Poll: Is the ECF doing a good job?

[IM Jack Rudd]

The difference is that you can now allow players rated over 2200 into the event, you just can't rate any games involving them. No, I don't want to run an event like that either.

[Roger de Coverly]

No, I don't want to run an event like that either.

I suppose sensitive souls with ratings above 2200 might be prepared to enter on the grounds that their ratings were not at risk. In the unlikely event of it catching on, it's presumably inflationary to a rating system to allow players to disregard poor results.

[IM Jack Rudd]

No, I don't want to run an event like that either.

I suppose sensitive souls with ratings above 2200 might be prepared to enter on the grounds that their ratings were not at risk. In the unlikely event of it catching on, it's presumably inflationary to a rating system to allow players to disregard poor results.

It's neither inflationary or deflationary; unrated games do not affect anything.

[Roger de Coverly]

It's neither inflationary or deflationary; unrated games do not affect anything.

Rated games do though. In the days when the cutoff was 2000, losing to (junior) players who didn't have ratings didn't really matter. With the ratings now down to 1000, losing to players with ratings a year or two out of date is now deflationary.

[NickFaulks]

I suppose sensitive souls with ratings above 2200 might be prepared to enter on the grounds that their ratings were not at risk.

Completely the wrong end of the stick. This is designed for stronger players who aren't bothered whether their weekend open games are FIDE rated or not, but just want to play chess and win prizes. Also for organisers who don't want to exclude them but currently have no choice because they require three hour games. This is a big deal in some federations, notably Spain.

No, of course it won't be popular in England, it is accepted that nothing ever will be. The FIDE rating system has survived to this point with minimal English participation. The extent to which this has benefitted English chess can be discussed, but it doesn't seem to have done the rest of the world much harm.

[LawrenceCooper]

I'd been hoping for an answer from Paul as he started the poll...

I'll probably comment when it closes, but decided not to try to influence people.

Thanks!

[Alex Holowczak]

Nick,

I do not honestly think this is a Board conspiracy to keep us graded but unrated. Alex in particular seems pretty keen (almost determined) to up the ratings. BUT there seems a total lack of recognition that the price discimination mechanism for membership is impeding any progress. I keep on telling Alex this both privately and publicly. I'm not against membership price discrimination (ie different levels of membership to extract more money from keener players). It's very sensible. A lot of keener players would be the first to admit it. (you can make it sound much more pc and acceptable by saying it the other way round - cheaper membership levels to encourage in new and less committed members). BUT you shouldn't make expensive something that you want to persuade people to do. That's silly. Respond Alex!! What have you to say?

I'd be quite happy for a flat fee and one tier of membership covering all graded and rated games. I daresay others involved in the discussion at the time did. However, when the consultation on this happened, the respondents said that the tiered approach was the better way to do it. So that's what happened.

In the last few years, I have:
- Increased the number of rated tournaments at the British from 4 to everything but a few junior tournaments, and the tournaments that we know don't have many rated players eligible to play in them.
- Started FIDE-rating the National Stage of the County Championship (after at least one failed attempt to do so); the Open section for now, but I hope to increase that over time.
- FIDE-rated every section at the London Chess Classic festival; albeit most of that already was. The number of entries in these sections increased; albeit the number of entries went up for everything, and I haven't analysed whether the increase was in line with the general increase or not.
- Changed the British Championship Qualifying Regulations, a bi-product of which I hope will encourage more tournaments to become FIDE-rated, to earn status as a qualifying event.
- Persuaded other event organisers to FIDE-rate their Open sections; e.g. Frodsham this year, and others like Telford. I've started organising the Midland Open (this August in West Bromwich...), and FIDE-rated the top two sections of that.
- Run a number of FIDE-rated Rapidplays in Birmingham, including one for secondary school juniors.
- Persuaded the NYCA to FIDE-rate some of their junior rapidplay tournaments. (I've also persuaded EPSCA to grade stuff for the first time ever, but that's a different matter.)

I certainly don't think I can be accused of not doing my best to provide more opportunities for FIDE-rated chess to be played in England!

In my experience, the barriers are mostly:-
(1) The fact that most organisers organise 1 event per year and have organised it the same way since 1572, and they're not going to change it now.
(2) The requirement to use licenced arbiters.
(3) The biggest one, the four-hour playing session requirement. I lobbied FIDE to change the rule such that three-hour games played by anyone could be rated, which appeared to meet sympathy with QC and others. Brazil and France made similar proposals to abolish that altogether. I stopped short of that because the consensus was that it probably would be seen as too radical. QC proposed their alternative - what the current regulation says - and then when they came to discuss mine the front bench opined that the proposal wasn't really needed now because we'd just voted for their version. It didn't help that while I had ECF backing to make that proposal, another Englishman in the room spoke against the motion.

The rationale for Gold membership was that the ECF had to pay costs to FIDE for FIDE-rating services, and so it made sense that the people playing in it should pay for them. At a Swiss tournament, there is a 1 Euro per head charge; and for other events there are additional costs. For example, the London Chess Classic section proper had a 300 Euro cost. I think it might now be stopped, but there used to be a 1 Euro per head charge per year just for each person being on the FIDE-rating list. In addition, the IRO receives an honorarium, and this was also paid for by the difference between Silver and Gold membership. So the rationale for the difference was that the difference between Silver and Gold would pay for all of these additional charges that wouldn't be incurred if the tournaments weren't FIDE-rated.

The other reason for it was that it was sort of evolutionary. There used to be Standard membership, which was needed to have Game Fee waived in congresses, and a requirement to play in FIDE-rated chess tournaments. There was a Basic membership, used in the northern counties, that meant they could have their Game Fee in leagues waived. Standard sort of became Gold, and Basic sort of became Bronze. Silver was the "Game Fee waived in congresses" bit of the old Standard membership. So you could argue that it was a concession.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'd be quite happy for a flat fee and one tier of membership covering all graded and rated games. I daresay others involved in the discussion at the time did.

The Bridge people went for the opposite solution, namely that the more you played, the more you paid. The ECF refused to even consider such an option. Why?

[IM Jack Rudd]

The Bridge people went for the opposite solution, namely that the more you played, the more you paid. The ECF refused to even consider such an option. Why?

Council said no.

[Roger de Coverly]

No, of course it won't be popular in England, it is accepted that nothing ever will be. The FIDE rating system has survived to this point with minimal English participation. The extent to which this has benefitted English chess can be discussed, but it doesn't seem to have done the rest of the world much harm.

The British weekend Congress circuit was established and thriving when FIDE wouldn't allow male players under 2200 into their rating system, let alone rate 5 or 6 round weekend events. In some countries, not allowing games of under four hours to be rated is a disincentive to running weekend tournaments. Not so in the UK and Ireland, not to mention the USA.

I thought Stewart Reuben had been one of the principal advocates of a more wide ranging FIDE rating system, namely to extend it down to 1000 and allow 5 round tournaments to be rated.

[Roger de Coverly]

Council said no.

In my memory, the option was never put to them. "Membership" was always equated to a "one man, one sub" system.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Council said no.

In my memory, the option was never put to them. "Membership" was always equated to a "one man, one sub" system.

Let's put it another way: they rejected options in which Game Fee was the primary method of funding.

(You really do not want to run membership schemes where fees are proportional to activity. The admin overload of doing that is ridiculous.)

[Roger de Coverly]

- Changed the British Championship Qualifying Regulations, a bi-product of which I hope will encourage more tournaments to become FIDE-rated, to earn status as a qualifying event.

Some tournaments valued their ability to offer a direct qualification place to the British Championship. With that removed or at least considerably diluted, where is the incentive to jump through the various hoops needed to be FIDE rated?

[NickFaulks]

The British weekend Congress circuit was established and thriving when FIDE wouldn't allow male players under 2200 into their rating system

You are quite correct that prior to 1993 the FIDE rating list was an elitist entity. The world has moved on in the past 24 years, England hasn't.

[Roger de Coverly]

(You really do not want to run membership schemes where fees are proportional to activity. The admin overload of doing that is ridiculous.)

Please explain why. You collect from a few hundred organisations instead of several thousand or tens of thousand individuals. Is it not the case that the ECF Office is swamped during the membership renewal season?

You abolish the ECF giving any discount for members playing in Congresses. The calculation is simply (# of games) times (amount per game). That's easily available from the grading submissions. It was a totally false assertion that FIDE required an individual membership scheme for games to be FIDE rated.