The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

The very latest International round up of English news.
Mike Truran
Posts: 2393
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:44 pm

The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Mike Truran » Thu May 07, 2015 4:33 pm


Paul Sanders
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:36 pm

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Paul Sanders » Thu May 07, 2015 6:42 pm

http://www.schachbund.de/prinzen.html

They don't seem to believe in mediocrity.

Mike Truran
Posts: 2393
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:44 pm

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Mike Truran » Thu May 07, 2015 7:02 pm

Jeweils fünf Mädchen und Jungen im Alter von 14-16 Jahren sollten von nationalen und internationalen Spitzentrainern mit dem Ziel Nationalmannschaft speziell gefördert werden. Jährlich wird der Kader sach- und fachgerecht bewertet und einzelne Mitglieder ausgetauscht.
It is intended that five girls and boys at a time between 14 and 16 be specially developed by top national and international trainers with the aim of playing in the national team. The squad will be evaluated properly and professionally annually and individual members replaced.
Wow. We can only dream of the ECF having the will and resources to do something like that here.

User avatar
Adam Raoof
Posts: 2720
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:16 pm
Location: NW4 4UY

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Adam Raoof » Sun May 10, 2015 9:09 am

“At junior level, I have been amazed in the past by the level of some players who have represented England. My impression has been that only wealthy families, who are willing to pay a large amount of money, can send their kids to tournaments and not always for the right reasons. Not for long-term improvement, but as another thing that they can put on their CV.

“Meanwhile chess tuition and improvement for juniors seems to be stuck on an artificial level in England. No long-term plans are in place. How can a coach teach a child everything in the space of a week at a world junior event?

“Parents are really in a tough position and I admire any who supports their child with coaching and travelling, but it would really help if there was more support available from the national federation. At this rate England will struggle to generate any future grandmasters.”
Simon Williams, in Chess Monthly, May 2015

Quoted by Richard James in chessimprover.com
Adam Raoof IA, IO
Chess England Events - https://chessengland.com/
The Chess Circuit - https://chesscircuit.substack.com/
Don’t stop playing chess!

Nick Burrows
Posts: 1706
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2010 12:15 pm

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Nick Burrows » Sun May 10, 2015 9:28 am

We better hope Chess gets ruled to be a sport. Additional sports funding on top of the now established self-funded membership system, may give some scope for grass roots development, otherwise we're doooooooooomed...

Roger de Coverly
Posts: 21301
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:51 pm

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun May 10, 2015 9:45 am

Nick Burrows wrote: may give some scope for grass roots development
The original article was about an elite group of German teenagers being trained to become GMs and higher. That's a long way from grass roots.

In the past, the UK had a process of developing small squads of teenagers to GM standard to form the National team. The best known group being the 1970s one of Stean, Miles, Nunn, Mestel and Speelman.

Such a process was still just about continuing when Simon Williams was a teenager twenty years ago.

As Richard James pointed out in one of the links, scoring 50% in an international junior event is now regarded as a success. Perhaps, but it isn't the route to becoming a grandmaster.

Richard James
Posts: 1175
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:34 pm
Location: Twickenham

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Richard James » Sun May 10, 2015 11:10 am

Thanks to Adam for mentioning my article, Simon for giving his views on junior chess and Malcolm for publishing them.

Here is a link to the article.

Here, if you prefer, is a link to all my Chess Improver articles, some of which also deal with the state of junior chess in England.

benedgell
Posts: 1260
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:43 pm
Location: Somerset

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by benedgell » Sun May 10, 2015 11:54 am

Richard, what is your opinion on the ECF's Academy plans?

Angus French
Posts: 2151
Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 1:37 am

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Angus French » Sun May 10, 2015 12:58 pm

benedgell wrote:Richard, what is your opinion on the ECF's Academy plans?
Have the plans for the ECF Academy been published yet?

Roger de Coverly
Posts: 21301
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:51 pm

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun May 10, 2015 1:11 pm

Angus French wrote: Have the plans for the ECF Academy been published yet?
Ben gave details, as he understood them, transcribed from the presentation at the Finance Council meeting. I do not think they have been officially published anywhere, other than unofficially as part of Ben's report.

http://www.chessit.co.uk/phpforum/viewt ... ?f=5&t=289

User avatar
IM Jack Rudd
Posts: 4819
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:13 am
Location: Bideford

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun May 10, 2015 1:24 pm

I sent an email to the Junior Director offering to become part of the academy. I have heard nothing back yet.

David Robertson

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by David Robertson » Sun May 10, 2015 5:19 pm

We waste (there's no other word for it) vast amounts of well-intentioned effort on entry-level chess - CSC, UKCC, NPSCA. We observe titled players, IMs even GMs, flogging themselves around primary schools, trying to earn a living by teaching basic moves to biddable but prospectless children. These kids could better learn the basics from their Dad (or Mum). The titled players are needed to bring on the very best. The vast majority of thousands of chess-playing 11-year olds have played their last chess. A few will transfer to a playing opportunity at secondary school (mostly in the private sector). At no point am I aware of procedures to identify and target emergent talent. There's plenty I'm not aware of, so I'll be happy to get corrected.

By way of example only, I played two emergent talented juniors in this past 4NCL weekend. Both played for teams at the sharp end of Div 2; one or both may get an outing in Div 1 next season. The first, Alex Golding, is currently 11-years old, and J180; the second, Callum Brewer, is 13-years old, and J166. I felt Callum was a good bit under-rated. The point of my example is: in our very brief post-mortems, both boys showed a thoroughly impressive eagerness to listen and learn. That's priceless. They both displayed considerable intelligent maturity in their interaction with me. In short, were they to spend time with significantly better players than me, they would jump twenty ECF grade points a year for the next two years; (thereafter I don't feel competent to predict). But the potential and capacity to improve is there. It needs to be harnessed. Perhaps that's happening, though I'm unaware of any formal regime wherein this would be the case.

Richard James
Posts: 1175
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:34 pm
Location: Twickenham

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Richard James » Sun May 10, 2015 5:41 pm

benedgell wrote:Richard, what is your opinion on the ECF's Academy plans?
Ben, sounds fine as far as it goes. I'd like a lot more detail, though, particularly on what they're planning to do at grass roots level.

My view is, and has been since the late 90s, that the single biggest problem in junior chess is the primary school chess club, which, by its very nature, provides children with short-term fun at the expense of long-term interest. However, there are various social, cultural and historical reasons why it's difficult to move on from where we are at the moment.

Over the past two or three years I've been working with two boys who attend real chess academies, one in Baku and one in Bahrain. They both attend their academies for 9-10 hours a week and receive regular homework from their instructors. Both boys have fathers working in the oil industry and will be returning to the UK this summer as both families want their children to receive their secondary education in this country. They'll find things are very different here.

I've been trying to set up a system of more formal beginner level chess instruction here but have found no takers at all. Parents want their children to 'do' chess because it 'makes them smarter' but are, unless they are real chess players themselves, unwilling to help their children in any way and don't actually want them to be good players, partly because spending too much time on chess will interfere with their education and partly because 'chess players are geeks'.

You might also want to look at the French national junior championships and compare it to ours. As far as I understand it, there are hundreds of children and young people of all ages taking part, all qualifying through a national network of junior chess clubs.

Richard James
Posts: 1175
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:34 pm
Location: Twickenham

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Richard James » Sun May 10, 2015 6:07 pm

David Robertson wrote:We waste (there's no other word for it) vast amounts of well-intentioned effort on entry-level chess - CSC, UKCC, NPSCA. We observe titled players, IMs even GMs, flogging themselves around primary schools, trying to earn a living by teaching basic moves to biddable but prospectless children. These kids could better learn the basics from their Dad (or Mum). The titled players are needed to bring on the very best. The vast majority of thousands of chess-playing 11-year olds have played their last chess. A few will transfer to a playing opportunity at secondary school (mostly in the private sector). At no point am I aware of procedures to identify and target emergent talent. There's plenty I'm not aware of, so I'll be happy to get corrected.
You're quite right (except that you mean EPSCA not NPSCA). You do need to differentiate, though, between CSC (using chess as a learning tool on the curriculum) and UKCC/EPSCA (promoting competitive chess for young kids). However, there's one problem.

Perhaps my area (Richmond/Twickenham, affluent upper-middle class mostly white British families) is atypical but the following is my experience.

Because chess is not part of our national culture Dad (or Mum) usually knows virtually nothing about chess beyond a vague idea about how the pieces move. At least 75% of kids I meet in primary school chess clubs tell me a rook is called a castle, because it's what their Dad has told them. They have no understanding of check or checkmate. If I ask them how to win a game they'll usually look completely blank, or, on occasion, tell me they win by killing their opponent's king. The idea that pieces have values, that the player with more/stronger pieces will usually win the game, that therefore you have to look for captures, is totally alien to them. They'll start either by making pretty patterns with their pawns or by playing 1.h4 2.Rh3. They are completely clueless because their parents are completely clueless. When I offer parents help they don't want to know. When I email parents they almost always ignore me. If they reply at all it's to tell me they don't want their kids to be good at chess because they don't like chess themselves or because if their kids took it seriously it wouldn't be 'fun'. These kids really need a separate beginners group but the school is not prepared to run two clubs and anyway I wouldn't get enough kids to make it financially viable. They think they know how to play so are not amenable to playing mini-games or solving puzzles, which is how they'd learn if they were doing chess on the curriculum via CSC. If I give kids puzzle sheets to do they often refuse. They are horrified by the idea of doing any form of chess homework.

There's absolutely no way kids of primary school age will make progress unless they are getting proactive support at home from their parents, but when I offer parents help (I even offer to visit them to provide them with a free assessment session so that they can see me play their kids and learn how to help them) they don't want to know.

Kids who don't reach adult club strength by the time they leave primary school will see it as a kids' game, start behaving badly and soon give up. They will only continue if their secondary school offers lots of playing opportunities, and the secondary schools who are really keen on chess are almost always, as David says, in the private sector, and also almost always single sex. The complex logical skills you need to play at adult club strength are skills kids following a normal path of cognitive development will only achieve at secondary school age, so promoting competitive chess in primary schools without any associated skills development will ensure that 99% of kids will never play competitive chess again.

Meanwhile, my book Chess for Kids is still selling very well - the first book I've written that has made me any money. But The Right Way to Teach Chess to Kids isn't moving at all and will never cover its advance. In a sensible world it would be the other way round. All parents who want their kids to learn would buy my book because there's nothing similar on the market. They would then, when they thought their kids were ready, buy their kids a book, which might be mine but could equally well be one of the other beginners' books for kids on the market - it wouldn't really matter which.

Kids want to play chess. Parents want their kids to play chess. But kids don't want to (and, for the most part, can't) be good at chess and most parents don't want their kids to be good at chess.

Alan Walton
Posts: 1394
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:33 pm
Location: Oldham

Re: The State of English Chess: Something Else to Get Depressed about?

Post by Alan Walton » Sun May 10, 2015 6:56 pm

I always laugh at all these junior discussions an nobody ever mentions 3Cs in them, that's a model of how you run a junior club