English Chess Forum

(You really do not want to run membership schemes where fees are proportional to activity. The admin overload of doing that is ridiculous.) Please explain why. You collect from a few hundred organisations instead of several thousand or tens of thousand individuals. Is it not the case that the ECF O...

Council said no. In my memory, the option was never put to them. "Membership" was always equated to a "one man, one sub" system. Let's put it another way: they rejected options in which Game Fee was the primary method of funding. (You really do not want to run membership schemes where fees are prop...

The situation is that, for example, the latest FIDE rating list (if I did the pivot table right) has 2923 players for ENG, 19439 for FRA and 22897 for GER. You certainly can try to find issues and excuses for that That is an extremely simple one to answer - the ECF has taxed FIDE rated chess almost...

If it's anything like Spain then comparisons with England are pretty difficult simply because the whole way chess is organised is very different. Yes, in those countries chess is simply better organized and attracts a wider audience, including younger people. But isn't the chess federation role to ...

English chess players don't want to pay much to the federation, and to some extent get the federation they pay for; government support has been withdrawn, and local authorities don't support chess any more (I've been to chess events in Town Halls in Rochdale, Bolton, Bury & Manchester, but they now...

And I'm confident their member forum is better as well ;-) with fewer grumpy complainers. Really? My impression is that the French federation's infighting makes our debates here look quite mild. The comment about the forum is obviously a joke. Instead, the difference in strength between the ECF and...

So if I get Paolo correctly he is saying that a good federation has more players with FIDE grades, more members and more money. Boils down to saying that Barclays is a better bank than the Cumberland Building Society because it is bigger. I'm still glad I've moved from the former to the latter, how...

Well Paolo's told us one way of interpreting the question. No clue as to the answer, however! The clue is in the comparison... just match the ECF against the German and French federations in terms of financials, number of members, number of FIDE rated members and so on... you can't help wondering w...

Well Paolo's told us one way of interpreting the question. No clue as to the answer, however! The clue is in the comparison... just match the ECF against the German and French federations in terms of financials, number of members, number of FIDE rated members and so on... you can't help wondering w...

When you say ECF, do you mean Council, the board, the federation as a whole or another definition? and compared to what? For example, compared to other European countries like Germany and France: similar population, similar economy, but very different financials for the national federation and very...

Again, it doesn't matter what people say just look at the pairings; it doesn't surprise me a Russian thinks its a conspiracy, even Yifan has apologised in an official statement While showing her unhappiness with the pairing against women, I have not seen any explanation from Hou Yifan why it is so ...

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:What should I do to become a GM?

Not a guarantee, but wasting less time on internet forums and similar could be a good start.
Instead working on chess and practicing might be your best chance to improve.

I don't like the idea of direct members voting in Directors for the reasons given in the Consultation paper and, more generally, because I prefer representative democracy over direct democracy. I doubt Council could continue to exist if it didn't elect the Board. Direct members electing the Board w...

Further consultation might yet alter the structure of one or all of the proposals and I have certainly the intention of making a reasoned submission with suggestions for some alterations. There are attractions and problems with all three options though my own preference, perhaps surprisingly given ...

I bought and subscribed to a variety of chess magazines over the years. Here some notes about the top entries in my personal list: Europe Echecs provides very good quality content with a good mix of expert commentary and material for new chess enthusiasts. Of all chess magazines, it's probably one o...