National Schools Championships 2012/13

[Phil Ehr]

I am pleased to highlight this link: http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk for the ECF National Schools Championships 2012/13.

Many thanks to Yateley Manor for steadfast sponsorship since 2008. Welcome to new sponsors, Winchester College, St. Catherine's Bramley and Heathside Prep, who generously agreed to sponsor for one year, allowing others an opportunity in 2013/14. Congratulations to Manchester Grammar School, who reign as Champions in the final year of the traditional format.

The new format is intended to widen participation.
- Free entry aims to attract all schools, especially state schools.
- U11 section was added to encourage primary schools with a level competition.
- U11 Girls and U19 Girls sections were added for self-evident reasons, inviting both girls schools and co-ed schools.
- The traditional age handicap is retained in only the U19 section. Preparatory schools have a more welcoming competition in the absence of a separate U14 section, which we were not prepared to organise for 2012/13. It was thought that establishing a championship for primary schools would lessen the pressure on secondary schools in the U19 section thus encouraging more participation. A complete revolution on a long tradition did not seem prudent before consulting widely.

Now that change is in the air, more conversations about format are bound to occur, with more evolution probable for the 2013/14 season. For this first year, we anticipate greater participation, heightened interest across the country and a more credible series of national school titles.

Your help to encourage schools to register is much appreciated. http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... CHOOLS.pdf

[Andrew Camp]

Entered Rydal Penrhos Prep into this yesterday.

[Matthew Turner]

Just had a look at the information on the National Schools'. It appears that Schools get free entry if they enter before Aug 31st, this seems a bit odd, because is it expecting schools to enter during the Summer holidays?
There doesn't seem to be any mention of ECF membership, so do players have to be members?

[Roger de Coverly]

There doesn't seem to be any mention of ECF membership, so do players have to be members?

Without knowing the detail, I would suspect it would be exempt from both residual Game Fee and membership requirements.

The ECF really doesn't have a coherent policy on whether and how much money it wishes to raise from Juniors and organisations running Junior chess. If you want lots of individuals to be able to proclaim membership, the simplest way is to offer it for nothing, a policy adopted regarding entry fees for this championship.

As the ECF remains a federation of institutions, a logical thing to do would be to offer schools membership in the name of the school. They might want to make it mostly non-voting and complimentary (for nothing) in some circumstances.

[Alex Holowczak]

Ah, the Paris Open has ended, I see.

[Neill Cooper]

There doesn't seem to be any mention of ECF membership, so do players have to be members?

No, they don't.

[MikeScott]

Hi Guys,
Sorry for the long delay in joining the debate but being from North of Hadrian's Wall it took a while to get through security. For those that don't know me I am the organiser for the James Gillespies High School team here in Edinburgh and we have taken part for the last two years, losing out both times to Manchester Grammer - well done to them on their victory.

One of the problems we have up here is that there is generally very poor support for chess at the secondary school level and many schools struggle even to raise a team of 4 for our national school champs. The point being is that however the event is organised there are very few secondary schools here that could consider taking part. The addition of a primary may be more significant because there are many large and active primary school clubs.

We have had a great time over the last two years and, despite what I will be saying, have enjoyed the traveling as part of the experience. However in that two years we have been traveled to Belfast, York, Durham and Carlisle and not only have we never played a home tie we have never even played in Scotland. With the exception of the matches against MG in Carlisle we have always had to travel further and for longer than our opponents. I would hasten that some of our opponents of been generous in making a contribution towards our traveling costs and we got a contribution from the school but as we are a comprehensive we are almost solely parent funded and I know this has caused a problem for at least one of the families.

As far as the age handicap is concerned both myself and our players feel this is simply not appropriate. If you start off as a young team you loose a few times but gradually you get better as you mature and you get your chance to be genuinely the best school team. I should add that we have never lost or won on the age handicap. It may encourage younger teams to take part but really it is a joke that the best chess team is not the winner of the event.

Finally, we were concerned last year that because of the timing of the finals that had we been lucky enough to win against MG we would have not been able to field our strongest team for the final because the final was scheduled for July when we are on holiday and when many people disappear on family holidays. I appreciate here that given that in 99% of the cases the finalists are English schools and perhaps its the most practical solution.

I appreciate the reasons given for the above points but their are factors that make us think hard about the value of taking part.

[Neill Cooper]

There are problems due to there being very few entries north of the M62 corridor, resulting in large distances between zones. Conversely the large cluster of strong schools in the London area results in some zones there being very strong.

Looking ahead, it should be possible to start playing some matches over the internet to avoid the long distances travelled in some of the quarter final matches.

I think the date of the finals is difficult to bring much earlier as in England A level exams continue until late June.

If you look back across the forum you will find many others who think age handicap is inappropriate, but the view is by no means unanimous. It is a significant factor in some secondary schools not entering the competition.

[MikeScott]

Hi Neill,
The problem with building in a handicap is that, just as I think you suggest, it is essentially a zero sum game i.e. for those that you encourage there will be others that get discouraged.

Most handicaping systems derive the handicap based directly on the strengths of the participants in order to equal out the chances of winning. To do this in chess it should be based on grade and not age.

As players get older their rate of improvement reduces and unless they are exceptionally strong to start off the age handicap goes from being a challenge to an impossible hurdle that is not worth it.

With regards the traveling do you think it would be possible to hold two rounds together, in the knockout stage, so that four teams get together and get two matches each? Not sure how practical time wise that would be but at least it would help get more value out of a long round.

BTW I have highlighted the event on the Chess Scotland noticeboard and will mention it to anyone that will listen!

[Roger de Coverly]

Most handicaping systems derive the handicap based directly on the strengths of the participants in order to equal out the chances of winning. To do this in chess it should be based on grade and not age.

The handicap system is about as old as the competition itself, which goes back to the mid 1950s as "The Sunday Times". Back then it was a novelty, as with the grading system. In its early years the grading system only applied to adult players over about 170. Age handicap is long overdue for review, probably it's been suspect ever since Nigel Short and others demonstrated that under-tens could be quite good at chess.

[Neill Cooper]

With regards the traveling do you think it would be possible to hold two rounds together, in the knockout stage, so that four teams get together and get two matches each? Not sure how practical time wise that would be but at least it would help get more value out of a long round.

BTW I have highlighted the event on the Chess Scotland noticeboard and will mention it to anyone that will listen!

Mike
I think looking at alternatives like that you suggest are a good way to get round the problem of the long journeys. I'm running a one day event next month which has got many more entries than I expected, so many school can play chess at weekends. Perhaps the knock out matches could be combined with another event to make it of greater interest.

Many thanks for advertising the event in Scotland.

I agree with your, and Roger's, comments about age handicap. It has not been introduced in to the new national schools tournaments (U11, U19 girls, U11 girls), nor the one day/afternoon events I am running, but remains in the national schools U19 tournament for the time being.

[Neill Cooper]

As announced on the ECF website the free entry offer has been extended. The entry deadline is 30th September for the 'Open' sections, and 31st October for the 'Girls' sections.

Lots of entries have already come in and can be seen here.

Please do encourage any of your local schools who have a chess club or chess players to enter this event.