English Chess Forum

Adam,

You don't seem to have provided any response to the question of whether it this is a fair method for dealing with existing holders of the British (national) Master title?

Regards,
Paul.

Adam Raoof wrote:Your points; no, the discount would not be claimed back from the ECF. It's up to organisers what discount they give and to whom, but I would hope any organiser will commit to giving benefits for a year of the scheme and for all categories of titleholder; the benefits are already ongoing and has to be a discount on future entries as I don't think time travel has been invented yet.

Hi Adam,

As an organiser, can I ask why would I want to give a discount to these title holders? Or, to put it more accurately, ask non-title holders to cross subsidise the title holders?

I can see no benefit at the moment for an event or organiser in this idea. If I believed that offering a price reduction to any particular group of players would encourage sufficient additional entries to pay for the discount then I would offer the discount.

It seems to me that the ECF wants organisers to pay for their title products. To that idea this organiser says thanks, but no thanks!!

Sean Hewitt wrote:I can see no benefit at the moment for an event or organiser in this idea. If I believed that offering a price reduction to any particular group of players would encourage sufficient additional entries to pay for the discount then I would offer the discount.

I'm not sure what that sentence actually means

To me the attraction is simple. I have a venue that will hold 100 people, and I get about 80 regular entries. That means I am wasting the opportunity to get 20 more players into the tournament. Any idea that might attract one or two extra players is good.

The downside might be if the same people that come every month rush out and get titles, and claim a discount when they enter the tournament. In your case, Sean, you don't appear to need any more players!

Paul McKeown wrote:British Federations (England, Scotland, Wales) formerly had a process for awarding the British Master title, which was mutually recognised. Titles formerly awarded have not been revoked and there are still a number of living holders of this title.

Is there a list of these titleholders somewhere? Does this title still exist, and if so, what are the criteria for an award?

At the least we can add those titleholders to a field on the grading database so that all owners of BCF / ECF titles are credited.

If anyone is interested, the British Master title BM was dumbed down in 1972 to be awarded to any British nationals, who were established at over 216 on any one of various criteria. The reason for 216 was that it was mid way between the entry level to FIDE ratings, then 2250 and IM level of 2400. Ian Thompson may be right that it was further dumbed down later to 213.

In 1972 there were 24 BM title holders. Some of these players became BMs as a result of becoming an IM first, which made a BM title an automatic award.

E Michael White wrote:If anyone is interested, the British Master title BM was dumbed down in 1972 to be awarded to any British nationals, who were established at over 216 on any one of various criteria. The reason for 216 was that it was mid way between the entry level to FIDE ratings, then 2250 and IM level of 2400. Ian Thompson may be right that it was further dumbed down later to 213.

In 1972 there were 24 BM title holders. Some of these players became BMs as a result of becoming an IM first, which made a BM title an automatic award.

Michael, Can you give us a list of the titleholders as of 1972?

In 1972

BMs - Aitken, Barden, Basman, Berger, Botterill, Broadbent, Clarke, Franklin, J Fuller, Hartston, A Hollis, Horne, P Lee, J Littlewood, Milner-Barry, Whiteley.

IMs - who were also awarded the BM title :- Alexander, Fairhurst, Golombek, Keene, Kottnauer, Levi, J Penrose, Wade.

E Michael White wrote:Berger

Heard of all the others on there, but who he?

(maybe the one who beat Alekhine pre-WW2?? He must have been getting on by then, if so)

Yes, I believe it is the same person. NB Levy not Levi.

Some fairly decent post war players not on that list (Abrahams and Barry Wood, to name just two)