English Chess Forum

Bristol Four Knights Club (Bristol and District Chess League) shall be presenting the attached two motions in the next AGM. As Secretary, I am open to views on the same before the official presentation. Thanks!

As an additional question, would the views of people in this forum count as support/opposition in the AGM?

It clearly isn't formal support or opposition in an AGM, although it could be considered useful supporting evidence if the voters accept it as such.

Maybe it's too early in the morning for me, but why is motion 2 not just a complicated version of game points instead of match points?

Brian Valentine wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 8:17 am

is motion 2 not just a complicated version of game points instead of match points?

It looks to me like it is just that.

One objection not mentioned in the paper that I've heard to using game points instead of match points is the effect of defaults.

1. If a whole match is defaulted the team receiving the default win gains a lot compared to other teams that didn't get a default win.

2. Even individual boards being defaulted can affect the outcome at the end of the season, e.g. a team wins the league by 1 game point, and received 3 game points through defaults. The runners up received no default wins. Although no fault of the winning team, that might be seen as a not very satisfactory outcome.

Brian Valentine wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 8:17 am

but why is motion 2 not just a complicated version of game points instead of match points?

You achieve the same ends by just using the game point total.

Back in the 1960s, the internal University league of the Cambidge colleges used the game point system. It can encourage teams to try for maximum 5-0 wins rather than taylor the team to the likely strength of the opposition. I belive that somewhat later the approach was modified to use a hybid which added match points and board points together. That's partly equivalent to running on match points, but using game points as a tie break.

In the international sphere, the Olympiads used to be run on game points, but they switched to match points, one reason being that it gives better results with Swiss pairings.

This depends on whether you think a match is a team event or a collection of individual events. In my opinion, a club which goes through a season winning every match should be top of the division, no exceptions.

Brian Valentine wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 8:17 am

Maybe it's too early in the morning for me, but why is motion 2 not just a complicated version of game points instead of match points?

The point of the Normalised Score is to ensure that everyone ends up with a positive number of points, because otherwise they might be sad.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 11:34 am

This depends on whether you think a match is a team event or a collection of individual events.

I believe the ECF runs one day inter school events on game points.I think the idea is to show that every school representative can contribute something. But that's where there's a well defined and small fixed squad of players, conditions which don't usually apply in a club league.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 11:34 am

This depends on whether you think a match is a team event or a collection of individual events. In my opinion, a club which goes through a season winning every match should be top of the division, no exceptions.

Agree with this

I think the proposal about team size is interesting; in Manchester, we used to have 7 board teams in the top divisions, but moved to 6 to balance out whites and blacks, plus we have 4 board teams in the rating limited division; there's always a balance between team size and player numbers, and it's not easy to be fair to smaller clubs

"Bristol Four Knights Club (Bristol and District Chess League) shall be presenting the attached two motions in the next AGM. "

I got up a bit later than Brian, but which AGM?

I agree with Nick, match points should be first. If you want to avoid someone scoring zero, you could adopt Coulsdon's individual tournament scoring system, 4 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss, and zero for a default. This allowed an unfortunate individual that lost all 11 games to still have 11 points, whilst the bloke who won 1, drew 1, lost 3, then stropped off and defaulted the other games, only got 9.

As for board numbers, you try to accommodate the clubs. Surrey had 8 boards for the top division, and I imagine that is usually the case for clubs in other parts of the South-East (probably varying between 6 and 10, is London League still 12?). Somerset has 4-board matches (with the option to play more by agreement between the clubs).

I'm all for simplicity, complicated methods confuse people. Anyway, individual leagues can do what they like.

I haven't checked the outstanding counties, but Bucks and Herts are six boards in the top division, and Berkshire is five.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 3:13 pm

is London League still 12?

Sorry, you are seriously behind the times. LL Div 1 has gone from 12 to 10 to 8!

Background information to Motion 2. Current position at the top of Div 5.


Team Play Won Draw Lost For Against Points SP Def

Yate & Sodbury B 7 7 0 0 21 7 14 0 0
Bristol Four Knights 7 6 0 1 21½ 6½ 12 0 0


https://lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/event/8154/table

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 4:09 pm

Background information to Motion 2. Current position at the top of Div 5.

It's double round. If you lose the first match to your high scoring rival, you have to beat them in the return. If both teams score equally in terms of match wins in their remaining matches, it comes down to board count as the tie break.

It's up to the other clubs in Bristol as to whether they are content with the existing scoring. If the league has been running for many years on the current system, they probably are and might not want the AGM's time being wasted.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 4:22 pm

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 12, 2025 4:09 pm

Background information to Motion 2. Current position at the top of Div 5.

It's up to the other clubs in Bristol as to whether they are content with the existing scoring. If the league has been running for many years on the current system, they probably are and might not want the AGM's time being wasted.

I wouldn't assume that clubs give existing and long standing league rules much attention, and new club members are often unaware of the rules until they have a position such as team captain that necessitates some familiarity. So a fresh look at the rules can be beneficial. If a club wants to canvas views and submit motions to an AGM it shouldn't be regarded as a waste of time just because somebody might turn around and say we've always done things this way. Innovation can be a good or a bad thing, failing to pause to reflect on how things are working and if they can work better seems less likely to be a good thing.