Chess is not a sport but a game. So what’s the difference?

[A.Kluckova]

USA, Canada or Australia are not in EU.

Chess is the sport in Slovakia. It means chess is also for children from the families with low income in Slovakia.
She would never play Youth Championship ( European or World) if she would not be member of her origin federation. Coaching in UK at Youth Championship is mandatory and costs about 700 pounds, acompaning parent is mandatory and costs about 1000 pounds. All together with players travel coasts and fees , a talented child needs more than 2500 pounds for one Youth Championship start. Unpossible. She still plays for origin federation, because only way to play for her. And she was not outsider, the 8th in European Championship 2017 in till 18 years old group.

Is good if chess is the sport. If it needs petition, is good to sign it. But I think, it did not need petition, was time before to ask about it without petition from EU law.

[Roger de Coverly]

But I think, it did not need petition, was time before to ask about it without petition from EU law.

You are covering ground frequently trodden over the last fifty years, if not longer. Since 2010, the UK government doesn't want to spend money on chess and its tax collectors have never wanted to give up tax revenues. Attempts to change its mind have been unsuccessful other than at the margin and waving EU big sticks isn't going to help.

[A.Kluckova]

Thank you.It is not easy situation.

But why no chess players do not sign the petition? About 1500 signatures for 3 weeks in the country more than 50 mil.inhabitants? If we will start petition about waste bins in our town, will be more, you know.

How to get chess at the Olympic games if countries like the UK do not accepted that it is the sport?
For all of us it is the sport, and to meet the chess at the Olympic games is one of the the main targets.

[Roger de Coverly]

But why no chess players do not sign the petition?

Waste of effort, the ground has been covered frequently.

How to get chess at the Olympic games if countries like the UK do not accepted that it is the sport?

That's one reason chess in the mainstream Olympics isn't going to happen. Whilst unlike cycling, chess has no special appeal to asthmatics, chess in the Olympics would likely bring with it a much greater bureaucracy of anti doping measures.

[Richard Bates]

<snip>
She would never play Youth Championship ( European or World) if she would not be member of her origin federation. Coaching in UK at Youth Championship is mandatory and costs about 700 pounds, [b]acompaning parent is mandatory and costs about 1000 pounds[/b]. </snip>

Is it? Since when?

[Roger de Coverly]

Is it? Since when?

The current policy is at
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/england ... questions/

It appears age dependent.

Accompanying persons
• The ECF and its officials cannot take in loco parentis responsibility for players
• For all players who are under 12 or younger (where this is defined as the FIDE age, i.e. age as at 1 January of the year in question), a family member must accompany the player.
• For older players (i.e. 12 years old and above) who are competing for the first time in this type of event, the ECF strongly recommends that a family member accompanies them.
• For older players who have had experience of previous similar events, it may be appropriate for families to collaborate such that one adult travels with the team and looks after a number of players in addition to their own child. This may have the advantage of reducing overall costs or managing the time commitment required.

When it's an official trip, it now seems ECF policy that there's an accompanying coach or several, so that cost cannot be avoided. That goes some way to explaining the ECF's rows with independent academies that also want to send players to official FIDE events.

[Leonard Barden]

She still plays for origin federation, because only way to play for her. And she was not outsider, the 8th in European Championship 2017 in till 18 years old group.

Forget about the Olympic games, it's not going to happen. I was personally active in campaigns for chess as a sport in 1975 and 1998, both were a waste of time and energy.

The correct, and realistic, target for you and your daughter, who if I have worked it out accurately from your information above, is Svetlana Sucikova, is for her to give all her chess energies in the next few months to be selected again for the Slovak team in the women's Olympiad at Batumi, Georgia, which starts on 23 September.

Your daughter is already the No10 active female player in Slovakia
https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml?t ... ountry=SVK
and is seven years or more younger than all the players ahead of her.

In the 2016 Olympiad in Baku she got off to a bad start with a draw with a low rated player from Malta and a loss to Norway which I guess meant that the team captain didn't want to risk her much as the top four players were all playing reasonably. This situation can happen in Olympiads, and it also occurred to the low board English team players in 1956 and 1972.

But time is on your daughter's side and if she is ready to work for it she can become fully established in the Slovak Olympiad team. Go for it!

[Alex Holowczak]

But why no chess players do not sign the petition? About 1500 signatures for 3 weeks in the country more than 50 mil.inhabitants?

There are quite a few British chessplayers who only play chess in the function room of a pub, and a number of whom drink alcohol during their games. Does that sound like a sport? I gather that in Greece, they had a similar chessplaying culture some time ago, but by hook or by crook, that changed and now they play in sports clubs or other non-licensed premises, and not in pubs. The benefits were that they seemed to get more juniors, more female players, and government funding. I wonder - was this evolution the same in Slovakia?

I think the majority of chess clubs in England would be opposed to changing their ways, even if the result was recognition as a sport and increased government funding. They might if the government funding came first, but there's a chicken and egg scenario to that. In addition, I suspect there are a sizable number of British chess club players who wouldn't regard themselves as playing as a sport; and I suspect many would not care about trying to get chess into the Olympics. They just want to turn up, play a game of chess in an evening (or maybe half a game), have a drink, and go home at the end.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I agree with Alex.

Alcohol is on the WADA list for some sports (shooting etc., so justifiably!) But clubs meet in cheap premises like pubs, because they're cheap. I suspect most chess players don't care about top level chess. I reckon you could walk into most clubs in this country and ask who the British Champion is and get blank looks. Not everybody will know who the World Champion is.

[NickFaulks]

Alcohol is on the WADA list for some sports (shooting etc., so justifiably!)

But not for the reason that you may be suggesting. It is actually banned in shooting and archery as a performance enchancing substance, for which there is ample evidence.

[Nick Grey]

If we are using the basis of government funding or VAT for the chess as a sport argument then we have all failed. Get realistic. If the government is considering VAT on food (Treasury) is also likely to curtail and reduce any of these loop holes. Why is 2/3rds of music funding allocated to Opera is a legitimate question.

We also have to be realistic in expectations and the ECF's responsibilities in accounting and governance and meeting charitable status aims.

Alcohol is performance enhancing in chess. In conjunction with strategies for heffalump trapping, I have averaged above 180 in the past and have never been graded at 180. I do not know why - it is much like that in darts.

The one item missing in chess as a sport is the excitement and absence of world-class commentary for the masses of spectators. To the general public chess is like watching paint dry.

[Michael Farthing]

Averaging above 180 in darts is quite an achievement!

[Alex Holowczak]

I reckon you could walk into most clubs in this country and ask who the British Champion is and get blank looks. Not everybody will know who the World Champion is.

I heard a story of an England Women's team player phoning a club secretary and enquiring about joining their club. "Do you know how the pieces move?"

[Nick Grey]

Averaged 180 in chess.
My alcohol influenced darts experience 85+ (8 pints and a Christmas lunch). My normal average over 5 seasons (55).

CJ joined Kingston for a season or 2. 90% of us never heard of him. His chess playing ability was much overstated too. There were a lot of blank looks from opponents as well as club officials, when he refused to give his surname.

[Roger de Coverly]

We also have to be realistic in expectations and the ECF's responsibilities in accounting and governance and meeting charitable status aims.

The ECF has abandoned attempts to earn charitable status for itself, the main problem being that of professional players in the British Championship and national teams. There didn't seem any way of subdividing the organisation since most of the fund raising took place on the amateur side, with the expenses being the professional players. The best that it could do was to set up an associated charity to hold funds from legacies and other donations. This is now up and running.

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/the-chess-trust/
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/the-chess-trust-2/
http://www.chesstrust.org.uk/