1949 British Championship Congress

[Roger de Coverly]

The latest issue of ChessMoves has an article by the former CEO about the 1949 Congress and the general state of the BCF in that year. The 1949 Congress was noteworthy for being the first to be run as an eleven round Swiss of thirty two players as distinct from a twelve player all play all.

He mentions the Zonal Knockouts implying they are still used. They were indeed were a feature of qualification for the British from 1950 onwards, 1949 having used a selection committee. Stewart abolished zonal tournaments when he was put in charge over thirty years ago.

The article also suggests that 1949 was long before grades and ratings. I would have though not so, since BCF grading was first developed by Clarke in the early 1950s and it was a pioneer in this field alongside the work of Elo, Harkness and others in the USA.

[John McKenna]

RdC>The latest issue of ChessMoves has an article by the former CEO about the 1949 Congress... noteworthy for being the first to be run as an eleven round Swiss of thirty two players as distinct from a twelve player all play all.<
The former CEO, Andrew Farthing, may have read this thread but may be reluctant to comment due to events of the more recent past.
RdC>He mentions the Zonal Knockouts implying they are still used. They were indeed a feature of qualification for the British from 1950 onwards, 1949 having used a selection committee. Stewart abolished zonal tournaments when he was put in charge over thirty years ago.<
Stewart Reuben may or may not have read this thread and may or may not be prepared to comment.
Did he really abolish the Zonals or did he leave a loophole for them to still be used, I wonder?
RdC>The article also suggests that 1949 was long before grades and ratings. I would have though not, since BCF grading was first developed by Clarke in the early 1950s and it was a pioneer in this field alongside the work of Elo, Harkness and others in the USA.<
The late Arpad Elo has not read this but wrote (circa 1978) -
Rating systems have been used with varying degrees of success for over 25 years... The most notable are the INGO (Hoesslinger 1948), the Harkness (1956) and the BCF (Clarke 1957). These received acceptance because they produced rankings that generally agreed with the personal estimates made by knowledgeable chessplayers.

[Roger de Coverly]

Did he really abolish the Zonals or did he leave a loophole for them to still be used, I wonder?

Whoever is in charge of running the British Championships can both in principle and practice make changes to the qualification rules. Zonals in the style that existed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s haven't been seen since Stewart discontinued them and it showed ignorance of the current chess scene or that of the last thirty years to imply they still existed. The exact phrase used being "largely given way".

[Richard Bates]

Is there any real purpose to this thread other than to have a dig at an individual? I haven't read it, but from a position of ignorance, it is a bit difficult to see how the 'criticisms', which sound semantic in nature, can be central to the article. There is, of course, still some zonal element to British Championship qualification in the sense that Unions still have nominees, usually determined from tournaments within their area.

Perhaps Roger would like to act as a page filler for the next edition. Maybe it will finally get the thing killed off?

[John McKenna]

While not wanting to act as a page turner I'll risk keeping the subject alive a little longer. After reading the initial post and wondering what it was all about I decided that for the first time in a long time I'd read a copy of Chess Moves. At the ECF website I discovered Chess Moves is "password protected". Not wanting to wake the webmaster I found a copy of the 2013 Jan. edition elsewhere. In it the "former CEO" writes true to his form - well and interestingly but not without a nod to more recent verbal battles, or so it seems to me. For example -
"The BCF adopted the Swiss system for this year (1949) retaining selection by committee, and the mind boggles at the potential for arguments this must have created, particularly at a time long before grades and ratings..."
In my opinion the contemporary mind may boggle at the "potential for argument" in selection by committee for a top multinational championship because if that method were to be used these days it would indeed have a great potential for disagreements. In 1949, however, it may have operated more smoothly due in part to the absence of a grading/rating system in the British Isles. Whether you regard the time it took from 1949 until one such system was introduced by the BCF as long or short could be said to be relative.

[Roger de Coverly]

In my opinion the comtemporary mind may boggle at the "potential for argument" in selection by committee for a top multinational championship because if that method were to be used these days it would indeed have a great potential for disagreements.

Selection by committee continued into more recent times, if the early 1970s counts as such. Not with the British Championships, but with the Hastings Challengers. Tournament Controllers could be reluctant to go above 32 players, so they ended up selecting players for the Challengers and putting the leftovers into parallel "Main" and "Reserve" sections.

It wasn't until the numbers in the British Championship were extended above 32 and extensive automatic qualification introduced, that you could really say that it contained everyone of a sufficient standard available to compete. Prior to that, you had in effect samples of the top players and those of a lower standard gaining qualification through the knock-outs.

[John McKenna]

I may be wrong but I recall a colleague telling me in the mid/late 1970s that he was inviting an opponent to his home to play a knockout match in the preliminary stages of the British Championship.

[Roger de Coverly]

I may be wrong but I recall a colleague telling me in the mid/late 1970s that he was inviting an opponent to his home to play a knockout match in the preliminary stages of the British Championship.

It wasn't until around 1980 that Stewart took over and then phased out the knockouts in favour of awarding the places through rating exemptions and selected Swiss tournaments.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think the final knockout qualifiers may have been for the 1982 championship??

[Ian Thompson]

I think the final knockout qualifiers may have been for the 1982 championship??

Definitely no earlier than that, because I played in the 1982 qualifier. I didn't play after that, but I can't remember if that was because it had been discontinued.

[Kevin Thurlow]

The Swissness of 1949 followed controversy in 1947, when a late substitute (Gordon Crown) finished third. BH Wood suggested in "Chess" that therefore the selectors didn't know what they were doing. Alexander and Milner-Barry screamed at him. But two years later, the event was a Swiss, and extraordinarily speedy result.

[Leonard Barden]

The Swissness of 1949 followed controversy in 1947, when a late substitute (Gordon Crown) finished third. BH Wood suggested in "Chess" that therefore the selectors didn't know what they were doing. Alexander and Milner-Barry screamed at him. But two years later, the event was a Swiss, and extraordinarily speedy result.

What also happened was that at London 1948 (played at the Bishopsgate Institute) there was a Premier, also selected, for players who had narrowly missed inclusion in the championship. The 1948Premier ended with a multiple tie for first which included Jonathan and Oliver Penrose plus Alan Truscott who were all under 25. A few months after that, I finished second in the top section of the Hastings Premier Reserves. Denis Horne had won at Plymouth defeating Euwe. This meant that the case for an expanded championship became very strong.

Contrary to a previous post above, I don't recollect any controversy about the choice of entrants for the 32-player selected Swiss at Felixstowe 1949. The tournament had its incidents, notably when Fairhurst lost to Fazekas in 13 moves and claimed he had been distracted by taking a different route from his hotel to the tournament hall. Overall the 1949 championship results were satisfactory for both the established players (Golombek won) and newcomers (Horne and Hooper tied second).

For 1950 there were zonal tournaments but still half-a-dozen places reserved for selection. This benefited Oliver Penrose and myself when we failed to qualify from zonals but were awarded selection places.

[Ken Norman]

I think the final knockout qualifiers may have been for the 1982 championship??

Definitely no earlier than that, because I played in the 1982 qualifier. I didn't play after that, but I can't remember if that was because it had been discontinued.

[Ken Norman]

Ian Thompson is correct.

The British Championship Qualifying Competition was abolished in 1982.

The 1982 British Championship in Torquay was the last Championship to include players who had qualified via the B.C.Q.C.

[Alan Ruffle]

While not wanting to act as a page turner I'll risk keeping the subject alive a little longer. After reading the initial post and wondering what it was all about I decided that for the first time in a long time I'd read a copy of Chess Moves. At the ECF website I discovered Chess Moves is "password protected". Not wanting to wake the webmaster I found a copy of the 2013 Jan. edition elsewhere. In it the "former CEO" writes true to his form - well and interestingly but not without a nod to more recent verbal battles, or so it seems to me.

Put Chess Moves on the forum.

Alan Ruffle