ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Brian Towers
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Brian Towers » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:23 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:There's no such thing as a caffeine test, WADA aren't that stupid.
Nonsense!

It's not WADA that is the stupid party here, Roger. Caffeine is a stimulant and taken to excess , in competition, it is banned - http://list.wada-ama.org/by-substance/#C-group.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

MartinCarpenter
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by MartinCarpenter » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:25 am

Goodness, Alcohol is on that list :)

Only for motor sports (and relatives) and archery mind, I presume safety reasons!

Brian Towers
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Brian Towers » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:34 am

MartinCarpenter wrote:Goodness, Alcohol is on that list :)

Only for motor sports (and relatives) and archery mind, I presume safety reasons!
I think it is there for shooting as well. Maybe snooker, anybody remember Bill Weberniuk? A little bit of alcohol calms the nerves and steadies the hand which can be very important in a shooting competition. I believe before it was banned there were cases of drunk Olympic competitors in charge of a loaded gun who had taken their "doping" a bit too far ;-)
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Mick Norris
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Mick Norris » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:40 am

MartinCarpenter wrote:Goodness, Alcohol is on that list :)

Only for motor sports (and relatives) and archery mind, I presume safety reasons!
I have never tried archery, but imagine it is quite tricky while driving a car :wink:

I have won chess matches due to my opponents alcohol consumption (I spent a long evening in Atherton, a queen for a rook down for a couple of hours, before my opponent blundering into a drawn ending, which he promptly resigned)
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Brian Towers
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Brian Towers » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:40 am

This FIDE document - http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/WADA% ... Doping.pdf - spells out how chess is affected by this:
FIDE Handbook wrote:The most relevant banned substances for chess are:

• Amphetamines – e.g. Adderall, Ritalin
• Ephedrine and Methylephedrine – Prohibited by WADA when its concentration in urine is greater than 10 micrograms per milliliter
• Pseudoephedrine is prohibited when its concentration in urine is greater than 150 micrograms per milliliter

Substances not present on the Prohibited List but represented in the Monitoring Program:
• Caffeine – Included in WADA 2013 Monitoring Program and relevant for in-competition testing only. Any test reading of less than 400 milligrams poses no problem.
• Codeine – A common ingredient in, for example, preparations used to treat coughs and stomach upsets. Any dosage is highly unlikely to be significant when taken in normal therapeutic quantities.
I suspect that most people would have a severe case of the shakes with over 400 mg of caffeine in the blood.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:45 am

Brian Towers wrote:Caffeine is a stimulant and taken to excess , in competition, it is banned -
Please examine the list carefully. You are referring to a list of substances banned in specific sports. Chess is not one that bans caffeine, indeed FIDE ensured many years ago that it was removed from the chess list.

Brian Towers
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Brian Towers » Thu Oct 08, 2015 10:47 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Brian Towers wrote:Caffeine is a stimulant and taken to excess , in competition, it is banned -
Please examine the list carefully. You are referring to a list of substances banned in specific sports. Chess is not one that bans caffeine, indeed FIDE ensured many years ago that it was removed from the chess list.
Erm, Roger, see my link to the relevant FIDE document in the post immediately preceding yours.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Michael Farthing » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:03 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Brian Towers wrote:a top English player to test positive for over the limits caffeine
There's no such thing as a caffeine test, WADA aren't that stupid.
Roger, did the fairy godmother who was put down to give you a sense of humour miss the christening?
I would think a player, particularly an amateur banned from playing chess in the UK for anti doping reasons could create a lot of legal trouble for organisers attempting to enforce such a ban.
This is a ludicrous hypothetical situation. If you read the documents you will see quoite clearly they are directed at professionals and others playing at the level of professionals. It is not concerned with amateurs playing at an amateur level in the UK and there is no sensible reason for thinking that would ever be attempted. Get real, Roger. You blow up any proposal that comes forward into the most extreme scenario available.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:13 am

It is not concerned with amateurs playing at an amateur level in the UK and there is no sensible reason for thinking that would ever be attempted.
FIDE and sensible reasons?

Could I draw your attention to this story from 2007?

http://de.chessbase.com/post/wenn-das-a ... l-klingelt
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 7&start=60

for that matter, this story from 2004
http://www.doping.nl/media/kb/2655/FIDE ... cision.pdf

I don't think FIDE have attempted to test non-GMs since.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Michael Farthing » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:21 am

The first is an article consisting entirely of a suppositional decription of the most extreme scenario imaginable in precisley the mode that you so enjoy Roger. There aren't actually any facts there.

The second is concerned with behaviour at a Chess Olympiad. This is not amateur chess within a player's own country.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:24 am

Michael Farthing wrote:The first is an article consisting entirely of a suppositional decription of the most extreme scenario imaginable.
I don't think that there's a doubt that the Austrian Federation suspended one of its female players for refusal to take a test.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Michael Farthing » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:35 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Michael Farthing wrote:The first is an article consisting entirely of a suppositional decription of the most extreme scenario imaginable.
I don't think that there's a doubt that the Austrian Federation suspended one of its female players for refusal to take a test.

Sorry, Roger, I didn't read right to the end - I thought the lower sections were other items. I accept that anti-doping on a 1700 player is rather extreme but the fact that the item is from 8 years ago does suggest this is not an escalating problem. I still think you are being alarmist. Incidents like this get into the public domain precisely because they are over the top and the effect of the publicity is usually to bang the nonsense on the head.

NickFaulks
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:59 am

Roger de Coverly wrote: FIDE and sensible reasons?

Could I draw your attention to this story from 2007?

http://de.chessbase.com/post/wenn-das-a ... l-klingelt
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 7&start=60

for that matter, this story from 2004
http://www.doping.nl/media/kb/2655/FIDE ... cision.pdf

I don't think FIDE have attempted to test non-GMs since.
As I recall, the first was a local initiative and had little to do with FIDE.

I was closely involved in the second, since there was a Bermuda player in the dock alongside Shaun. Our two federations had made a pact that none of our players would submit to a drug test. We accepted that they had the right to do it, even if we did not feel that it was being done properly, and wanted to make a protest at the stupidity of it all.

In the end, the players were treated leniently, basically let off with a warning. Shaun even kept the rating points he had gained, which to be honest I thought was quite controversial. The whole episode was a bit annoying, but you expect that when you take on the establishment. However, it was handled sensibly and may have contributed to the welcome change in policy which you mention. If this were FIDE's darkest hour I don't think we would have much to complain about.
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NickFaulks
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Oct 08, 2015 12:06 pm

Brian Towers wrote: • Caffeine – Included in WADA 2013 Monitoring Program and relevant for in-competition testing only. Any test reading of less than 400 milligrams poses no problem.

I suspect that most people would have a severe case of the shakes with over 400 mg of caffeine in the blood.
There is a common misapprehension here. The wording does not say that a test reading over 400 mg ( quite high ) necessarily poses a problem, merely that any lower reading need not even be considered.

edit : I have to admit that I don't know what a test reading of 400mg means.
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: ECF may join with English Bridge Union in Judicial Review

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:16 am

" I have to admit that I don't know what a test reading of 400mg means."

Don't feel bad about that - it doesn't mean anything! 400 mg/L or 400 mg/mL would mean something...

In the primitive days of drug testing (say 40 years ago), presence of a banned substance was sufficient to give a "positive" result, because the limits of detection could be quite high, say 0.1 %. As the analytical methods and equipment improved, detection was getting down to 0.000001 % (say) and lower levels could be naturally occurring.

Initially, female athletes were banned for testing positive for testosterone, but this occurs naturally at low levels, so as the science improved, a threshold level had to be applied, to stop false positives.

I haven't found anything in WADA which says what the caffeine figure should be. Note however, caffeine is only on the monitoring list at the moment, so is not banned. (FIDE's document is out of date.)

There are still issues with the WADA list - to make the analysis cheaper, they are banning all different isomers of a drug, and different isomers frequently have completely different properties. So you can be banned for taking something which is completely harmless and offers no help to performance.

WADA allows for therapeutic use exemptions for beta-blockers and various other heart drugs etc.

Strychnine is on the banned list as well - please be very careful if you take this...