English Chess Forum

According to my reliable sources in Canterbury, the technical staff are encountering several problems:

* resources and personnel are severely stretched; the only resources in plentiful supply are Arbiters. This means that game inputting, and related services for online viewers, are under severe strain. Significant delays must be expected in accessing online archives/results/game scores and so forth;

* online access volumes are 'through the roof' - good news of course in terms of online participation, but problematic for server infrastructures and related technical services as the viewing load increases;

* as reported elsewhere, one server is having serious problems

Memo to ECF Board

The lessons of the Liverpool events, 2006-2008, and more widely appear not to have been taken on board. Internet access of chess events is exploding as people become used to the availability of online games. Yet the ECF resources the British Championships as if we were still in the 1950s: one half expects a Roneo machine to be wheeled out as the principal publication vehicle.

Modernisation, and some rethinking of priorities, is long overdue.

David Robertson wrote:* online access volumes are 'through the roof' - good news of course in terms of online participation, but problematic for server infrastructures and related technical services as the viewing load increases;

* as reported elsewhere, one server is having serious problems

A new and much bigger replacement server has been built overnight (in too much of a rush yes) and is ready for today's games - fingers crossed...

However if you don't have funds for either the congress or GM participation then IT is last on the list

Someone once said “Why let the truth stand in the way of a good story?” Professor Robertson seems to have adopted this as his own personal motto.

Perhaps the professor is looking for a career change and now desires to work for the Sun or Sunday Sport creating stories similar to 'Freddy Starr ate my hamster' and 'World War II bomber found on the moon'. If this is the case may I offer some advice to the erstwhile respected academic. You really need to get more human interest into your stories.

Instead of the headline 'server having serious problems' why don't you try “Grandmaster swallows micro-chip to prevent live broadcast of his defeat.”

Or replace 'plentiful supply of arbiters' with “Cameron suggests unemployed retrain as arbiters”.

Or even, instead of 'webmaster doesn't post results quickly' you try “Results delay caused by sex scandal???”

You could even try combining stories such as “Arbiters' Accelerated Pairings Cause Server Malfunction”

But seriously we have 6.5 arbiters for all the tournaments currently running and 5.75 people doing web/live games/game inputting. Reality is a bit different from the picture David presents.

I think that the Professor has been particularly insulting to Carl who does wonders in providing the server space for the event and to Steve Connor who has produced an excellent website. Regular updates of results from the Championship and Major Open have been posted. To expect Steve to spend his entire day going round collecting results from other tournaments and posting these is just unrealistic.

I don't know who the professor's sources are but the adjective reliable in front of them does not seem to be entirely accurate.

Professor, you have gained much respect for what you have done in the past. Please do not ruin your reputation with petty point scoring attempts. It does not become you.

This is complete nonsense. The people here at Canterbury are working as hard - and as quickly - as they can to get results online, and provide full printed games in the bulletin for the people here in Canterbury to play through.

As one of the game inputters, they actually have more this year than they usually do, because I'm helping out. This means the game input is being done quicker than usual. There is no strain on us at all. Although, if you're offering your services to come and help out, then we'd encourage you to come down to Canterbury to put some games in. I will give you the honour of the doing this morning's Under 11 games.

All the inputting and results have been updated very efficiently this year when all of them have been available by the end of the day, but unfortunately the live streaming has had its problems this year, but most probably this is more a bandwidth problem than an equipment problem

Maybe the championship has to consider also using the Monroi system (supplementing the DGT boards) which has been used at Gibraltar and other tournaments, admittedly there are errors with this as well but it seems to be less prone to errors than the DGT boards

Alan Walton wrote:
Maybe the championship has to consider also using the Monroi system (supplementing the DGT boards)

Aren’t they ridiculously expensive though? An already hard up ECF is unlikely to be able to have funds available for such things. Unless Monroi were to send them over as freebies in exchange for advertising etc?

David Robertson wrote:....the only resources in plentiful supply are Arbiters.

The number of arbiters has been reduced by 1½ - 2 compared with earlier years. I visited the Championships yesterday and the gaps were very noticeable.

By the end of the event, those who are there will all have thoroughly earned their fee of zero.

Gareth,

Just looking on the websites, if you are starting out say buying 20 boards for live transmission, it costs £8000 for the DGT equipment and approx £5000 for the Monroi kit

There is also the extra benefit of not storing all that wiring, bulky boards as the Monroi system is wireless

I not saying one is better than the other as they both have the pros and cons, but it is worth considering for the future

David Sedgwick wrote:

David Robertson wrote:....the only resources in plentiful supply are Arbiters.

The number of arbiters has been reduced by 1½ - 2 compared with earlier years. I visited the Championships yesterday and the gaps were very noticeable. By the end of the event, those who are there will all have thoroughly earned their fee of zero.

That is a very vague assertion, David, though it may or may not be true. Which years are you comparing with? How many arbiters were there? Who is not there this year that has not been replaced? Are you including experienced volunteers like Alex H in your calculations? How were the gaps drawn to your attention - and what could we be doing better?

Moreover, all the arbiters get their expenses paid, and a per diem amount. It's not going to make them rich, but it's not zero.

If there are any arbiters out there within commuting distance of Canterbury who want some experience of a big event like this, they only have to tell me, and we can arrange some work experience

Alan Walton wrote:Just looking on the websites, if you are starting out say buying 20 boards for live transmission, it costs £8000 for the DGT equipment and approx £5000 for the Monroi kit

Have you allowed for one Monroi per game, or one per player? I think you would have to do the latter to be fair to both players, which I suspect almost doubles your cost. If starting from scratch you also need to include the cost of buying separate sets, boards and clocks with the Monroi equipment, which you already have with DGT.

There is a long term issue with the British with limited resources. However, there is also a shorter term issue in terms of resource allocation. It has been a shame that there have been intermittent problems with the live games, but this is because this very important area is left to a couple of people on a shoestring. On the other hand, Alex has mentioned numerous times about how difficult (and presumably time consuming) it is to enter the U11 games. Why are we even entering the U11 games?

Matthew Turner wrote:There is a long term issue with the British with limited resources. However, there is also a shorter term issue in terms of resource allocation. It has been a shame that there have been intermittent problems with the live games, but this is because this very important area is left to a couple of people on a shoestring. On the other hand, Alex has mentioned numerous times about how difficult (and presumably time consuming) it is to enter the U11 games. Why are we even entering the U11 games?

Because somebody is offering to do it for free? To justify the use of 'copy' scoresheets?

Or maybe they just want to keep Alex quiet and out of the way...

BTW is it true that the terms of the John Robinson bequest apply not just to Junior chess but include the maintenance of the British Championship?

True, I have only used one per board, but this is only for transmitting the games live, so having two per board will be a luxury

Admittedly the DGT equpiment has already been purchased, but the £8000 was only for the board only, so your still need clocks if starting from stratch

All I am pointing out that there are alternatives and it may be worth investigating these if tournaments want to transmitted live games

From a personal point of view when watching live games on the DGT equipment there seems to be a high volume of problems occuring, but when viewing from Monroi the errors have seem less frequent

Adam Raoof wrote:

David Sedgwick wrote:

David Robertson wrote:....the only resources in plentiful supply are Arbiters.

The number of arbiters has been reduced by 1½ - 2 compared with earlier years. I visited the Championships yesterday and the gaps were very noticeable. By the end of the event, those who are there will all have thoroughly earned their fee of zero.

That is a very vague assertion, David, though it may or may not be true. Which years are you comparing with? How many arbiters were there? Who is not there this year that has not been replaced? Are you including experienced volunteers like Alex H in your calculations? How were the gaps drawn to your attention - and what could we be doing better?

Moreover, all the arbiters get their expenses paid, and a per diem amount. It's not going to make them rich, but it's not zero.

If there are any arbiters out there within commuting distance of Canterbury who want some experience of a big event like this, they only have to tell me, and we can arrange some work experience

I didn't think the facts were in dispute. If you look in last year's programme, you'll see nine arbiters listed. If you look in this year's programme, you'll see seven arbiters listed.

Moreover, have not the decisions to:
a) have an incremental time limit for the British Championship;
b) move the Senior Championship to the afternoon;
been stated to have been taken so as to reduce the arbiting requirement?

As to the financial side, I said their fee of zero.

I wasn't making any criticism of you, nor of anyone else connected with the organisation of the event. I don't deny that the actions taken were necessary.

My objection was to the implication in the remarks of David Robertson's anonymous source that one group of people were beavering away tirelessly while another group were sitting around doing nothing. The reality, of course, is that both groups are working extremely hard.

British chess depends very heavily on people who are prepared to give up far more of their time than I would be willing to do to control events for little or no reward. I make no apology for being quick to challenge those (not you) who seek to disparage their efforts.