English Chess Forum

The final Quarter-Final U120 result to complete the semi-final picture is

Merseyside 3.5 Warwickshire 8.5

Semi-Final Warwickshire v Middlesex; Leicestershire v Norfolk

Teams in the semi-finals are as follows:-

SCCU 10; MCCU 8; NCCU 7; EACU 2; WECU 1.

There is one matter outstanding that might change the representation.

Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again...

"Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again..."

I would imagine WECU has the lowest population of the Unions?

Jon Underwood wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 1:55 pm

Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again...

Hardly surprising when only three WECU teams entered events.

I'm sure every WECU county has the players to put out a competitive team in most of the grading limited sections if they wanted to.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 5:31 pm

"Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again..."

I would imagine WECU has the lowest population of the Unions?

The regions as defined by ONS don't correspond with the Union boundaries. I would think looking at the figures that the EACU has the lowest population.

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 7:32 pm

Jon Underwood wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 1:55 pm

Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again...

Hardly surprising when only three WECU teams entered events.

I'm sure every WECU county has the players to put out a competitive team in most of the grading limited sections if they wanted to.

Lots of counties could field grading limited teams; the problem lies, as usual, with lack of volunteers to run such teams.

Not entirely sure that Somerset have the number of players to be able to field a competitive team in any of the grade- limited sections. The teams we've fielded for our 2nd team match against Devon over a number of years (with a number of decent captains trying to raise teams, for what is very much a local venue for Somerset) would be my evidence for this.

I would imagine that Cornwall & Gloucs would struggle equally as much.

benedgell wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 8:29 pm

Not entirely sure that Somerset have the number of players to be able to field a competitive team in any of the grade- limited sections.

I would have thought it quite obvious that the smaller the available pool of players, the less possible it is to field a competitive team of players under grade X. The larger the player pool, the easier to field a team of players with grades close to the upper limit. If you want to open the possibility of smaller counties being able to compete in restricted competitions, you need the grading rule to be "average under" or "total grade" for the team. I believe the recent ECF Council meeting rejected this option.

Average grade rules, when exploited to maximum effect, produce strange teams, with a premium on players who are believed to be undergraded. I do not think they are entirely satisfactory.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 8:48 pm

The larger the player pool, the easier to field a team of players with grades close to the upper limit. If you want to open the possibility of smaller counties being able to compete in restricted competitions, you need the grading rule to be "average under" or "total grade" for the team. I believe the recent ECF Council meeting rejected this option.

Not quite - the recent Council meeting wasn't given the opportunity to vote against it, on the grounds that the consultation responses were overwhelmingly against it.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 9:39 pm

Average grade rules, when exploited to maximum effect, produce strange teams, with a premium on players who are believed to be undergraded. I do not think they are entirely satisfactory.

Maybe for the bigger counties who have a large enough pool of players to exploit such things; but for the smaller counties, I think Roger is right that it would help them field teams because they could have found a competition in which they were genuinely competitive. If felt desirable, you can include rules that prevent such exploitation by the bigger counties; for example, anyone graded below x is considered to be graded x.

But in general, the comments on the consultation were clear - an average grade solution was thought too complicated.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Mon May 21, 2018 5:31 pm

"Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again..."

I would imagine WECU has the lowest population of the Unions?

It'd be the population of the individual counties that matters, but maybe not as much as having someone to actually get the team together. Hampshire is in WECU with a pretty sizeable population.. Somerset is a bit smaller but has a lot of strong players at the moment.

I did think it was remarkable that no WECU side has ever won either the Open or Minor counties. Yet all of them except perhaps Wiltshire and Cornwall have the population and players right now to be competitive in the Minor section.

I was surprised that average grades were rejected. It would have made a big difference to potential participation from the smaller counties.

"I was surprised that average grades were rejected. It would have made a big difference to potential participation from the smaller counties."

Smaller counties might actually get a team out, assuming captains are available. I assume that getting more teams and players out is the desired result.

As for getting strong teams, average grades will probably help the bigger counties more, but at least they will have somebody to play.

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Tue May 22, 2018 9:34 am

As for getting strong teams, average grades will probably help the bigger counties more, but at least they will have somebody to play.

There might have been the fear that if you had, say, a Surrey v Somerset under 160 match based on average grade, that both teams might just under 160, but the Surrey team might be 4*180 + 8*159 + 4*140 whilst the Somerset team might have Jack on board 1 and a 100 player on board 16.

I doubt the reluctance of counties with limited playing and population base to field teams is going to improve, Even where there are players willing to travel and an organiser willing to coordinate them, entering the 4NCL is an option and not one where eligibility is a constraint.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Tue May 22, 2018 10:02 am

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Tue May 22, 2018 9:34 am

As for getting strong teams, average grades will probably help the bigger counties more, but at least they will have somebody to play.

There might have been the fear that if you had, say, a Surrey v Somerset under 160 match based on average grade, that both teams might just under 160, but the Surrey team might be 4*180 + 8*159 + 4*140 whilst the Somerset team might have Jack on board 1 and a 100 player on board 16.

I doubt the reluctance of counties with limited playing and population base to field teams is going to improve, Even where there are players willing to travel and an organiser willing to coordinate them, entering the 4NCL is an option and not one where eligibility is a constraint.

I don't really see why that would matter. The thing that might be a problem is if someone tried to game the rules by having 4 grade 20 players and then an army of 200s on the top boards but seems kind of unlikely and could easily be stopped by having a minimum grade counted.

4NCL is really a complete irrelevance in this part of the world because of cost and distance whereas eligibility is not a problem - in fact it's the whole point. Who would care who wins in a Devon vs Somerset match where most of the team are ring-ins?

I suppose it is rather like football. I would very much like England to win the World Cup but long ago lost interest in the Premiership as it is now one big business against another.