Bunratty Chess Festival

[Roger de Coverly]

According to the Fide website, it's 90 mins + 30 secs.

There are two distinct Bunratty tournaments this year as there were in 2013. In addition to the multi-section weekender, there is also an invitational 10 player all play all, which is designed to offer Norm chances and uses the standard move rate. That is what you are seeing on the FIDE site.

The ICU is notorious for infighting, Bunratty's decision to only invite one Irish player to the Norm tournament being somewhat unpopular.

[Brian Towers]

on the 22nd of Feb I'm going to be on my way to this:

http://www.schachfestival.de/world-seni ... pants.html

Scrolling through the list of participants it looks more like the German seniors team championships with a few international teams invited along as well. Heidenau are even sending along their second team with only 2 out of 5 players rated and those at 1733 and 1394!

If you prefer Weissbier and Helles it sounds as if it could be an even better craic than Bunratty.

[Keith Arkell]

Scrolling through the list of participants it looks more like the German seniors team championships with a few international teams invited along as well. Heidenau are even sending along their second team with only 2 out of 5 players rated and those at 1733 and 1394!

If you prefer Weissbier and Helles it sounds as if it could be an even better craic than Bunratty.

Well, if you can't drink Guinness in Ireland, then beer in Germany certainly has to at least come a close second.

You're right that it looks pretty weak at the bottom, but still way short, in that respect, of a Chess Olympiad. On the other hand, at the business end we're up against some pretty stiff opposition, and it's great to see that there are already 86 teams registered.

[Sean Coffey]

I can't speak for the organisers, but the purported new ICU policy only applies to ICU-rated events. Since one of the main attractions of Bunratty is that it's not FIDE-rated, it's hard to believe anyone cares at all whether it's ICU-rated or not. (Quick, without looking: were previous Bunratty events ICU-rated?) So probably not an issue at all for this event.

[Roger de Coverly]

since one of the main attractions of Bunratty is that it's not FIDE-rated, it's hard to believe anyone cares at all whether it's ICU-rated or not.

Visitors obviously don't particularly care, but what of the Irish players and their partial use of ICU ratings for seeding? The Guernsey tournament wasn't ECF graded this season except as a "foreign" pre-declared event. Conventional wisdom is that you wouldn't run an ungraded tournament in the UK and expect anyone to enter.

[Sean Coffey]

Who knows? If I had to guess I'd say players in the Masters won't care: the higher the rating, the more the FIDE rating is the "real" one. The lower sections would be more affected.

All an issue for next year, perhaps, since the change was made far too late for this year's event, well after entries have been received.

[Fintan Hegarty]

All Irish tournaments heretofore seemed to have included a clause along the lines of "Irish participants must be registered members of the ICU", but it was never really enforced. Perhaps now that they have expanded it to include all players, they will be more energetic about enforcing it?

Requesting that non-Irish players register as members of an Irish union just to play in a chess tournament does not seem very fair, and will probably do more harm to Irish chess than any intended good...


Edit: A little further reading seems this new rule was announced just a few days ago. A little late for anyone who has done the sensible thing and booked flights and accommodation early...

[Gordon Cadden]

Under "Bye-Laws for Membership of the Irish Chess Union".
Sub-Section 10. Foreign players whose ordinary residence is outside the island of Ireland shall not be subject to payment of any fee or subscription to the ICU for participating in Irish Tournaments, upon production of proof that they are affiliated to another national body which is a member of FIDE.

[Roger de Coverly]

Sub-Section 10. Foreign players whose ordinary residence is outside the island of Ireland shall not be subject to payment of any fee or subscription to the ICU for participating in Irish Tournaments, upon production of proof that they are affiliated to another national body which is a member of FIDE.

seems like they've written rules with mutual contradictions or at best considerable ambiguity.

https://www.icu.ie/articles/486

All participants in such tournaments, irrespective of their nationality or native chess federation, must be fully subscribed members of the ICU.

I picked this up from a tweet by someone in Irish chess, who I think is or was their development officer expressing glee that Nigel Short would have to become an ICU member to play at Bunratty.

[John Foley]

Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the question.

From 1066 and all that.

[Richard Bates]

Irish chess politics, eh?

from http://www.bunrattychess.com

Latest News
Due to some uncertainty regarding the recent posting by Pat Fitzsimons on the ICU web regarding ICU membership and entry into chess tournaments I have set out below the position regarding the upcoming Bunratty Chess festival.

We have a contract with players who have entered the event, these are set out in our Terms & Conditions and are binding on all players. http://www.bunrattychess.com/terms.php.

We also have a contract with the ICU in their Bye-laws for Membership of the Irish Chess Union http://www.icu.ie/icu/membership_byelaws particularly paragraph 10.

Therefore we will run Bunratty 2015 as we have run the event since 1994 namely:

Foreign based players including those of the Ulster Chess Union will be exempt of ICU membership as per the aforementioned Paragraph 10.
First time players and those with no rating will not be required to have ICU membership.
Established players resident in the Republic of Ireland will be subject to our aforementioned Terms & Conditions.
We will assist the ICU Membership Officer in these matters as we have done in the past.

Signed,

Ted Jennings FA

On behalf of the Bunratty Chess Festival Committee.

The merits of the proposal in principle are of course for the Irish to argue about amongst themselves. Outsiders have a right to query the effective retrospective application to tournaments like Bunratty 2015 where participants will have already committed to flight and accommodation plans.

[Martin Crichton]

Sounds like an internal conflict between the ICU and the Bunratty chess federation.

[Roger de Coverly]

Sounds like an internal conflict between the ICU and the Bunratty chess federation.

In term of timing perhaps, but has the ICU not just made organisation of a tournament in Ireland more difficult for any organiser wishing to attract players beyond the limited number of ICU paid up members?

[Martin Crichton]

If the ECF and USCF do it why should other federations not want to follow suit?

If its good for the goose its good for the gander.

Then again I can see how some hard up foreign players could be deterred from entering after paying £100 - £200 on air fares and maybe the same again on accomodation.

After all its a whopping 20 Euros or £15 sterling at the current exchange rates.

[Roger de Coverly]

If the ECF and USCF do it why should other federations not want to follow suit?

It would help to get the facts right. The USCF certainly discourages foreign participation in its domestic tournaments. The ECF however does not. If it's FIDE rated, the ECF gets only the mark up on the FIDE rating fee, if it's ECF graded only the ECF gets £ 6 per head paid by the tournament organiser.

After all its a whopping 20 Euros or £15 sterling at the current exchange rates.

35 Euros for adults according to the ICU website. As I noted earlier, that's about the same as the Bunratty entry fee.

https://www.icu.ie/icu/membership_byelaws

A Capitation Fee shall be payable by each player to the ICU at a rate of €35 per Subscription Year, this fee to be called the "standard fee", except for players 65 and over on the following 1 January who shall pay a fee of €20, players not earming an income who shall pay a fee of €20, players under 18 on the following 1 January who shall pay a fee of €20 and players under 12 on the following 1 January who shall pay a fee of €15 (or sterling equivalents).

Whether the membership bye-laws are current is another matter as they go on to say:-

Foreign players whose ordinary residence is outside the island of Ireland shall not be subject to payment of any fee or subscription to the ICU for participating in Irish tournaments (other than the Irish Chess Championships), upon production of proof that they are affiliated to another national body which is a member of FIDE.