ECF FIDE Delegate

[John Wright]

would that be the Irish team that consists of a lot of non-Irish players?

Johnson, Botha, West, Cusack from Aus, NZ, SA. Just 4/11 of the team.

[Alex Holowczak]

Q: Which region of the UK plays the most cricket.
A: Aberdeenshire (can that possibly be correct? )

Also confirms what I said earlier about Scots and English Cricket.

http://leftbackinthechangingroom.blogsp ... tland.html

Don't go saying that in Barnsley, you might not get out alive.

Unbelievable!

6-2 off 4.4, runrate 1.28! Trent Johnston is having a dream start!

And Ireland are playing without Eoin Morgan, twelfth man, match tied off course by being a plastic Englander. As of course is Joyce... And poor old Boyd Rankin is injured. So England are really playing the Irish 2nd team...

It's a One Day International. Who cares?

[Paul McKeown]

Well,

Andre Botha is from Jo'burg, Trent Johnston from Wollongong, Alex Cusack from Brisbane and Regan West is from New Plymouth. Oh, and Simmonds is the coach. 4 from the current 11 are plastic paddies; pretty poor, but not unheard of really for international cricket teams these days. I accept that these things should really be up to the individual concerned (I dislike Ben P's ravings about everyone who plays chess for England without having proven roots for ten generations), but I do get annoyed when the best of the minor nations are picked up and then discarded. It damages the chances of the minor nation concerned to develop more fully, without significantly improving the chances of the major nation.

Rant over!

[Matt Mackenzie]

Geoff,

I assume the likes of Fairhurst and Aitken never played for England?

(WAF played in his dotage for New Zealand, of course)

[Paul McKeown]

It's an interesting question about Fairhurst. Obviously he represented Scotland and New Zealand at the Olympiads, but I have some vague memory that he might have represented England or Great Britain at some minor events on occasion. I might be wrong (although I think I'm not), but it might take some time to dig up the info.

[Leonard Barden]

Not quite a 'minor event'. Fairhurst played Board 8 for the Great Britain team against the Soviet Union in the match played at Caxton Hall, London, in 1954. He drew one of his two games against Isaac Boleslavsky, a rare success in the British team's catastrophic 1.5-18.5 defeat.

Aitken played, and lost 0-2, in the Great Britain v USSR teams in the 1946 radio match (against Igor Bondarevsky) and the 1947 match at Holborn Town Hall (against Vyacheslav Ragozin)..

[Paul McKeown]

Cheers, Leonard! I think that there were other events as well, possibly including BCF vs. Netherlands? Demonstrates the many layers that make up the British identity.

[E Michael White]

That of course would be the Nawab of Pataudi Senior. His son, the Nawab of Pataudi Junior (a.k.a. Mansoor Ali Khan), captained India in the 1960's. I met him once when I was about 10 ...

Come on Phil admit who your great uncle was ! - then we can accept you as a great cricket authority.

Jardine was Indian - cheers - thought I heard he was Scottish.

Googled him - his parents were Scottish, that's where I got it from

I dont believe you are old enough to have bowled a googly at Jardine

[Leonard Barden]

Cheers, Leonard! I think that there were other events as well, possibly including BCF vs. Netherlands?

If I recall correctly, these matches were England v Netherlands and I don't think Fairhurst or Aitken took part.

[E Michael White]

Is the ECF FIDE representative responsible for taking suggested FIDE rule changes by ECF members to FIDE rule conferences ?

If so how does the representative assess the views of ECF membership ?

By the sound of it R De C would like the Rapid rules on a double flag fall changed and rule 8.5 for a single flag fall in longplay. I would like the rules to spell out whether adjudications are permited/disallowed as part of the rules and whether individual events may have them or not with whatever implications for grading and title norms; I dont mind which but would prefer it not be an arbiters or a graders decision.

[Paul McKeown]

I would like the rules to spell out whether adjudications are permited/disallowed as part of the rules and whether individual events may have them or not with whatever implications for grading and title norms; I dont mind which but would prefer it not be an arbiters or a graders decision.

I thought Stewart Reuben had spelled this out in detail on any number of occasions: NO.

Do you have to trouble him again??????

[E Michael White]

The rules do not say specifically which is correct.

In addition other FIDE rules until this year, for example the title norm rules, made reference to tournaments with adjudication which may have given the wrong or correct impression that they were allowed. Stewart has also said there may be advantages in adjudications being allowed at certain events under certain circumstances eg a power cut.

I agree with Stewart R that adjudications have not been mentioned in the document we know as the "Laws of Chess" since 1997 but there were references in other rules.

People who write rules often try to make out that their rules were forward thinking enough to cover unforeseen situations but something as basic as flag falls, annotating the game and any other conditions which occur in all games should really be accurately and specifically covered.

I dont think Stewart has any individual authority to specify an interpretation of the rules outside the FIDE rules commission although he is obviously very experienced having written or modified many of the rules. Also usually rules and laws of games are interpreted as the normal meaning of the words when the rule was written; it is not usual after rules have been written, unless the reason was minuted, to accept as an interpretation that that was what the writer had intended.

[Roger de Coverly]

By the sound of it R de C would like the Rapid rules on a double flag fall changed

Well, whoever wrote the FIDE rules for testing of digital clocks thought so as well.

From

http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/ ... w=category

11. after flag fall in all but the last period the flag first fallen shall be shown for at least one minute; after flag fall in the last period the clock shall stop.

My bold.

Perhaps arbiters will set rapid play clocks at 30 minutes with a 30 minute secondary so that they can continue to ignore the evidence of the clock. Even that will fall foul of

the flag first fallen shall be shown for at least one minute;

if the player is quick enough to notice.

I would like the rules to spell out whether adjudications are permited/disallowed as part of the rules

Chess Scotland has just voted that they cannot be rated. From http://www.chessscotland.com/csinfo/agm2009.htm

Junior Board Proposal 1 ‘That games that are decided by adjudication should not be allowed to be graded’
Proposer: Jacqui Thomas
Seconded: Andy Howie

After some discussion, The motion was carried on a show of hands, by an overwhelming majority.

Presumably they know whether this means that games which might be decided by adjudication (because of competition rules) are also excluded. Still if they don't have a rule which says that only humans can be on the rating list, they might as well keep adjudications in.

[E Michael White]

I noticed that last time this debate came up.

I dont take away from the equipment testing rules that the RP rules had changed. Any clock that stops in the last period, which in the case of RP is the whole game, after a flag falls is not an appropriate one to use in an RP tournament as it does not continue until the second may fall.

If you want to read between the lines it may be that the person writing the testing rules wanted to bring in increment time limits for RP. Perhaps in a few years time they were going to say - well digital clocks cannot be guaranteed for use in 30 min RP, so we all knew that this form of RP was against the rules in the same way that adjudications are frowned upon.

As regards adjudications and any other rules for that matter, I would prefer them to be clear rather than rely upon arbiters or graders to decide individually; I dont mind what the rule states.

Chess Scotland can decide what they like as regards adjudications and any other rule and as long as it is supplementary and does not conflict with the FIDE rules. If you wish to use Chess Scotland to support Stewart Reubens and Paul Mceowns view on adjudications you should look at this document from 2006 which suggests Chess Scotland allowed for adjudications to take place in 2006.

http://www.chessscotland.com/downloads/ ... e_2006.doc

Chess Scotland have sometimes made rulings which are contrary to the FIDE rules for example, in the document link their ruling on Article 7 (illegal positions) is contrary to a FIDE rules commission ruling.

[Phil Neatherway]

Come on Phil admit who your great uncle was ! - then we can accept you as a great cricket authority.

My great-uncle was Tich Freeman, the world's greatest leg-spinner before Shane Warne.