English Chess Forum

The ECF has announced the following players to represent England:

Open:

Michael Adams
Luke McShane
Stuart Conquest
Simon Williams
Stephen Gordon.

Captain: Lawrence Cooper

Women:

Jovanka Houska
Ingrid Lauterbach
Natasha Regan
Meri Grigoryan
Sabrina Chevannes.

Captain: Andrew Greet.

The obvious question has to be :

Where are England's number one and four male players?

Where they selected?

David is playing at The World Junior and Nigel is seconding him.

and Gawain?

From the ECF site for once:-

Announcement of England Teams for European Team Championship in Novi, Sad Serbia 22-30 October
The ECF has announced the following players to represent England: Open:
Michael Adams, Luke McShane, Stuart Conquest, Simon Williams & Stephen Gordon.
Captain: Lawrence Cooper
Women:
Jovanka Houska, Ingrid Lauterbach, Natasha Regan, Meri Grigoryan & Sabrina Chevannes.
Captain: Andrew Greet. Despite the unavailability of David Howell and Nigel Short through the World Junior (Nigel is seconding David) and Gawain Jones through lack of funding preventing his flight from New Zealand being paid the team still has 5 2535+ GMs and sees the welcome return of Luke McShane and debuts for Simon Williams and Stephen Gordon. The increasing strength in depth of English chess is shown by the fact that Mark Hebden had recorded 3 successive 2600 performances in the summer but narrowly missed out, probably due to his low rating after a disasterous Southend in April.
The ladies team sees the welcome return of Natasha Regan after a gap of more than 10 years and a recall for Sabrina Chevannes who has recently returned to competitive chess.

Given recent performances and despite picking a rather junior looking squad perhaps Mark Hebden deserved a place!

John Upham wrote:and Gawain?

I understand that Gawain's flight from New Zealand was too expensive.

Carl Hibbard wrote:From the ECF site for once:-

Announcement of England Teams for European Team Championship in Novi, Sad Serbia 22-30 October
The ECF has announced the following players to represent England: Open:
Michael Adams, Luke McShane, Stuart Conquest, Simon Williams & Stephen Gordon.
Captain: Lawrence Cooper
Women:
Jovanka Houska, Ingrid Lauterbach, Natasha Regan, Meri Grigoryan & Sabrina Chevannes.
Captain: Andrew Greet. Despite the unavailability of David Howell and Nigel Short through the World Junior (Nigel is seconding David) and Gawain Jones through lack of funding preventing his flight from New Zealand being paid the team still has 5 2535+ GMs and sees the welcome return of Luke McShane and debuts for Simon Williams and Stephen Gordon. The increasing strength in depth of English chess is shown by the fact that Mark Hebden had recorded 3 successive 2600 performances in the summer but narrowly missed out, probably due to his low rating after a disasterous Southend in April.
The ladies team sees the welcome return of Natasha Regan after a gap of more than 10 years and a recall for Sabrina Chevannes who has recently returned to competitive chess.

Carl, the official announcement is also on the ECF site. What you quote is my round-up which is reporting the announcement with my own comments.

LozCooper wrote:Carl, the official announcement is also on the ECF site. What you quote is my round-up which is reporting the announcement with my own comments.

Ok thanks Lawrence, I did just copy and paste from the ECF site on that one - sorry

Looking at the top rated women on the FIDE site, only one of the top 5 English ladies are competing, too.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Looking at the top rated women on the FIDE site, only one of the top 5 English ladies are competing, too.

That's not surprising: Hunt and Lalic have full-time jobs, and Ciuksyte has a young child.

Well, if no one else is going to ask the obvious questions, then I will -

1) Where is the money from the mens' team coming from? I wouldn't have thought that the International Director has the budget to cover Michael Adams, let alone three other GMs who have no known income outside of chess

2) But given that some money obviously has been found, why is Gawain's plane ticket unaffordable?

Jonathan Rogers wrote: 2) But given that some money obviously has been found, why is Gawain's plane ticket unaffordable?

My guess would be that it's a question of opportunity cost: the amount the team would be improved by replacing Williams with Jones would not be worth the extra money that would need to be spent.

Perhaps. But that is why I put both questions together. If selection is driven by opportunity cost, then given the state of ECF finances, perhaps it shouldn't be sending a team at all, or at least sending only an amateur team (as Scotland is doing). What opportunity would it be losing, since the team it is sending will not make a medal nor any publicity in any event?

How can we claim that Williams is not as good as G? I mean both are my mates, both are very inconsistant in terms of agressive play, so they can take out 2700's on their days, I don't see the big difference here.

I do think putting the reason so blunt in the press release is not needed.

Ben