British Championship Congress 2020

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
David Sedgwick
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by David Sedgwick » Mon Sep 09, 2019 10:56 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:45 pm
It also determined eligibility by reference to ECF grades. It looks as though that practice is going to be reinstated, which I expect to be a very popular development.
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Mon Sep 09, 2019 7:47 pm
I've privately made what to me seemed the rather obvious point that they may not exist in their current style by the time we get around to the 2020 British...
Given the commitment made by the Manager of Grading to publish a (potentially final) list in the current style in July / August 2020, the point does not seem to me to be valid.

If you still adhere to your view that using ECF grades is impossible, you'll have to try a bit harder to convince anyone else ...

Ursula Wielgosz
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020 - Sections

Post by Ursula Wielgosz » Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:00 am

I joined the Forum to raise this specific point as I thought it would benefit from input from the collective memory / experience of this Forum.

While I'm delighted to learn that the 2020 British Championships were able to find a venue after being let down (the difficulty of which should not be underestimated) and understand why it needs to last for two weeks this time, on glancing at the schedule
https://www.britishchesschampionships.c ... 2020-1.pdf I noticed a couple of new categories that had appeared which I would like to understand better. These are the Under 100 (over 16) and the Under 110 (over 16). [For the avoidance of doubt, It's not the grade bit that bothers me (whatever that morphs to next summer), it's the age bit].

The questions I would like to ask you all are:

1. Does anyone know why the age restriction has been put in?
2. Does anyone know if there is a precedent for this (I've looked briefly at the previous years on the BCC site and couldn't see anything)?
3. Does anyone know if there was any consultation prior to making this change? (I entered two Juniors into the 2019 U100 and I wasn't asked my views)
4. Is anyone else concerned about the message this might be giving to Juniors who are just starting out and their parents?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020 - Sections

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:22 am

Ursula Wielgosz wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:00 am

1. Does anyone know why the age restriction has been put in?
2. Does anyone know if there is a precedent for this (I've looked briefly at the previous years on the BCC site and couldn't see anything)?


I would imagine the reason is to protect the adult players with career 100 grades from future CMs, FMs, IMs and GMs just passing through. There are other junior and open events.

Some years ago I believe all the grade or rating restricted sections were "adults only".

It's not something the ECF seem to want to implement, but is there merit in modelling the junior events on the timetables and move rates that players competing in World and European junior events would face?

NickFaulks
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020 - Sections

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:29 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:22 am
It's not something the ECF seem to want to implement, but is there merit in modelling the junior events on the timetables and move rates that players competing in World and European junior events would face?
Perhaps logistical problems would rule it out, but the obvious answer to your question is yes.
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Andrew Zigmond
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020 - Sections

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:56 am

Ursula Wielgosz wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:00 am
I joined the Forum to raise this specific point as I thought it would benefit from input from the collective memory / experience of this Forum.

While I'm delighted to learn that the 2020 British Championships were able to find a venue after being let down (the difficulty of which should not be underestimated) and understand why it needs to last for two weeks this time, on glancing at the schedule
https://www.britishchesschampionships.c ... 2020-1.pdf I noticed a couple of new categories that had appeared which I would like to understand better. These are the Under 100 (over 16) and the Under 110 (over 16). [For the avoidance of doubt, It's not the grade bit that bothers me (whatever that morphs to next summer), it's the age bit].

The questions I would like to ask you all are:

1. Does anyone know why the age restriction has been put in?
2. Does anyone know if there is a precedent for this (I've looked briefly at the previous years on the BCC site and couldn't see anything)?
3. Does anyone know if there was any consultation prior to making this change? (I entered two Juniors into the 2019 U100 and I wasn't asked my views)
4. Is anyone else concerned about the message this might be giving to Juniors who are just starting out and their parents?
The am/pm rated sections (or at least the lower half) seemed to be very junior heavy this year. In the U140 the 15 year old I played in round 3 was by some distance my oldest opponent. While I have absolutely no objections to playing juniors I did hear my 15 year old opponent say to a similarly aged friend that they were a bit frustrated by the number of juniors themselves as they had entered the event for the purpose of getting some practice against adult opposition.

As Roger says it's almost certainly to prevent 100 grade adults from being swamped. Any reasonably talented junior can rise to 100 strength quite quickly and a youngster with a grade of 90 odd in January is very likely to have accelerated beyond that by the time they play an event in July. I agree that the `losers` (for want of a better word) under the new policy are juniors whose playing strength is genuinely under 100 and have to play up - although the rating bands are reasonably narrow, some U100 adults will choose to play up as well, and rating prizes are available.

That said I agree with you that an explanation of the new policy by the ECF might been helpful, as things stand (and as you say) the message isn't entirely clear to a parent new to chess.
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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:20 pm

On a different topic, I spotted the following in the September 2019 issue of CHESS (on page 22):

"...let us just hope that no grandmaster will ever again walk into the Congress Office and fail to be recognised by a leading force in the organising team, as remarkably occurred after the final round this year."

What is that about, does anyone know?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:02 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:20 pm
What is that about, does anyone know?
I believe it was ECF Home Director, Adrian Elwin, telling the story against himself. That was when potential prize winners were invited to register their bank details with the Congress Office and he asked Stephen Gordon what section he was in.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:05 pm

Thank you. That was not at all clear from the CHESS article (unless I missed something)!

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:45 pm

It was actually Kevin Staveley who failed to recognise Stephen Gordon, but the rest of the story is as described.

NickFaulks
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:47 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:02 pm
I believe it was ECF Home Director, Adrian Elwin, telling the story against himself. That was when potential prize winners were invited to register their bank details with the Congress Office and he asked Stephen Gordon what section he was in.
I can sympathise. Among many such examples from my own experience, I once had a long conversation with a FIDE World Champion during which it slowly became clear that I thought he was someone else.
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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:07 pm

Shall we try and guess which one? Not Kasparov or Karpov, as I think you would recognise them. Was it Ponomariov or Khalifman?

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:35 pm

Wasn't there an incident (reported in Chess) when a strong club player, having been absolutely slaughtered by David Bronstein in (I think) the London League asked in all honesty, `Who was that old geezer?`
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Thu Sep 19, 2019 6:51 pm

Not quite so exalted but in a Civil Service vs RAF match in the 80s, the only player to be late was from RAF, he rushed to the only half-empty board, apologised, and played a few moves, then went for a coffee.
"Glad you made it", said his captain.
"Yes, sorry, train was late. This old boy seems to know the Milner-Barry Gambit!"
I'm sure you will all guess the captain's reply. Player goes white with fear and rushes to the board and sits with his head in his hands...

Alex Holowczak
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020 - Sections

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:05 pm

Ursula Wielgosz wrote:
Wed Sep 18, 2019 11:00 am
4. Is anyone else concerned about the message this might be giving to Juniors who are just starting out and their parents?
One of the complaints that is often received from players who are not juniors, which if we are being honest is players aged 40+, is that they don't want to play in events filled with juniors. This is because they are undergraded, or they don't sit still, or something. They remain most clear that juniors are welcome, they are very happy for juniors to have their own tournament. So long as they're not in their own tournament.

Am I concerned about it? Hard to say. I've seen this attitude for a decade or so, so I've just got used to it. Does it implicitly send the wrong message? Absolutely.

Ian Thompson
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Ian Thompson » Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:33 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2019 6:51 pm
Not quite so exalted ...
Equally unexalted would be a game I played in the National Club Handicap Rapidplay about 15 years ago. Team names and grades of players were available before the first round, but not player names. I thought I was playing someone graded about 110. I discovered after the game it was George Botterill.

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