English Chess Forum

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:37 pm

If the calculations for Keith were wrong, how do we know those for his rival weren't too?

I think it's been established that Paignton was incorrectly flagged as a League and as a result excluded from the Grand Prix. Keith's rival didn't play there. Calculations can be checked from the grading data.

Suspect it is all wrong - since when have the dutch been able to enter the British.
If some one has messed up that is why does it matter?
It does as per Keith's postings.

We are not giving support to our seniors either so Keith has been more than once adversely effected by ECF.
ECF seem to be awful in sponsorship, over compensating for juniors at lower levels, ...

So unless ECF clarifies ALL Clations it will be a problem. Who is responsible - why not make it an election point - why is it still going to be used this season when last season is in dispute.

But nationally we cannot implement the decision of an election even though millions of votes were to LEAVE.

Nick Grey > since when have the dutch been able to enter the British.<

Since David Welch introduced the rule that a player could become eligible after one year's residency in the British Isles or a British Dependency.

>We are not giving support to our seniors either<

That is news to me and I am ECF Manager for Senior Chess. The resources are, however, limited. I agree, not enough support is given to 80 year olds. For the ESTCC, no interest was expressed by our strong seniors to play in Croatia which starts on Tuesday.

Have you tried to raise business sponsorship? The Charity, Chess in Schools and Communities, has done wonders. But that is for juniors and is not business sponsorship.

While the ECF does indeed grant Stewart a (perhaps rather limited) budget for International Senior events, there are other issues closer to home which are, I guess, outside of his jurisdiction.

For example, while it was most welcome to see a sizeable monetary prize on offer at the 2018 British Championship for the top Senior, this was a one off and was clearly related to there being especially good sponsorship money that year.

The very strongest chess players deserve to earn the bulk of available funds, of course, but then there are, chiefly, 3 sub-categories: women's chess, junior chess and senior chess. Many GMs are now seniors ( eg there were 5 of us competing for the £1000 senior prize in the 2018 Championship) and senior chess is now clearly the strongest of the 3 sub-categories in British chess. I believe that therefore it would not be unreasonable to redistribute the prize money in the British Championship such that the top Junior, the top female 𝙖𝙣𝙙 the top senior each receive a prize.

I understand that it is not in the ECF's interest to award the Senior titles to the highest placed 50+ and 65+ players in the Championship itself, as they recoup substantial finance by running separate events for these titles, but that is a different matter.

England have 10 active GMs who are seniors.
There are two other categories.
Chess players, which includes everybody. Remember juniors, female and seniors can, not only win their special category prizes, but also main ones - if they Are good enough.
Disabled players and no resources is allocated by the ECF here. There isn't even an organisation in England to represent such players, other than the deaf and visually impaired.

Stewart Reuben wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 15, 2019 4:55 pm

Remember juniors, female and seniors can, not only win their special category prizes, but also main ones - if they Are good enough.

I'm guessing that these categories exist because it is considered inherently difficult for those of us in them to compete with the best males when in their prime.

In general it has been an ECF policy to offer junior and female prizes in the British Championship, and the point I was making is that it is not unreasonable to treat seniors in the same way.

Primarily/historically they exist because there are no separate championship events for them ie. the prizes only appeared when the previous running of separate Championship events was discontinued (U18 was still separate as recently as the late 90s). As some may predate the professional era it may be that originally there was only the Championship trophy at stake (although there was the Lander prize for Ladies which was presumably quite old - given its tiny value by the end).

There is a prize for the English Championship, but no prize for the English women’s as that has a separate event.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry but the ECF has 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 to remove the egg from its face over this.

To recap: At the end of May they published the leading scores as follows:

1. K Arkell 667

2) A.N Other 664 (I have deliberately left out the name because I don't know what the law is regarding naming children when caught up in something like this).

The Grand Prix finished at the end of June.

Three months after publishing their last list and more than two months after the competition finished they published another leaderboard.

This time the scores were:

1) A.N Other 664

2) k.Arkell 663

So they decided to deduct 4 points from my total - just enough.

For the record, my actual total was 681. And it is also worth noting that the traditional Paignton Premier - one of our countries longest standing tournaments - is 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 listed as a 'League'.

If I was a politician I'd be doing some serious name-calling by now.

When you have a choice of motives, between cock-up and conspiracy; history tells us that it is usually the former.

Stewart Reuben wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 29, 2019 2:08 pm

When you have a choice of motives, between cock-up and conspiracy; history tells us that it is usually the former.

An alternative lesson from history is that, when matters of great significance are concerned, it is often possible for a conspiracy to waved away as a cock-up.

In this case a conspiracy does seem unlikely, since the only person who really cares is Keith.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:54 pm

In this case a conspiracy does seem unlikely, since the only person who really cares is Keith.

I would hope that the ECF would also care.

If they don't then perhaps they need to confirm that and then we know where we stand and the GP should be deprecated.

Calling the event a Grand Prix brings the ECF into disrepute.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:54 pm

In this case a conspiracy does seem unlikely, since the only person who really cares is Keith.

Spot the logical fallacy: the claim that a 'conspiracy' is unlikely because 'only Keith cares', when were there 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 a conspiracy then the very thought that 'Keith cared' would give the conspirators their satisfaction.

But of course it's highly unlikely that there really is a conspiracy. The ECF is just painfully slow at internally communicating, and so is taking a silly amount of time to get this corrected.

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:35 pm

I would hope that the ECF would also care.

Quite! If the Breedon Highland Football League's computer malfunctioned and they deducted some points from Strathspey Thistle FC's tally then we would be living in a very strange world if nobody bothered correcting the error because only Strathspey Thistle FC cared that they had been cheated!

The post of Controller of the Grand Prix is listed on the ECF website as vacant so anyone who cares greatly could offer to sort the situation out by volunteering for the post. Better than non-volunteers complaining that volunteers are not working hard enough.

Keith Arkell wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:16 am

Spot the logical fallacy: the claim that a 'conspiracy' is unlikely because 'only Keith cares', when were there 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 a conspiracy then the very thought that 'Keith cared' would give the conspirators their satisfaction.

My mistake. I was assuming that any such conspiracy would be directed towards giving the title to a favoured candidate, not part of an ongoing campaign by the rest of the world against you.