Proposed British Chess Championship Qualifying Regulations

[Roger de Coverly]

How and by who would this list be maintained? How often will it be updated? I don't dislike the idea as it will no doubt produce higher rated Elo qualifiers but it looks like it might entail quite a bit of work.

I think it likely that the same method as is used for the Tradewise Grand Prix would be used. This is something which uses the grading data, so I would imagine not that labour intensive.

Grand Prix link.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... -11-13.pdf

One of the thoughts on this is that many of the Grand Prix places would be filled by players already qualifies, so 10th place probably goes some way down.
The existing list may be a poor guide, with the number of non-FIDE tournaments included.

[John Garnett]

Although it says "There is no proposed change to the 2017 Regulation regarding the qualification scores required from the British Championship or the Major Open", presumably there actually will be a change since there will only be 9 rounds instead of 11 from this year onwards.

[David Shepherd]

These titles and ratings must be held by 1st July in the year preceding the Championships, in order to avoid the situation of a player qualifying mid-season, and so potentially mean the season’s qualifying events need to be re-calculated.

I don't understand the logic for this, if the players are good enough to hold the title at the time of the Championship then they should be allowed to play. I don't see why it means the qualifying events need to be recalculated, the person qualifying from the event could simply be the highest person not qualified at the date of the event (if they subsequently obtain a title then it makes no difference as they would already have qualified from an event).

[JustinHorton]

Although it says "There is no proposed change to the 2017 Regulation regarding the qualification scores required from the British Championship or the Major Open", presumably there actually will be a change since there will only be 9 rounds instead of 11 from this year onwards.

Good point

[Ian Thompson]

Although it says "There is no proposed change to the 2017 Regulation regarding the qualification scores required from the British Championship or the Major Open", presumably there actually will be a change since there will only be 9 rounds instead of 11 from this year onwards.

Good point

I don't think so. The 2017 event will have 9 rounds, and this paper is about the 2018 event which, presumably, will also have 9 rounds.

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't think so. The 2017 event will have 9 rounds, and this paper is about the 2018 event which, presumably, will also have 9 rounds.

It would appear that to qualify for the 2018 event, you should score 7.5 from 11 in the 2017 Major Open etc. In other words, there hasn't been a redraft from 2016 to 2017 to cover the reduction in rounds. Over 11 rounds, 7.5 is "plus 4", so that would be 6.5/9. But over fewer rounds, should you reduce the qualification score to "plus 3" or increase it to "plus 5"?

http://www.britishchesschampionships.co ... ions-2017/

from which

Qualification from the British Championships

1 – Any former British Champion or British Ladies/Women’s Champion.

2 – A score of 6½/11 (6/11 if under 21 – see Appendix) or more in the previous year’s Championship. These players receive half price entry.

3 – The reigning British Under 21, Under 18, Under 16 or Over 50 Senior Champion. These players receive half price entry. Should the Senior Champion prefer to play in the Senior Championship, entry shall be half price to that event.

4 – A score of 7½/11 (7/11 if under 21 – see Appendix) or higher in the Major Open. These players receive half price entry.

The consultation paper says

• There is no proposed change to the 2017 Regulation regarding the qualification scores required from the British Championship or the Major Open.
• There is no proposed change to the 2017 Regulation regarding the qualification of the British Under 16, Under 18, Under 21 and Over 50 Champion.

[Nick Grey]

Moving away from the one weekend good result may alienate those that play them & currently try to qualify.

Also in losing them will they play in a major open, or other tournament Seniors, juniors or other rating limited tournament at the British to get the overall funding to work.

Just to let you know that you can enter qualification tournaments for darts, snooker, bridge, golf, tennis...

Why not bring back the all-play all for the top players & the next tournament is an open limited to the narrow levels of the proposal - that may be an incentive for the top players to play.

Interesting but has been on the cards to do something.

[Alex Holowczak]

To respond to the point about the score out of 9 or 11 point.

The 2017 qualification regulations refer to the score required in the 2016 Championships.

The 2018 qualification regulations will refer to the scores required in the 2017 Championships. The full behind-the-scenes working document I wrote covered this point and provided qualifying scores for the 2017 Championship. When I summarised it for the purpose of consultation, it skipped my mind that I needed to retain this detail.

I have applied this fix, and it will appear on the website tomorrow. Those who worked out the % and chose the nearest score guessed correctly that that's what I meant!

[Paul Cooksey]

We could eliminate the tail of players rated much less than 2000 with a stipulation that in addition to the other conditions qualifiers must have a rating above 1900.

I suspect that isn't a complete answer to sorting out the problems with the British. If so the "Aim of Changing the Regulations" section needs revision.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I can't speak for any other low-rated IM, but I for one would have no interest in playing in the Major Open unless I were getting conditions for it.

[Roger de Coverly]

We could eliminate the tail of players rated much less than 2000 with a stipulation that in addition to the other conditions qualifiers must have a rating above 1900.

Based on experience in Bournemouth, it's mostly the juniors with FIDE ratings a few hundred points below their strength who form the sub 2000 tail in the British. I have some reservations about a Grand Prix style qualification. That's going to favour those with the time and inclination to play in all known FIDE rated tournaments. So basically that's some students, the non-employed and the retired. It's good for attracting entries to the 4NCL series of tournaments and the e2e4 ones if they should reappear.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Jonathan, the problem is using ECF grades is that the FIDE rating is used for the norms ...

That’s an entirely reasonable objection per se.

We have to make choices, though, don’t we? The trouble with the Championship as it has become is that it’s simply trying to be too much for too many. It has to be an opportunity for young (maybe under-rated) players, it has to be an opportunity for norm seekers ... well it can’t really be both. The other issue as raised in this thread is that it had to raise a certain amount of money too. Well, fine if that’s your goal but that’s going to conflict with other goals - e.g. a championship tournament worth the name.




It’s somewhat off topic but I don’t think your comment about the ECF generating elo rated tournaments is really fair to them. At least it doesn’t apply in London where i live.

There’s a rating problem here, but there’s no shortage of elo-rated tournaments. I personally played 23 rated games in Gatwick between May and November last year. I could have played 5 every month in Hampstead. There are one or two events long play in Golders Green a year. Heading south there are several in Cousldon. There’s International Students once a year. All of that before you even start thinking about tournaments slightly further afield (e.g. St Albans which is commutable).

I got my first elo rating in 2011. In the two years or so immediately afterwards my elo rating crashed 100-150 points whilst my ECF went up 10 points. The method was mostly as David S described above. I won games against unrated elos and lost games to rateds.

These days my ECF is back to about where it was in 2011. My elo rating is 250 points lower.

[Michael Flatt]

Both St Albans and Hertfordshire Congresses are 5-round ECF graded weekend Congresses. Many of those who play return year after year because of the excellent playing conditions.

Neither congress is able to register their Open as FIDE rated as they have to schedule three games on Saturday, through not being to able to book the venue on Friday evening.

This is the first year in my memory that St Albans has offered a British Championship place, by being awarded ECF Congress of the Year 2016. Hertfordshire is normally nominated to offer one of the SCCU's three British Championship places.

It would be unfair to say that any of the players gaining British Championship places from St Albans or Hertfordshire Congresses are weak simply because the competitions were not FIDE rated.

[Roger de Coverly]

Neither congress is able to register their Open as FIDE rated as they have to schedule three games on Saturday, through not being to able to book the venue on Friday evening.

You could add the M25 as a good reason not to schedule Friday evening rounds.

I would suggest that the rule changes giving over 180 under 21s automatic places alongside the proliferation of places offered to FIDE rated 5 rounders as a cause of the proliferation of weaker players qualifying. Giving all FMs above 2200 automatic places doesn't help either. The likely winners and runners up at a five round Swiss can already be qualified, so the place percolates downwards. In the case of Scarborough not so long ago, the winner and runners up were already qualified under grading or FM rules, so the places went to the pile up of players on three and a half.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Alan Walton made a good point about the varying strength of the event. In 1996 I did really well at Guernsey so qualified to play in the British in 1997. I felt a bit embarrassed as I wasn't good enough. It was the first event with the big sponsorship, I was rated 2205 and seeded I think about 67 out of 82 (from memory). I managed 4.5/11 (one draw!) and gained 25 points, as all my opponents were rated higher than me!

For anyone who's interested, 0 v M Ferguson (2420), 0 v C Cobb (2290), 1 v R Sheldon (2295) - seriously, don't I get an easier game than that? -, 1 v I Thompson (2260), 1 v K Mah (2365), 0 v K Sasikiran (2430) - before he was really good - 0 v HJ Plaskett (2450) (getting a GM when you're on 3/6 was impressive), 0 v A Smith (2255), 1 v K McEwan (2210), 0 v J Ryan (2245), draw v D Walker (2290).

So, yes, the British has dropped off a bit. I guess there's not enough money to make it an all-play-all invitation event, inviting the players in order of rating. The old invitation events stopped about 70 years ago, when there wasn't a rating system, as the establishment invited their mates, and BH Wood had a rant about it. At least then, there were only about 32 players so it was still reasonable quality, but now there a lot of people who maybe should not be there, like me this year a couple of hundred points lower... I guess you have three choices - (1) An all-play-all, (2) Massive Swiss for anybody, (3) less massive Swiss with qualifiers. A Grand Prix sounds reasonable as it will reward regular players, even though I won't qualify from Guernsey again!

Every 20 years I get a good result at Guernsey. I can't wait for 2036.