2013 Final Stage

[Alex Holowczak]

Lots of points here, worth responding to.

My personal suspicion, but only AlexH would know if this is accurate or absolute nonsense, is that when he wrote/put forward the rule he simply didn't foresee a significant possibility that it would be breached.

The drafting process went through many stages. Many people were involved. In February 2012, the rule said that non-members would be ineligible. Ironically, Richard Haddrell proof-read it and thought it was repetition of the first sentence of the rule, and so it didn't need to be said again. So it was taken out, and put to Council. A couple of later proof-readers then asked what the penalty was, and so it got re-added.

I knew that the vast majority of players would be ECF members. I did expect there to be problems in Yorkshire, and this was reflected when their U120/100 teams didn't accept nomination.

I imagine that he took the view that fulfilling the requirements was really a pretty easy thing to avoid falling foul of. Because planning properly and fulfilling rule requirements consistently and completely falls easily into his way of working as a match captain/organiser etc.

Match captains are used to looking up grading references, grades, and so on. When I sent out e-mail number 1 in April, I gave every captain a link to where they could find the latest version of the membership list. Lancashire had arrangements in place to deal with Mike Conroy not being able to check it.

He probably appreciated that some captains are not quite so diligent and methodical, but thought that with the high penalty for a breach that they would be motivated to take more care.

I certainly expected that the penalty was severe enough for it to be a deterrent to ensure captains actively checked the membership status of their players. I even brought it to people's attention during the opening e-mail I sent to them. Last year, I was criticised for not explaining enough of the rules in the opening e-mail. This year, I explained lots of the rules, particularly being new. I was later criticised for this.

Despite my efforts, one captain simply never bothered checking and just assumed his players wouldn't have played league chess if they weren't members. One captain was oblivious to the requirement. (I know he received the e-mail, because he replied to it.)

And furthermore, in the unlikely event that there was a breach probably thought that all the blame would attach to the failing captain for not managing to perform a basic task. [...] I think he might not have sufficiently appreciated that any beneficiaries of a breach would potentially be as angry about winning as those who lost out. And that the target of the ire would not be the "failing" captain, so much as a completely unnecessary rule/set of penalties of which few really understand the purpose and/or necessity.

It is very surprising to me that:
(1) Teams accept a rule as a condition of entering
(2) Team breaks the rule they agreed to when they entered
(3) Controller is criticised for enforcing the rule

I am not swayed by the argument that a financial penalty is better than a points penalty. There have been numerous match defaults with £50 fines attached to them. We still get teams defaulting matches. Even Surrey, traditionally in favour of the rule being enforced, had a £50 fine levied to them for defaulting a match.

There has to be a penalty be it financial or points. It seemed logical to me that if a non-member is not allowed to play, he could be treated as ineligible, and thus an already-written ineligibility rule covered it. This seemed better to me than writing in a financial penalty. When enforcing the £50 match default fine in 2012, there were numerous complaints about it. Of course, I was writing the new rules at the same time, so it is highly likely that this influenced my judgement.

The rule is clear, and was known to all captains who accepted nomination. The first complaints about it occurred when the rule was breached.

--

Some of the comments imply that I changed the rules on the hoof without any consultation. This isn't true. Various people were involved throughout. Dave Welch was heavily involved in adding the necessary membership rules (in terms of drafting what we wanted to achieve), as well as tidying up various ambiguities and re-structuring the rules. Richard Haddrell checked the grammar and language, a job he is excellent at. The Union Representatives were involved at various stages, and some provided very helpful feedback. From others, I received nothing. Council was invited to give comments, but didn't find the time to do so.

[Roger de Coverly]

In some ways it is possibly a similar mindset which led to FIDE's mobile phone penalties, or, especially the zero default rule.

In the case of FIDE, I've never worked out whether it's a case of malevolence or just ignorance and stupidity. I suppose there are a few on the FIDE PB who play chess and have active FIDE ratings, but they are something of a minority.

Increasingly the Fischer generation are reappearing in English chess. The entries for the Seniors currently exceed those for British Championships itself.

[David Blower]

Congratulations to my local county Staffordshire for getting to the under 120 final.

My own "contribution" for them this season was to play 1 match, and lose it!

We have already lost to Warwickshire this season in the group stages, but it is a good achievement to get to the final.

[Roger de Coverly]

It seemed logical to me that if a non-member is not allowed to play

Key point though. Match captains not involved in the detail of the ECF's membership proposals are shocked to discover that their players are banned from taking part. The ex CEO promised that it wasn't the ECF's intention to prevent players from playing chess. To my mind he wasn't able to deliver this promise.

[David Blower]

I`m sure that quite a few counties could raise teams, particularly at the levels below U160...and it would be good to see more teams involved in these competitions.

I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't a under 100 team for Staffordshire, and before anyone asks, no I can't really be a team captain (or even play in many of the matches) because of work.

[Matthew Carr]

I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't a under 100 team for Staffordshire, and before anyone asks, no I can't really be a team captain (or even play in many of the matches) because of work.

Ill see what the thought of it is at our AGM if you want David

[David Blower]

Well it requires 2 things, 1) a captain (which I suppose can be a non playing captain if graded over 100,) and 2) players graded under 100 to make up a team.

At the Wolverhampton Chess League AGM the point was made the reason why Staffordshire don't have teams in all sections is because of a lack of captains, although they would like teams in all sections (although I suppose it was mainly the under 160 team that was mentioned.) I'm sure there would be enough players if the team existed.

Ideally Matthew I would like Staffordshire to have teams in all sections possible, although I do understand why we don't.

Yes it is a worthwhile thought to ask what the thoughts are of an under 100 team, so please do bring it up at the AGM. When is the AGM? At the end of the day most chess players just want to play chess, at a level that is reasonably competitive for them. I myself thought I was reasonably competitive in the under 120 match that I played, even though I could play in an under 100 team if one existed, but what about the players graded in the 70s or 80s?

I would just finally make a general point, that locally at Brewood that 5 new members of the club joined in 2011 (I was one of them.) I can't ever recall someone actually saying to me (or any of the other new members) something along the lines of: "Peter Evans from Stafford Chess Club is the captain of the under 120 Staffordshire team, so if you would like to represent Staffordshire against other counties he would like to hear from you." I only found out inter-county chess existed accidently whilst searching the web about the UK Schools Chess Challenge! And this was after over a year of being a member of my local club.

Infact when I first found out it did exist I was then under the impression you had to be "selected" for the county, much like the England Football team is selected.

For those not already into inter-county chess if nothing is done to promote it than new members of clubs may not even be aware that such a thing exists. Afterall chess doesn't make the backpages of newspapers. And it is quite seperate to the main leagues that chess clubs take part in, in my opinion. New members of clubs are not likely to stumble across these things for themselves.

[David Blower]

(As an aside, and having attended the last four Council meetings, I feel that recent agendas have been too long and haven't allowed for sufficient discussion of various items. In my view, this risks bad decision making.)

That problem I don't think is limited to just the council meetings.

[PeterFarr]

Alex's description of events seems comprehensive, and given that the rules were drafted as they were, I don't think he is to be blamed for enforcing them.

However, I do think (with a large dose of hindsight) the rules are wrong and should be changed. The punishments are excessive and resulted in an unintended outcome - largely from the reasons that Richard Bates outlines, but also because it turned out that it was rather too easy to assume that someone was (still) an ECF member when in fact they weren't at the right time. We very nearly had a situation where 2 Quarter-finals as well as a semi-final had the results over-turned.

I take issue with Alex though on fines v game points as punishment. Firstly, to say that fines are ineffective because they don't stop teams from defaulting matches is not a very good comparison; after all what other punishment can you give a team that defaults? You can't very well dock them points; you could ban them for a year but that is hardly a way to encourage more participation in the competition.

Secondly, Alex implies that punishments should be designed to stop offences altogether. I would argue that this is too strong an ambition in the case of an inadvertent ineligibility. The analogy is more like a parking fine; you do want to have some deterrent effect, but you don't expect to achieve the 100% compliance you could get by say sending people to prison (ok also a silly example perhaps; maybe a better analogy is being fined £100 for a late tax return), because that's a disproportionate outcome. The infringement here is basically financial (not paying a membership fee) and the punishment that fits the crime should also be financial, I feel.

As Richard Bates has said, the result here is that both winners and losers are unhappy here, which is a big signal that something very wrong has happened. It should also be remembered that 15 of the Kent players are being punished for something they didn't do, and one Kent player + the captain will feel very guilty over what basically looks like a simple oversight or misunderstanding. In the end this is an entirely amateur competition played for fun (and glory!?), and should not be spoiled by administrative glitches.

I feel dangerously close to repeating one of RdeC's favourite themes, which is that people should be encouraged to play chess, and not prevented / discouraged from doing so.

[Richard Bates]

...

I am not swayed by the argument that a financial penalty is better than a points penalty. There have been numerous match defaults with £50 fines attached to them. We still get teams defaulting matches. Even Surrey, traditionally in favour of the rule being enforced, had a £50 fine levied to them for defaulting a match.

There has to be a penalty be it financial or points....

I don't actually think this follows at all, if you are referring to a "punitive" financial penalty. I come back to the question "what is the purpose of the rule requiring ECF membership"? You can see my suggestion previously in the thread for what would constitute a perfectly workable rule which i doubt would generate any serious protest and would have no impact on the competition in a sporting sense. Essentially, within the boundaries of what i imagine is the purpose of the rule, I can not see any reason why it would not be achieved adequately by permitting membership to be acquired retrospectively as is the case with the general workings of the scheme. The vast majority would get round to joining eventually and the ECF would not lose out financially. However there could remain a minor 'punitive' penalty for incidents where it was clear that individuals were making a deliberate decision to refuse to join (which obviously would be in breach of the purpose of the rule), and no doubt Counties would refuse to pick them in future, although if they did then the ECF would benefit financially. There is absolutely zero need for the rule to impact on the competition in a sporting sense.

I think the comparison with complaints about withdrawal penalties is rather spurious (I suspect that some of the complaints about that originated from a shock that a provision for penalising counties which had always been available but rarely used was suddenly being enforced). Penalties simply have to be set to fit the crime and cannot be passported from one to another without proper consideration about their fairness.

It is unfortunately the way of the world that the vast majority will not take an interest in consultation exercises, and will nevertheless come baying for blood when the results of these consultations begin to meet with reality. And those who do respond to consultations are often not representative of the wider population or approach them with a different mindset. One only has to take an interest in politics to see the effects of this all the time. It is simply a lesson to be learned that whilst it is obviously better to consult than not, and doing so gives some degree of cover, one should never assume that lack of response indicates indifference or contentedness.

[Sean Hewitt]

It is unfortunately the way of the world that the vast majority will not take an interest in consultation exercises, and will nevertheless come baying for blood when the results of these consultations begin to meet with reality. And those who do respond to consultations are often not representative of the wider population or approach them with a different mindset. One only has to take an interest in politics to see the effects of this all the time. It is simply a lesson to be learned that whilst it is obviously better to consult than not, and doing so gives some degree of cover, one should never assume that lack of response indicates indifference or contentedness.

As usual, I pretty much agree with all of this. However, such people need to realise that we currently have no controller (Alex H is effectively acting controller) and if this perverse behaviour continues of saying nothing in advance and being wise after the event then we are unlikely to have one in the near future.

That being the case, discussions of the rules might be a rather academic exercise as Alex has already announced there will be no County Championships next year without a controller!

[PeterFarr]

It is unfortunately the way of the world that the vast majority will not take an interest in consultation exercises, and will nevertheless come baying for blood when the results of these consultations begin to meet with reality. And those who do respond to consultations are often not representative of the wider population or approach them with a different mindset. One only has to take an interest in politics to see the effects of this all the time. It is simply a lesson to be learned that whilst it is obviously better to consult than not, and doing so gives some degree of cover, one should never assume that lack of response indicates indifference or contentedness.

So true, and a reminder of how difficult it is to do the ECF jobs. Let's skip the "baying for blood" bit, and move on constructively.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Even Surrey, traditionally in favour of the rule being enforced, had a £50 fine levied to them for defaulting a match."

somewhat ironic, given SCCA's habit of not necessarily enforcing rules in its own competitions.

Back on topic, I think it unfortunate that players can become ineligible during the competition. Normally, once you have established players are eligible, you can relax and pick a team, and seeing you might have to contact 60 or 70 players to get a team out, you don't want to have to worry about other things if you can help it.

[Roger de Coverly]

and if this perverse behaviour continues of saying nothing in advance and being wise after the event then we are unlikely to have one in the near future.

Such is the enthusiasm of ECF directors for compulsory membership, it is doubtful that they would take any notice of protests as to the adverse effects of their policies, still less would that they would see the problems themselves and not waste everybody's time trying to oppose them.

I'm also reminded that the prospective President wanted to take a look at issues surrounding the membership scheme, but was blocked by a number of vocal pro-membership voices on the ECF Council. So I don't think it would have been particularly easy to raise the competition destroying effect of the ECF's rules.

I'm reminded that the original Farthing papers on membership stated the policy objective as being that you would need to be a member of the ECF to play chess in England. Is that still an objective of the current ECF Directors? If so, every league is going to face the same issue with defaults as the counties championship.

[Roger de Coverly]

Match captains are used to looking up grading references, grades, and so on. When I sent out e-mail number 1 in April, I gave every captain a link to where they could find the latest version of the membership list.

I suspect you didn't warn them to check for players due to renew their memberships during the lifetime of the competition. It's something 4NCL captains are familiar with, not that the 4NCL ever seems bothered after the initial registration. So county captains checked the list in April, and failed to notice or understand the column marked expiry date. For most of the names on the list it's empty anyway.