English Chess Forum

If you haven't read this already, I recommend Sutovsky's interview about the scandals at the European. It's an eye-opener! http://chess-news.ru/en/node/6851 And it was translated by me from Russian

Not sure what's meant by

I sat down as the anticipating spectator supporting Judit Polgar

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"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

It was probably best to write something like that: I sat down with anticipation as a supporter of Judit Polgar
I'm only human

Terrific job Maria. An interview well worth reading.

Total sympathy for Sutovsky's views. I doubt there are easy or fully satisfactory answers to the "no early draw" rule - so they need to strike a sensible balance.

The dress code rule needs to result in warnings to players, whereby the warning gets put on some file, like points on your driving license; those arbiters who revel in their power (and there probably are a few) should not have the ability to exclude or fine someone on the spot. Points/warnings could then be removed at regular intervals. This would mitigate the concern of individual clashes, or the influence of an over-zealous arbiter, while retaining a deterent to those who constantly flout the spirit of the law. Three/four strikes and you get a ban, or whatever. And a player only gets reported if all the arbiters agree, judged on the player's overall appearance, over the course of the tournament, not on a single occasion perhaps. It's easy to see how this could be made reasonable/workable.

Generally, imposing all these rules in the context of a reducing prize fund will have understandably gotten everyone's back up. They need to work with the players and accept this is a two way street and cooperation is the only way forward. Increased professionalism in tandem with better playing conditions and an acknowledgement of what is realistic at each step.

It does dismay me that Danailov has a position of power in the ECU though. Has no one seen the various pieces of You Tube footage of him? Let's just say some of his behaviour is very questionable.

It looks like his May rating will be 2657 after the rating of Bundesliga, Icelandic Team, Reykjavik and the Euoprean Individual which would indeed be his highest rating to date. http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=409561

Impressive

I see Nigel has joined Luke and Mickey in the 2700 club - can Gawain keep progressing to this level too? He is obviously doing something right

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

If England can get Adams, Short, McShane and Jones in the team for the Olympiad it'd be great. Since Luke seems to be getting more "time off work" hopefully this will be possible!

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http://markhowitt.blogspot.com

I imagine it won't be if the call to slash the international budget is heeded.

My gut feeling is that at least McShane won't be there... hope he is though!

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http://markhowitt.blogspot.com

Maybe we could find a sponsor - wonder who to ask?

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

Yeah that's the funny thing... ECF going on about how it funds the team and quite often a sponsor pays the bulk of the costs. I think the ECF would get a few less willing taxpayers if they knew they were funding a £31,000 a year office!

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http://markhowitt.blogspot.com

There's nothing contradictory about this: the ECF undertakes to fund the team and seeks out sponsorship income to allow it to do so. How good a team it sends is related to what level of sponsorship income it can generate.

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http://westcountrychess.blogspot.com

Well yes, but one of the main points of ECF asking chess players for money is that it funds the national teams- this is probably the most important thing it does in my opinion- although the chessplayers are mainly responsible themselves for how good they are. I personally believe their fees should be performace based- in fact I would like to see it out in the open how much each member recieved for winning and drawing- that would give a good level of transparency. The amount the ECF contributes towards the funding should be known too.

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http://markhowitt.blogspot.com

This is a bit problematic for me. When the CEO asks, "where should we cut costs if we have a deficit?", the international budget is just about the only possible answer, even for someone like me who is happy to see money spent on the Olympiad team. Almost everything else is a fixed cost, that cannot be adjusted at short notice.

......which is why game fee (based as it is on chess playing activity) is fundamentally flawed.

Oops - there's another thread hijacked.