English Chess Forum

Tim Spanton wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 14, 2026 4:07 pm

One point is that it would make many evening-league games Fide rateable, thus reducing the need for a separate national rating

Rateable yes, but unlikely to be rated unless FIDE arbiters can be at every evening league venue?

I still think of Jonathan as my as yet untitled Leam Lane Aces teammate, whose FM title the Northumberland Exec resolved to chip in half the fee for as he had half a mind to just not bother with it. We had a small band of partisans very much willing him to surpass Charlie Storey's actual ability, if...

The Bucks league no longer has a rule which counts appearances for higher teams against eligibility for lower teams. Instead the lower division is ring-fenced by rating. In the days when it did, an interpretation was in place that wins by default didn't count towards the appearance count. I conclud...

You have to be more committed to chess these days, and ready to pay for club membership, possibly ECF membership, with tournament entrance fees and travelling and accommodation according to need, whereas I can recall days - in the sixties and seventies, for example - when the game appeared to benef...

It's a hobby horse of mine, but whenever chess in England tries to masquerade as a professional sport by bringing sponsors (sorry, commercial partners) on board, it ends in embarrassment for one party or the other. We are amateurs and there is nowt wrong wi that.

You can tell people grew up in the pre-Google era when they start threatening unspecified "legal action" against specific claims. Because the natural and immediate response is to Google what you are allowed to say about that person. Which in Gary Q's case turns out to be plenty, as I think Gerard ha...

That's fairly obvious "my enemy's enemy" stuff though, something that people of all political viewpoints can be prone to. (most certainly including the "anti-imperialist" left) The anti-imperialist (no quotation marks necessary) left, does not ally with neo-nazis. It's true, the "anti-imperialist" ...

I am the very model of a Greater Manchester arbiter, I'll calm down any arguments if anybody asks me ter, And if that guy from Lancashire's included in my list I'll call in Harry Lamb, no less, to sort him with his fist. I haven't been paying attention. That's very good. Thanks, Nick. I am unsure a...

Uzbek Rustam Kasimdzhanov once said that he was never invited to events more than once in the days before he suddenly became FIDE world champion, and he wondered whether his name was part of the problem. If that's the case then he missed a trick by going with Kasimdzhanov and not Qasimjonov. "That ...

The state of the game is extremely serious. Evening league chess, and the clubs supporting it, will wither and die out completely over the next decade or so in certain parts of the country. I predict the NE will be the first to collapse, closely followed by Merseyside, Cheshire & North Wales, and L...

That sounds entirely reasonable. Local disputes may not be handled properly though, so it would be nice if there were some sort of appeal process. Lord Justice Denning in Lee vs. Showmen's Guild of Great Britain laid down the principle that no man may sit in judgement of another outside of a courtr...

No you can't make a living running chess tournaments in England. I like to think of the "Chess GDP" of an area. What does the average player who goes to two local congresses spend playing chess every year - £100 or so? In a medium sized county where there are 400 active adult players, that gives you...

At the ECF AGM yesterday there was hardly anyone aged under 40 which I think is a bit concerning. (I think I was the youngest aged 30 but stand to be corrected on both points, and this is in no way a slight on older/more experienced participants) Do people on here believe this is an issue, and if s...

It taught me some theory I didn't know. Arguably this is a tabiya for the Wade Defence against the Advance French (if it's still called that). It's a position I reached over 50 years ago against Dinah Norman and lost. Whether to put the bishop on d3 depends on whether you're happy to get move-order...

"All rating systems measure results, not ability." Isn't that rather like looking at last season's Premier League final table and saying that, while it shows Liverpool's results were better than Southampton's, it doesn't prove their ability was better: the table measures results, not ability? Resul...