Female players wanted

Venues, fixtures, teams and related matters.
Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 6:06 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:The difference is that nowhere in the 4NCL rules does it say that you have to field a GM in every match.
Alan Walton wrote:But you don't have to pay for a Grandmaster (male) if you don't want to
Absolutely.

If you had a rule that said a GM was compulsory, but a female was not, then you ought to save money in building your team compared to the status quo, because there's a bigger supply of GMs than female players.

The female players ought to be charging for their services given supply/demand, and it should come as no surprise when a female player works this out, and asks for conditions accordingly.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Sean Hewitt » Thu May 10, 2012 6:28 pm

If teams were allowed to register female players for a a weekend only (rather than the whole season) then the problem of women being unable to play because they played one game elsewhere is solved.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu May 10, 2012 6:43 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:If teams were allowed to register female players for a a weekend only (rather than the whole season) then the problem of women being unable to play because they played one game elsewhere is solved.
Or another version of the same rule so that a female player could be both a member of a div 1/2 squad and a div 3 squad without there being any connection between the male players. The original 4NCL rules were written in a gender neutral style, so that would need modification.

Jonathan Rogers
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Thu May 10, 2012 6:56 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote: and I can't imagine many GMs play in the 4NCL for free.
Barbican 4NCL perhaps. That's what they say in public anyway.
And that is the situation in private too, thank you very much 8)

But granted, it is highly unusual. I like to think that our Club is special (and so are our GMs).

Having been a 4NCL captain for over a third of my life, I'll skip this latest opportunity to talk about the gender rules in the 4NCL. I would say this to John however - whilst you might not need to pay a woman player to join your first division team, it is you who will have to approach prospective players and not the other way around! One obvious starting point would be to consider the women players who played for the recently relegated teams.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 7:15 pm

Jonathan Rogers wrote:I like to think that our Club is special (and so are our GMs).
That's certainly one way of describing it/them. :lol: :wink:

Paul Cooksey

Re: Female players wanted

Post by Paul Cooksey » Thu May 10, 2012 9:16 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:I'm not sure if I'm relevant or irrelevant but I admit to some bias in this area. I like the rule and wish it still applied in Division Two. I think there is an ample pool of female players in England but they often end up registered for teams but don't get any games or they get discarded in favour of foreign imports. I want to see more girls/women playing and the 4NCL is definitely an incentive that keeps some of them playing.
Apologies to Loz, who is clearly the relevant Director. To be honest, I was thinking of the joint managers of women's chess and had promoted them.

I understand Loz's position, but I think his comments contradict it slightly. They suggest to me that the current rules aren't really satisfactory to the British women players either (who are dropped, passed around between teams, getting defaults, etc).

I'm interested in the the point "definitely an incentive". I hope he will clarify. If I should I read it as the financial contribution I wonder if it might make sense to pay women players hotel expenses out of a central pot, rather than have a women's board? (teams contributions weighted by division, starting with top woman and working down) I think it would maximise the participation of women at whatever level, and in whatever team, they found most agreeable.

I take Jonathan's point this isn't a new discussion, but reading the 2010 thread, little seems to have improved.

(EDIT: afterthought; I might mean hotel expenses of the players of the sex which is least well represented rather than women if we are being cute with equality drafting. But fundamentally I am trying to think of a different way for the 4NCL to support women's chess, since I don't think the existing one is very effective)

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 9:50 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:I take Jonathan's point this isn't a new discussion, but reading the 2010 thread, little seems to have improved.
You say that, but in my Team Rep hat, there have been no formal complaints about this rule from any team. There have been mumbles of discontent about it, but there hasn't been enough to warrant a rule change, so far as I can tell. This rule in the 4NCL seems to me to have the status of being an inconvenience that's worth tolerating.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Female players wanted

Post by Paul Cooksey » Thu May 10, 2012 9:53 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Paul Cooksey wrote:I take Jonathan's point this isn't a new discussion, but reading the 2010 thread, little seems to have improved.
You say that, but in my Team Rep hat, there have been no formal complaints about this rule from any team. There have been mumbles of discontent about it, but there hasn't been enough to warrant a rule change, so far as I can tell. This rule in the 4NCL seems to me to have the status of being an inconvenience that's worth tolerating.
Other than the rule being changed for division 2 and Mike Yeo's proposal presumably...

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 9:55 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Paul Cooksey wrote:I take Jonathan's point this isn't a new discussion, but reading the 2010 thread, little seems to have improved.
You say that, but in my Team Rep hat, there have been no formal complaints about this rule from any team. There have been mumbles of discontent about it, but there hasn't been enough to warrant a rule change, so far as I can tell. This rule in the 4NCL seems to me to have the status of being an inconvenience that's worth tolerating.
Other than the rule being changed for division 2 and Mike Yeo's proposal presumably...
Well yes, exactly. If the rule were that undesirable, someone would propose getting rid of it altogether, and it would succeed. But in the last couple of years, no one has, favouring a watered-down version of it.

LawrenceCooper
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by LawrenceCooper » Thu May 10, 2012 10:01 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
LawrenceCooper wrote:I'm not sure if I'm relevant or irrelevant but I admit to some bias in this area. I like the rule and wish it still applied in Division Two. I think there is an ample pool of female players in England but they often end up registered for teams but don't get any games or they get discarded in favour of foreign imports. I want to see more girls/women playing and the 4NCL is definitely an incentive that keeps some of them playing.
Apologies to Loz, who is clearly the relevant Director. To be honest, I was thinking of the joint managers of women's chess and had promoted them.

I understand Loz's position, but I think his comments contradict it slightly. They suggest to me that the current rules aren't really satisfactory to the British women players either (who are dropped, passed around between teams, getting defaults, etc).

I'm interested in the the point "definitely an incentive". I hope he will clarify. If I should I read it as the financial contribution I wonder if it might make sense to pay women players hotel expenses out of a central pot, rather than have a women's board? (teams contributions weighted by division, starting with top woman and working down) I think it would maximise the participation of women at whatever level, and in whatever team, they found most agreeable.

I take Jonathan's point this isn't a new discussion, but reading the 2010 thread, little seems to have improved.

(EDIT: afterthought; I might mean hotel expenses of the players of the sex which is least well represented rather than women if we are being cute with equality drafting. But fundamentally I am trying to think of a different way for the 4NCL to support women's chess, since I don't think the existing one is very effective)
I definitely didn't mean financial incentive. I meant that the rule leads to a lot of promising girls getting the chance to play in the 4NCL that they may not otherwise have had.

I'm not the relevant director as both Sabrina and Jovanka report to Adam Raoof so I'm speaking more as an organiser that would like to see more girls/women playing and from time to time organises tournaments for them.

I wouldn't say the rules are to blame for those who are second or third choice and don't get a chance to play, it's natural for teams to want reserves but inevitably they don't all get to play. It's also worth mentioning that a lot of the female players don't receive any payment to play but I don't blame those who don't have teams who are asked to play and ask for their expenses to be covered. £100 on a hotel and train plus food is a lot of money to some people.

Jonathan Rogers
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Thu May 10, 2012 10:04 pm

Alex, the only way the team rep on the Board will find out anything from captains is to actually ask them. Of course no one approaches you with comments "in case you might wish to put them to the Board on their behalf", it has never worked like that in practice ... perhaps that was the point Paul was making.

All the same, I suggest that you don't ask for views on this topic, at least not now. There are no easy answers to this one. Just ask every four or so years in case a clear consensus develops over time.

Mike Truran
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Mike Truran » Thu May 10, 2012 10:10 pm

Just for the record, the last survey we did on this subject was in March 2010, so only a couple of years ago.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Female players wanted

Post by Paul Cooksey » Thu May 10, 2012 10:19 pm

Mike Truran wrote:Just for the record, the last survey we did on this subject was in March 2010, so only a couple of years ago.
That is rather more convincing than the "if it was broken we'd have fixed it already" argument Alex seemed to be making.

Certainly something with no easy answer, and I take the point it is a waste of energy to focus on it constantly.