(Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Discuss anything you like about chess related matters in this forum.
Mick Norris
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Mick Norris » Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 am

I'm assuming with a 6 person APA there's no possibility of taking a half point bye
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Matthew Turner
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matthew Turner » Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:37 am

Mike Gunn wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:24 am
Jacques Parry wrote:
Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:24 pm
If I play three games in a day, and don't speak to anyone except my opponents, am I undertaking an activity "with" the other 20 players in my section?
If an infectious person plays in a 5 round Swiss he is potentially infecting up to another 31 people but if he plays in an all play all section of 6 then just 5 players are at risk.

APA sections are definitely the way to go both from the point of view of both reducing possible infection and also staying within the law!
More complete rubbish, with a completely random number thrown in

Mike Gunn
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Mike Gunn » Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:52 am

The maths is quite straight forward. In an earlier post Alex McFarlane described how (in his experience) you could tell which round you were in at Hastings according to the amount of coughing he could hear. It is just common sense that by restricting contacts you restrict the spread of a virus.

Matt Bridgeman
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matt Bridgeman » Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:00 am

A sudden, unexpected cluster of cases is really common. For example, just yesterday, a hospital in our area which had no Covid cases at all, reported that 15 in-patients for other conditions had tested Covid positive. Probably infected by visitors to the hospital. Presumably in an environment that was reasonably sterile and distanced.

David Williams
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by David Williams » Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:07 am

Matt Bridgeman wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:00 am
A sudden, unexpected cluster of cases is really common. For example, just yesterday, a hospital in our area which had no Covid cases at all, reported that 15 in-patients for other conditions had tested Covid positive. Probably infected by visitors to the hospital. Presumably in an environment that was reasonably sterile and distanced.
Strange conclusion. Several visitors all turn up at the same time and infect all these people? Or one person turns up and visits 15 people and infects them all? Isn't it vastly more likely that it's someone who works there, and there has been a spectacular failure in the sterile and distanced environment?

Matt Bridgeman
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matt Bridgeman » Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:18 am

It was actually a ‘know what happened’ not a speculation. And now visiting is very limited at the hospital.

Matthew Turner
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matthew Turner » Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:20 am

Mike Gunn wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:52 am
The maths is quite straight forward. In an earlier post Alex McFarlane described how (in his experience) you could tell which round you were in at Hastings according to the amount of coughing he could hear. It is just common sense that by restricting contacts you restrict the spread of a virus.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with your Mathematical ability and then follow up with your medical knowledge. The WHO think that people are primarily only infectious when displaying symptoms and that the incubation period for CoVid19 is 3 to 14 days.

Mike Gunn
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Mike Gunn » Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:41 am

Actually the WHO (like everybody else) doesn't know how the infection is spread. If you want some informed comment from an expert then see the examples in the blog by Erin Bromage (
https://tinyurl.com/y83xeygm
. The examples of the restaurant, workplace and choir seem to indicate that airborne transmission is the main route to infection but we note the many precautions that are recommended against transmission by contact (hand washing, sanitising surfaces etc). The common feature of all these cases is people in close proximity for significant periods of time and this is exactly what you have in case of a chess tournament. Note in particular how long a typical game of congress chess lasts compared to the timings in the EB blog and also the fact that you are handling the same chess pieces as your opponent.

If play in a large Swiss section (as at Hastings for example) then one person can pass on the virus to one other person in round 1, a further 2 people can be infected from this original source in round 2, 4 in round 3, 8 in round 4 and 16 in round 5. 1+2+4+8+16=31. Of course this is an upper limit (you note that I said "up to 31") but it clearly establishes the principle that APA sections are to be preferred to the traditional Swiss.

David Sedgwick
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:44 am

Matthew Turner wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:37 am
More complete rubbish, with a completely random number thrown in
Matthew Turner wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:20 am
Perhaps you could enlighten us with your Mathematical ability and then follow up with your medical knowledge.
Matthew, I would like to try some logic.

1. In Surrey, Mike Gunn has been one of the strongest advocates for seeking to resume OTB chess as soon as possible.

2. People are more likely to feel comfortable with only coming into contact with a limited number of people, even if their reasons for so feeling are "complete rubbish".

Therefore:

3. Your comments which I have quoted above are rather unhelpful.

Matthew Turner
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matthew Turner » Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:19 pm

David,
The important thing is to have appropriate control measures in place. A player should come into contact with 5 players in a a 5 round Swiss and 5 players in a 6 player all-play-all. To pretend that all play alls are somehow safer detracts from the real issues and doesn't help anyone.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Chris Goodall » Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:46 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Mon Sep 14, 2020 10:33 pm
Richard Bates wrote:
Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:42 pm
I think eminently reasonable point re: ECF "guidance" - especially as it appears to have been released in advance of legal regulations actually being published and presumably therefore uninformed by them!
Possibly, except that reading them still seems to leave skilled lawyers as uninformed as when they started. That is the problem faced not just by chess organisers but by anyone trying to do anything constructive in this country.
Dominic Cummings wrote that one of his top gripes at the Department for Education was when lawyers told him that doing X "could be illegal", and that not doing X also "could be illegal". The result was management by judicial review. Do the opposite of what you wanted to do, get JR'd, lose the JR, and then do what you wanted to do. The press will have no idea what's going on and will probably hail the JR as another cock-up by the government.
Matthew Turner wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:19 pm
David,
The important thing is to have appropriate control measures in place. A player should come into contact with 5 players in a a 5 round Swiss and 5 players in a 6 player all-play-all. To pretend that all play alls are somehow safer detracts from the real issues and doesn't help anyone.
Um, no. Two people, to whom you've already given the virus, meeting each other, is safer than them meeting anyone else. It's about the number of connections between clusters, not the number of connections within them.
Donate to Sabrina's fundraiser at https://gofund.me/aeae42c7 to support victims of sexual abuse in the chess world.

Northumberland webmaster, Jesmond CC something-or-other. Views mine. Definitely below the Goodall Line.

Matthew Turner
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matthew Turner » Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:51 pm

David,
There may well be people who are more comfortable playing in an all play alls, but I think these players really have a long hard think about things. What is going to be their reaction when they find out one of their group is having lunch at the pub? If someone thinks a swiss tournament is too big a risk that is fair enough, but really then it isn't time for them to return to over the board chess.

David Sedgwick
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by David Sedgwick » Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:04 pm

Matthew Turner wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:19 pm
David,
The important thing is to have appropriate control measures in place. A player should come into contact with 5 players in a a 5 round Swiss and 5 players in a 6 player all-play-all. To pretend that all play alls are somehow safer detracts from the real issues and doesn't help anyone.
The English Bridge Union has updated its advice at https://www.ebu.co.uk/node/3901.

From what I read there, it seems to me that, in a chess context, it would be possible to organise simultaneous 6 player all-play-alls in some venues but that it would not be possible to organise a Swiss tournament in those venues.

Matthew Turner
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Matthew Turner » Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:13 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:46 pm
Matthew Turner wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:19 pm
David,
The important thing is to have appropriate control measures in place. A player should come into contact with 5 players in a a 5 round Swiss and 5 players in a 6 player all-play-all. To pretend that all play alls are somehow safer detracts from the real issues and doesn't help anyone.
Um, no. Two people, to whom you've already given the virus, meeting each other, is safer than them meeting anyone else. It's about the number of connections between clusters, not the number of connections within them.
Chris,
Connections between clusters are important factor for spreading the virus and connections within a cluster are important for the virulence of the virus.

In a weekend chess tournament, I can catch CoVid19, or I can pass it on to someone else, but there is no evidence that I can do both. If there were a series of events then if the players always played in the same all play all sections then there would be a reduced number of infection, but those infections would (in all likelihood) be more serious. I am not sure that is a necessarily a good trade off. Always playing the same players would also get pretty boring.

If organisers are willing to put on events, then players have to decide if it is worth the risk, but all play alls are not the answer.

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Paul Robert Jackson
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Re: (Chess) Life Returning To Normal

Post by Paul Robert Jackson » Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:23 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:04 pm
The English Bridge Union has updated its advice at https://www.ebu.co.uk/node/3901.

From what I read there, it seems to me that, in a chess context, it would be possible to organise simultaneous 6 player all-play-alls in some venues but that it would not be possible to organise a Swiss tournament in those venues.
You can have a club meeting of six players without any issues.
Once you have two groups of six, the two groups must not mingle in anyway, either at the club or outside, as that would be breaking the law.

Looks to me like a Chess Congress / Swiss Tournament would be breaking the law.
Paul Robert Jackson

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