Interview with Samuel Sevian on Radio Four

[JustinHorton]

On Americana: it can (I hope) be listened to, for a few days anyway, here.

[Leonard Barden]

The link says the interview is unavailable.

Sevian was No 1 seed for the 2010 World U10 championship, where with Fide 2105 he was rated nearly 100 points ahead of the next seed and 200 points or more ahead of most of the field. But he only finished sixth with 8/11. Two of those ahead of him were also US U10s with 1900ish ratings, the gold medallist was an unrated Canadian.

Finding that information reminded me that we in England have Zheming Zhang who will be eligible for the World U10 in 2011 and 2012 and is probably now at least around 1700 strength (ECF 123, rapid 136 in July 2010 since when he has won the British U8 and U9) . So it is not impossible for him to reach the above levels by autumn 2012 given appropriate opportunities for his talent.

But then I came across this account by his father and felt a chill....


On Saturday, Zheming Zhang played at the England U11 Trial Qualifier and won with 5.5
out 6. He drew the last round because he was running out of time. He had a queen and his
opponent had only king left so the arbiter declared the game was a draw. His opponent also
had about less than one minute left. Zheming was a bit disappointed as he just needed
perhaps less than half a minute to checkmate. Zheming managed to record over 60 moves
while his opponent stopped recording after about 30 moves. If Zheming had stopped
recording a bit earlier, then he would have had time to checkmate. Zheming won a trophy, a
medal, Ä15, and a book. The trophy was only for photo and presentation and was taken away
immediately after the prize giving. The organiser said that they will have Zheming's name
engraved on it and they will keep it for next year's presentation. The book was signed by ECF
president, CJ de Mooi. Zheming gained a full norm for qualifying the England U11 Trial, but
he will not be allowed to play in the Trial as he is still U9.

I have suggested to Adam Raoof that Zheming should play in the Nigel Short simul next month.

[Richard James]

But then I came across this account by his father and felt a chill....


On Saturday, Zheming Zhang played at the England U11 Trial Qualifier and won with 5.5
out 6. He drew the last round because he was running out of time. He had a queen and his
opponent had only king left so the arbiter declared the game was a draw. His opponent also
had about less than one minute left. Zheming was a bit disappointed as he just needed
perhaps less than half a minute to checkmate. Zheming managed to record over 60 moves
while his opponent stopped recording after about 30 moves. If Zheming had stopped
recording a bit earlier, then he would have had time to checkmate. Zheming won a trophy, a
medal, Ä15, and a book. The trophy was only for photo and presentation and was taken away
immediately after the prize giving. The organiser said that they will have Zheming's name
engraved on it and they will keep it for next year's presentation. The book was signed by ECF
president, CJ de Mooi. Zheming gained a full norm for qualifying the England U11 Trial, but
he will not be allowed to play in the Trial as he is still U9.

I have suggested to Adam Raoof that Zheming should play in the Nigel Short simul next month.

Sadly, pretty typical of what happens in EPSCAland. It's all run by well-meaning people who put in an enormous amount of hard work on a voluntary basis but for the past 20 years or more their parochialism has been holding back the development of our best talents.

[PeterTurland]

Yeah I listened to the program and was appalled at the Beeb guys play, believe me I'm crap, but you don't reply to p x p in the kings gambit like that.

Why oh why is chess not on the curriculum in schools?

You cannot teach a child anything unless you can teach it semiotics, once you have taught a child the importance of symbol manipulation, you can teach it lots of other things.

The abysmal coverage of chess on the British national media is a total disgrace, even Turkey is putting it on the curriculum.

The people who run our culture are the big multiples with their incessant advertisements, that relentless Sainsbury's advert with the Welsh choir at the beginning, over and over again every ten minutes or so, who are these people?

I suspect they are not people who want us to think, just be dutiful brain washed consumers.

I spent many years as a truck driver prior to retirement and can assure you these big supermarket chains do not make our culture any richer, they get between suppler and consumer and slurp off the cream between, and most of the creepy organisations behind them, do not want our people to have any ability to think logically.

The fact that farmers have one of the highest suicide rates and the biggest of them all Tesco's, year after year, boast of enormous profits, speaks volumes.

/Rant over.

Happy New Year to all

Peter.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Why oh why is chess not on the curriculum in schools?

I can think of many reasons, but anyway we should all be pretty glad that it's not. I can't think of a better way of turning people off the game of chess (or anything else for that matter) than making it something that they have to do when they're children.

[PeterTurland]

Why oh why is chess not on the curriculum in schools?

I can think of many reasons, but anyway we should all be pretty glad that it's not. I can't think of a better way of turning people off the game of chess (or anything else for that matter) than making it something that they have to do when they're children.

Ok give them a choice then, either you can learn what + - * / mean and what abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz mean, instead of rook knight bishop queen king and pawn means on 64 squares.

How do you teach a 5 year old that the human world revolves around symbols, instead of 'I want', which is most of 5 year old children's modus operandi?

Which is easiest to learn in terms of its symbol set, mathematics, written language or chess, when you are 5 years old?

Perhaps you are unaware of this study?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/930/0009711.pdf

[Alex Holowczak]

Ok give them a choice then, either you can learn what + - * / mean and what abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz mean, instead of rook knight bishop queen king and pawn means on 64 squares.

What happened to 'y'?

[PeterTurland]

[quote="Alex Holowczak"][quote="PeterTurland"]Ok give them a choice then, either you can learn what + - * / mean and what abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz mean, instead of rook knight bishop queen king and pawn means on 64 squares.[/quote]

What happened to 'y'? [/quote]

Y goes to show how badly I was educated lol, why did I discover I had a brain instead of the school system I had the misfortune to be taught in?

I actually discovered I had a mind of my own when I was over 30, how sad is that?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Perhaps you are unaware of this study?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/930/0009711.pdf

I wasn't Peter, but I think you're missing the point I was trying to make:

Making people learn something that they have no interest in - and don't see the relevance of - can often destroy any interest in the subject whatsoever.

The study provides an in-depth account of the impact of the final year (2003 – 2004) of a three year New Opportunities Fund (NOF) programme of Out of School Hours activities ...

Out of schools activity is an entirely different matter.

Anyway, I'm waiting for a wicket so I'm going back to the cricket.

[Stewart Reuben]

Peter Turland >and what abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxz<

Surely it means RADIO? That is yless.

Stewart Reuben

[JustinHorton]

The link says the interview is unavailable.

It works for me this morning - see if it's OK for you now.

(At one point the interviewer says "radio chess is a complete novelty, even on the BBC". A rather earlier American prodigy could have told him different.)

[Roger de Coverly]

He drew the last round because he was running out of time. He had a queen and his opponent had only king left so the arbiter declared the game was a draw. His opponent also had about less than one minute left.

Arbiters might like to comment, but isn't that just plain wrong? In the absence of a 10.2, why would the arbiter intervene? Even in the presence of a 10.2,why isn't the game allowed to run to flag fall even if the player with the material was then awarded the draw on the grounds of "not knowing what to do"?.

[LozCooper]

He drew the last round because he was running out of time. He had a queen and his opponent had only king left so the arbiter declared the game was a draw. His opponent also had about less than one minute left.

Arbiters might like to comment, but isn't that just plain wrong? In the absence of a 10.2, why would the arbiter intervene? Even in the presence of a 10.2,why isn't the game allowed to run to flag fall even if the player with the material was then awarded the draw on the grounds of "not knowing what to do"?.

It does sound very odd. The only possible grounds I can think of that the arbiter may have is if the player with the queen is checking non stop and doesn't move his king and therefore isn't making any progress

[Alex Holowczak]

He drew the last round because he was running out of time. He had a queen and his opponent had only king left so the arbiter declared the game was a draw. His opponent also had about less than one minute left.

Arbiters might like to comment, but isn't that just plain wrong?

When young juniors are involved, the arbiters tend to quote the preface a bit more often. For example, there was a rapidplay tournament where a player wanted to claim a draw under 10.2. It took a while for the request to be understood - it wasn't phrased very well - but all was well and good. The claimant had two minutes left, and the opponent had about 20. Nothing wrong so far. The claimant's flag fell. However, in rapidplay the flag only falls when the opponent makes a valid claim to that effect. Some time later, the game continued with no sign of anyone pointing out the flag fall. One player still had 15 minutes left, the other used 15 minutes too much. The round was scheduled to end, with a 20-minute turn around until the next one. What do you do? Letter of the law says they should carry on, but this puts back the whole tournament. In the end, the arbiter put a halt to proceedings by accepting the 10.2, even though much progress had been made. The position on the board was dead drawn, so a draw seemed like a fair result. The person who in normal chess would have won on time didn't realise the (analogue) clock was showing a win on time. The game could have gone on for another hour. So sometimes, a bit of preface quoting needs to be done to get a fair result. Not necessarily the right decision, but the fair one.

I'm sure Zheming knows how to win KQ v K, and if Zheming's flag fell, then it would be a draw anyway. The only time you'd award a 10.2 in that situation is if a player is moving a K/Q around aimlessly and not playing very direct moves. The other problem with young juniors is that that often happens.

There's not enough information above to say the 10.2 award was wrong. In my opinion, the mistake was not deferring the decision until the flag fall. Perhaps the claimant needed a draw to get a norm to get into another junior event, or something. There was a 10ish-move draw in the British Under 11s for that reason.

Note that under the old BCF Quickplay Rules, circa 1980/1990something, there'd be nothing at all wrong with what the arbiter did.

[Roger de Coverly]

. However, in rapidplay the flag only falls when the opponent makes a valid claim to that effect.

Common sense would suggest that where an arbiter is invoking the "deferred decision" premise of 10.2, that the arbiter's observation should be able to define flag fall, overruling the provision about waiting for a player claim. If the rules can't be interpreted in that way, that indicates a need for a redraft.