British Universities 2013

[Richard Bates]

The official Scottish forum is here:-

http://www.chessscotland.com/forum/view ... ?f=4&t=564

In that, they note that they were not offered the Game Fee option. If they confined their comments to the Scottish forum, they wouldn't get the views of players and organisers in England,

Don't be silly. There can barely be a chess forum or blog in existence on which one can't discover your good self offering the views of players and organisers in England. You are even the one person who gets to comment on the Giddins blog (although he does the work for you on that one )

Or won't they let you join the Chess Scotland forum?

who in principle set ECF membership policy which BUCA is applying.

Yawn. BUCA is not applying ECF membership policy...

[Richard Bates]

The fact that they entered anyway is the more important thing.

I would be hesitant to advocate event boycotts. But I sometimes think that organisers take players for granted far too frequently.

Got any particular organisers in mind? The organiser of "the best series of weekend chess tournaments in the UK"? Perhaps the organiser of the most successful league in England? The individual who has almost single-handedly revived University chess in any meaningful sense? You can't please everybody.

[Andrew Zigmond]

The fact that they entered anyway is the more important thing.

I would be hesitant to advocate event boycotts. But I sometimes think that organisers take players for granted far too frequently.

Got any particular organisers in mind? The organiser of "the best series of weekend chess tournaments in the UK"? Perhaps the organiser of the most successful league in England? The individual who has almost single-handedly revived University chess in any meaningful sense? You can't please everybody.

Agreed. If I play in a weekend chess event it can cost me the best part of £100 with the entry fee, transport and accomodation (the latter being the main cost). A fee of £12 or £18 annually is inconsequential by comparison.

[Roger de Coverly]

Got any particular organisers in mind?

I would boycott any event that attempted to apply zero time default. That is one issue that organisers in England do take note of player opinion. I was not intending to play Blackpool, but their stance of expecting players to produce membership cards would put me off. But there's a potential big issue affecting plans for event after 1st July where the ECF and principal organisers are remaining silent, namely the FIDE regulations on player licensing.

At a local level, I would not enter a team into a league which demanded up to £ 27 in membership for two games.

[Roger de Coverly]

Yawn. BUCA is not applying ECF membership policy...

In what sense is it not? BUCA made a decision to avoid being charged £ 2 per game, instead they made it a condition of entry that all players had to be at least ECF Bronze members. It's ECF membership and grading policy that for league games to be graded all players have to be ECF members at Bronze level or else the organiser will be charged £ 2 per game per non member.

[Mike Truran]

At a local level, I would not enter a team into a league which demanded up to £ 27 in membership for two games.

The whole of Oxfordshire chess was devastated at the news that we wouldn't be having the pleasure of your company. No doubt you will be applying a similar principled stance to the 4NCL and e2e4.

[IanDavis]

It seems rather concerning that 1 person can hold 3/8 of the elected positions

[Andrew Zigmond]

It seems rather concerning that 1 person can hold 3/8 of the elected positions

This can be quite common in chess where there is a shortage of volunteers. We once had a situation at my club where the Secretary, Treasurer and Competitions Controller were all team captains.

[Alistair Campbell]

I must say that I’ve a lot of sympathy for Jonny, Adam and the rest of the Edinburgh team. Perhaps I should declare an interest as Edinburgh is one of my almae matres (is that the correct plural?) but I was delighted for them when they regained the title that the club last won in 1980 and it does seem not only unfortunate but rather inequitable that they have to buy membership of a foreign body on top of paying their own way. It must also seem like extra expense is their reward for winning – had they not done so, there must have been a fair chance that they wouldn’t be back this year – and I can quite imagine they feel quite hard done by. And I don’t see any problem with raising the issue on this forum – where else would you raise an issue about chess being played in England, particularly when it seems that the consequences of the ECF membership scheme are an issue?

Mind you, I’ve sympathy for Alex H as well – he appears to have done a tremendous job in revitalising the moribund BUCA, is rightly constrained by his constitution and I expect as an organiser the grief he gets far outweighs the thanks.

Of course, it would not be the first decision made at an AGM that is unfair or ill thought out, nor the first decision made in ignorance of any distinctive Scottish angle in a British context. Perhaps some compromise can be reached, possibly a refund of the excess of membership over game fee, and a deal to vote through an alternative measure for next year. Otherwise I fear BUCA will soon become a de facto E&WUCA.

I also find it quite cheeky that Edinburgh are complaining about these charges when they don't have to pay tuition fees.

I’m happy to be put right on this, but don’t some students at Scottish Universities have to pay fees?

In the same way tuition fees and the West Lothian question have raised their head on this thread and I have strong opinions on both, however it would be wrong of me to take these issues to Scottish students.

I must have missed the reference to the WLQ - is that the one about how far along the M8 corridor you have to go before you get salt and vinegar on your chips, instead of salt and sauce?

[Alex Holowczak]

I’m happy to be put right on this, but don’t some students at Scottish Universities have to pay fees?

Here's Edinburgh as an example, but the rest of Scotland is the same: http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/fees/unde ... 3-2014.cfm

Scottish or non-UK EU countries pay £1,820 per year. Students from the rest of the UK pay just about £9,000 per year. So yes, students at Edinburgh pay tuition fees, but if they're Scottish, they pay approximately 20% of what an English student would pay per year.

It's not that simple. There are various grants and loans that can be applied for, but realistically, a Scottish student is still likely to be in far less debt when they finish their course compared with an English student.

[John Townsend]

Congratulations to Imperial College, who have come first with the excellent score of 4.5 out of 5.

[Alex Holowczak]

Congratulations to Imperial College, who have come first with the excellent score of 4.5 out of 5.

Actually, they had a score of 9, because it is 2 matchpoints for a win. But yes, they won. It was Imperial's first win since 1986, when they were the University of London, or some part thereof, presumably.

Full results, and 3/5 of the PGN files, can be found on the website.

[LawrenceCooper]

Congratulations to Imperial College, who have come first with the excellent score of 4.5 out of 5.

Winners by half a game point ahead of Warwick. Full results here: http://www.buca.org.uk/news Thanks to Alex & team for organising.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Congratulations to Imperial College, who have come first with the excellent score of 4.5 out of 5.

Winners by half a game point ahead of Warwick. Full results here: http://www.buca.org.uk/news Thanks to Alex & team for organising.

I was wondering where the results were. Looks like it was an excellent event. (Minor nitpick: the html files for the round results are download links??).

Am I right in saying that 5 teams tied for fourth, with Imperial and Warwick both dropping a drawn match in round 4 (between themselves) and the title being decided by the amount they won by in round 5? i.e. Warwick 1's 2½ - 1½ victory over Edinburgh was half a game point less than Imperial's 3-1 victory over Bristol 1, and this was what decided the competition? That sounds like a very close finish...

[Daniel Young]

Congratulations to Imperial College, who have come first with the excellent score of 4.5 out of 5.

Winners by half a game point ahead of Warwick. Full results here: http://www.buca.org.uk/news Thanks to Alex & team for organising.

I was wondering where the results were. Looks like it was an excellent event. (Minor nitpick: the html files for the round results are download links??).

Am I right in saying that 5 teams tied for fourth, with Imperial and Warwick both dropping a drawn match in round 4 (between themselves) and the title being decided by the amount they won by in round 5? i.e. Warwick 1's 2½ - 1½ victory over Edinburgh was half a game point less than Imperial's 3-1 victory over Bristol 1, and this was what decided the competition? That sounds like a very close finish...

If Warwick had won the final match 3-1 as well (which it looked like they would do, for a time) then things would have been decided by bottom-board elimination! Although even that wouldn't have changed the result, as far as I know. Certainly it was close, with no less than 5 teams finishing on 6 match-points in the end... our 1-3 final round loss to Imperial dropped us from =3rd to 8th!

But to echo the above, congratulations to Imperial and thanks to the organising team for an enjoyable event.