English Chess Forum

Default date 13 June

open - Kent v Middlesex, Yorks v Surrey
minor - Essex v Somerset, Suffolk v Herts
u180 - Lancs v Devon, Middlesex v Warks
u160 - Essex v Yorks, Lancs v Middlesex
u140 - Hants v Notts, Kent v Lancs
u120 - Lancs v Herts, Kent v Warks
u100 - Essex v Notts, Surrey v Kent

EDIt U160 Essex v Warks (not Yorks)

Re the above;-

SCCU - 14
NCCU - 6
MCCU -4
WECU -3
EACU - 1

Substantial turn around from last year where the SCCU had a bad year in qualification - there could be five all SCCU finals.

I don't know whether it matters much but Herts in the Minor Counties qualifed via the EACU - though perhaps their other teams continued to play in SCCU, I don't know.

I gather that something is going on re: Yorkshire v Wawickshire QF result in the u160s?

Jonathan Rogers wrote: I gather that something is going on re: Yorkshire v Wawickshire QF result in the u160s?

The SCCU site which traditionally reports on the Counties Championship is suggesting that Yorkshire have been penalised for infringing the 10 ECF point board order rule. The winning margin was sufficient that this doesn't change the match result.

But perhaps that's disputed as no result is reported on the ECF's site.

This is tricky I fear.

Look at the photo here: https://twitter.com/YorkshireChess/stat ... 68/photo/1

Then the Jan ECF grades on the left hand side (which quite rightly clear board 1 who has been playing at ~200 for the past season!). Then look at board 7 and consider that the rules seem to say: "If a player plays on a board below another who is graded (or deemed to be graded) more than 10 ECF points lower than the player, then that player shall be deemed to be ineligible, and treated in accordance with C3.3."

-10 or so? Doubt Yorkshire won by that much! An entirely disproportionately huge penalty for one player out of place perhaps. Also, by the way entirely stupid in 'genuine' terms. Pete's YCA has been 155-160 for a while now and his ECF hardly contains any games. E type in September and F in January.

However, the current controllers do rather like to treat rules as rules. No exceptions in there for F grades that I can see. Or for leniency. Just for extra penalties if its deemed wilful

Looking at this match result there are 4 boards directly affected (those directly below), the result of which was 2-2 on said boards

So if the final result was 10.5-5.5, should the amended result be 8.5-7.5, still a Yorkshire win

Really this mess up should never have happened, these rules have been around for a few years and the captain should have known better

BTW, lets not bring YCA grades into this, it is an ECF event and YCA grades are irrelavant if the player has an ECF grade, they should only be used in the case of estimating an ungraded player

You have to use the January list otherwise Jon Gallagher's 145 on board 1 is a major issue! Jan seemingly dropped Pete to 131 then which leaves 8-12 and 15 all penalised, and there's a -1 penalty in addition/on top of the scores being reversed.

I mentioned the YCA because he nearly is ungraded in ECF terms/partially explain why it might have happened. But yes, no real grounds for complaint if they do apply the rules.

Wonder what the captains at the time made of it? Very obvious issue from the team sheet of course.

Jonathan Rogers wrote:I don't know whether it matters much but Herts in the Minor Counties qualifed via the EACU - though perhaps their other teams continued to play in SCCU, I don't know.

They played in the EACU but were nominated through the SCCU; a quirk of being a member of two Unions. With fines for unfilled places you can understand why Unions are keen to avoid defaults rather than strictly relying on their own qualifying competitions.

No complaints from Herts’ QF opponents though; an excellent match which hung in the balance until the last seconds of the last game to finish.

Is there an update on the Yorks v Warwicks U160 match - the result is still not posted on the ECF results page?

Essex would quite like to know the answer to Neil's question as it is rather difficult to arrange a semi - final without being sure of the identity of the opposition!

John Philpott wrote:Essex would quite like to know the answer to Neil's question as it is rather difficult to arrange a semi - final without being sure of the identity of the opposition!

Is there any progress on this - or are they going to tell you the night before? I know I've had a dispute in the past but at least everyone on the forum knew that a dispute was in progress.

Neil Graham wrote:

John Philpott wrote:Essex would quite like to know the answer to Neil's question as it is rather difficult to arrange a semi - final without being sure of the identity of the opposition!

Is there any progress on this - or are they going to tell you the night before? I know I've had a dispute in the past but at least everyone on the forum knew that a dispute was in progress.

But the people in the know are forced to used the other place first?

Nothing there either mind, or on the website. In terms of the rules it looks absolutely clear cut, so the long delay is a bit confusing.

One thing that strikes me is that they clearly started the match with the teams down in that board/grading order - and grades on the team sheet - so maybe he's not sure if he should over rule that?! Or just maybe unsure if an f class grade should count.

MartinCarpenter wrote:
One thing that strikes me is that they clearly started the match with the teams down in that board/grading order - and grades on the team sheet

The 4NCL has a "rule of 80" which dictates the legality of board orders. The ECF have copied this with a "rule of 10" in the National stages of the Counties Championship. The 4NCL does also have a rule which says that match captains with the agreement of the arbiters can overrule this. If grades are disclosed on the team sheet and the opposing match captain does not object to a board order before the start of the match, I would suggest a similar principle should apply, particularly as the issue was one that the ECF grade, being based on so few games, was not regarded as a reliable indicator of relative strength. In other words the result should stand.

John Philpott wrote:Essex would quite like to know the answer to Neil's question as it is rather difficult to arrange a semi - final without being sure of the identity of the opposition!

Warks are through, not Yorks