approach probably would. If you remember adjudications that’s exactly what happened. Players submitted positions with little or no chance of win/draw as it was easy. Whereas for appeals which were more context driven very few took place and those that did had a high success rate. The first question should be was the action complained of covered by FIDE or competition rules and were they (/not) followed. If FIDE rules were not followed it needs to go back to the arbiters to ask why not.
Roger de Coverly wrote:To my mind, it would have been appropriate to raise the issue of the signs or notices on this forum during the event. This would have gauged whether the protest had any support and might have caused the organisers to remove the offending signs or notices.
You aim the quality too low. The FIDE rules require that players should not be distracted and for arbiters to ensure that this is the case. That means all players should not be subjected to avoidable distraction. A simple forum poll majority does not suffice. You need to aim for the high 90%s of non distraction rather than set a distraction level of acceptable to 50% of forum members. In the event I understand some signs were taken down mid event but during the last round additional signs likely to give similar annoyance were put up. This was unprofessional and could/should have been avoided.

Distraction on the way into an event can also affect concentration later. Players need a period to compose for the right frame of mind. I once played in an event about 6 years ago and believed during the first 2 rounds the carpeted, non squeaky floor and ample space made good playing conditions. Between rounds a number of players were talking about the noise of the air conditioning which I had either blocked or not noticed. As a result in the next game I became aware of the noise, distracted by it and lost. For the rest of the event I had to invest in a pair of earplugs. Annoying or irritating distractions can cause the same effect for some players during a following game.

Everyone knows of the shortage of GM/IMs and players at some ages but it seems we have a shortage of arbiters at some ages and have to be content with inexperienced young arbiters or older more experienced ones, who have forgotten how players can be disturbed.

To combat this I agree that more standard setting is required by the ECF which can be less formal at the weekend level. I wouldn’t be surprised, if we geared up to very professionally run higher level events, that more player were encouraged to play say once a year but they wont pay £120 for an event run like a weekender.
Last edited by E Michael White on Tue Mar 06, 2012 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:50 pm

E Michael White wrote: The FIDE rules require that players should not be distracted and for arbiters to ensure that this is the case. That means all players should not be subjected to avoidable distraction.
If you followed strict FIDE rules as enforced in Olympiads and other events, you would be defaulted if you were 30 seconds late sitting down at your board. That's rather more inimical to playing good chess than parody signs on the arbiters' desk. I'd be fairly sure that RJF aside, one of the conditions of gaining titles and a high rating is a high level of tolerance of attempts by opponents or arbiters to cause distraction or intimidation. Clock bangers, or those who hit the clock with excessive speed at the start of the game are a case in point.

You are aware that the whole "....., get over it" meme comes from the tee-shirt worn by the President during the Sheffield British? Given that he wore it during the last round, would the players, including myself, have been justified in asking the arbiters to get him to cover it or remove it?

John McKenna

Re: Not Sure Championship Relevance?

Post by John McKenna » Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:40 pm

It is interesting to me that the president's perceived mental injury made it quickly to the press and that mention of the police was made. Whereas the case cited by Michael JR White, which may have involved a threat of physical injury, was kind of lost in the internal post.