Yorkshire vs ECF disparity

[Mick Norris]

How many leagues around the country are run without being graded? Judging by the the ECF post, outside Yorkshire the answer is at most 1, the Cumbrian league.

No, there are at least 4 round here - South East Lancs Summer League, Bury & Rochdale League, Bolton League, East Lancs League have not been graded for years, although at least 1 is considering it now that the ECF Membership scheme has been introduced

There has been a NW ELO grading list for as long as I can remember, to include (some of?) these events as well as ECF graded games

[Roger de Coverly]

Thanks Roger. Can you quote his clarification, to save me trying to find it?

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... &start=555 is a long thread titled Compulsory Membership. The entry point is round about where the discussion turns to what was said or not said at the Yorkshire AGM and the consequences of that meeting's decisions. At around the same time, the drafts of the membership framework agreements had become available. Later in the thread comes an announcement that the clause rolled over from the previous MO agreement permitting the grading of MO member results in leagues not signed for Game Fee had been removed.

In terms of the ex-CEO, you can skip forward to
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... &start=601
and
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... &start=606

in which

The intention is that all games submitted for grading are counted for grading and that the results of non-members are liable for Game Fee. I think this is what the framework agreement for MOs says, but Sean thinks not, so I am seeking confirmation. If it does not say this, it will be amended as necessary.

which is not what was said, or what the Yorkshire minutes believe was said, at the Yorkshire AGM.

The actual publication of the revised framework wording was presumably on the ECF site.



http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... ork#p95071

[Sean Hewitt]

Surely people can then understand that players involved in leagues in Yorkshire and Cumbria are very annoyed that they are not receiving on of the key benefits that they signed up when joining the ECF, namely "Free Grading of Results in Leagues"?

Following the link provided by Andrew I see that Bronze members get their games graded for free, but also that the cost to Non-Members is "Each Standard Play result will incur a Game Fee of £2 (junior-only events 50p). Rapid Play results will each incur a Game Fee of £1 (junior-only events 25p)."

I'm not that this could reasonably be interpreted as Bronze members get their games graded for free, even if non-members games are not paid to be graded.

However, I'll ask the ECF webmaster to add this further clarification in case anyone has read it thus.

[Alex McFarlane]

Sean,

Isn't it the use of the word 'unlimited' in the membership benefits which leads to this expectation. When certain leagues are excluded then the benefits are not unlimited. I accept that those in the know would not read it as such but to anyone taking the document at face value it is a very reasonable assumption to come to. Indeed, using the same logic, I would think that a club championship game could also be sent in even where the opponent is not an ECF member.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I think we need to remember that historically the Yorkshire satellite leagues have never been ECF game fee registered events. The only reason they have been graded in recent years is a) the relics of the failed NMS scheme and b) a good working relationship between Jon Griffith and Richard Haddrell.

It would be helpful if somebody from the ECF (possibly Alex H) could clarify the situation and also if there is an olive branch available. Andy - the problem is getting the non ECF members to pay the £2 per game or persuading them to join the ECF. If the Bradford league can send their results in with the relevant fees I can't see why the ECF should have a problem.

The Controller of the Harrogate league told me he received a letter from the ECF concerning the new fee structure and the consequences of not joining - he simply threw it in the bin. That IS a problem; curiously I think it's more the ECF's problem than the Harrogate League's problem.

[Andrew Zigmond]

How else can you reliably figure out the strength of a player other than a grade?

If you and I both suddenly became ungraded I don't think there would be any argument that you were the stronger player.

Likewise a school chess team are unlikely to all have grades (if any do) but wouldn't have any difficulty putting themselves in an order of playing strength for a match.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think we need to remember that historically the Yorkshire satellite leagues have never been ECF game fee registered events.

This goes back twenty years. The BCF's previous fund raising was that county associations and those financing county associations should have to pay for the BCF. The reforms were that independent leagues and Congresses and those participating therein should contribute as well. The logic of this was accepted across the whole country except for pockets of resistance in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

It didn't help that the BCF ran into serious implementation difficulties when it tried to upgrade the systems of collecting results and calculating and publishing new grades.

[MartinCarpenter]

Jon Griffith seems to have done something potentially very useful for perspective on this debate here: http://www.chessnuts.org.uk/ny5/ecfgamefees.php . To summarise, percentages in terms of games currently played by members:

Yorkshire league (current) = 55 per cent, Leeds league = 52 per cent. These two are ECF graded, the remaining leagues aren't.

Sheffield = 33 per cent, Huddersfield = 35 per cent, York league = 32 per cent, Bradford league = 27 per cent, Doncaster = 27 per cent, Calderdale = 20 per cent, Hull = 18 per cent.

The Sheffield league, which contains a huge amount of games - 16 matches per season, 8 board teams! -, would as things stand, be liable for a bill over 5 thousand pounds were they to try and be ECF graded. Well obviously they'd also increase their membership levels in doing so but.....

It doesn't look at all certain to me if even the Yorkshire league will be able to sustain these sorts of levels. (a ~2k projected bill.). Hopefully we can get enough people signed up that we can - looking down the list I can certainly see plenty of people who I'm sure are simply displaying apathy/mild disorganisation rather than any sort of political stand against the ECF.

[Ihor Lewyk]

There are two points that are fundamental to this argument.

1. The ECF have changed their stance.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=2
Clearly states that there will be unlimited free grading to all bronze members as well as silver, gold etc.
I know a number of people in Yorkshire consulting lawyers about the legalities of this as it stands.

2. Cost. It may seem fine to state that it is only £12 per person to join the ECF and have unlimited games graded (as long as they're in an ECF game fee registered event), but the bottom line is that in many local leagues in Yorkshire there are a large number of players who only play a social game of chess, someitmes to help the team fill boards. Not having these players will reduce the number of teams in the leagues and also would mean that some relatively strong bit part players will not be seen playing the game. There must be a way of encouraging as many players to play as possible.

I've recently seen a number of strong players return to active participation chess in Yorkshire. Some of these players only played a handful of club games each year to keep in touch with their friends but because of family commitments could not play in tournaments, county matches or even the 4NCL. Circumstances change, kids grow up or tey become divorcees and now find they can devote time to the game and are keen to play as much as they can again. I think it is important to give everyone the opportunity to play as much or as little as they wish.

Martin Carpenter is right to be concerened about how the Yorkshire league will meet the extra £2k. However, it will actually be the chess clubs themselves who are billed for the registration payments for non-ecf members and the biggest worry for me is that we might see clubs voting with their feet and not putting as many teams into our comeptitions next season because they have found it too expensive to recoup the money for non members who had their arm twisted to help in a fixture.

[Mick Norris]

Ihor

Do you think this should just apply to players in Yorkshire, or also to players in Lancashire and Greater Manchester?

[MartinCarpenter]

The specific problems in Yorkshire are that you're starting from a base of essentially no membership at all - so that 50 per cent isn't actually at all bad - and there's not so much of an incentive to join with the Yorkshire grading as there is elsewhere. When you combine that with the ECF policy of pricing things to basically force leagues to have universal membership you've suddenly got the potential for really big trouble, even when everyone is trying to be cooperative.

It hadn't occured to me that they were going to try billing individual clubs though. Not only does that seem gently insane in terms of organisation, it just isn't going to work. If they charged the league then the league is commited enough that they might (through the clubs of course) find a way to pay and has a clear incentive to do so.

The local Yorkshire clubs just don't have a notable attachment to the ECF and many of them must be likely to simply refuse to pay. Its hardly like the ECF has much obvious leverage over them. Actually I'm more or less certain that some will refuse to pay. I can't see that ending other than very messily indeed and probably somewhere that no one wants to go.

All I can think that Yorkshire can do at this stage is to not submit the Yorkshire league results until the end of the season after they've checked that cost implications of submitting aren't going to lead to much more substantial disruption than simply not having the games graded will.

[Ihor Lewyk]

Nice one Mick,

You are I presume making a point about unlimited free grading results in club competitions, leagues , county championships etc.

I meant to thank you for confiming that Yorkshire are not alone in running leagues that do not pay game fee. However, there may be a slight differencce with Lancashire leagues that are ungraded and the Yorkshire scenario but I'm not really sure what differences there are.

The local Yorkshire leagues submit their results to Jon Griffith and he collates them for his brilliant Chessnuts site. He them submits all the results to the ECF via Richard Hadrell I believe, in the format the ECF require and the ECf choose which results they wish to publish. I suspect the Lancashire leagues don't sent their results to the ECF.

Of course if the ECF do not get paid game fee they can argue there is no reason for them to publish these results.
However their membership rights/advert states that all games for members will be graded, so I suppose if we still try to provide the results they will have to honour what is written on their website.

So yes it might be different for Yorkshire players.

[Ihor Lewyk]

Martin. The ECF will be billing the league. It is the Yorkshire league who are billing the clubs to meet any shortfall.

[Roger de Coverly]

It hadn't occured to me that they were going to try billing individual clubs though. Not only does that seem gently insane in terms of organisation, it just isn't going to work. If they charged the league then the league is commited enough that they might (through the clubs of course) find a way to pay and has a clear incentive to do so.

Charging clubs will be a local decision, the ECF intend to send the bill for non-members to the organisation submitting the grading results. So if the Yorkshire county association sends in results for the Bradford league, the invoice would go to the county. I believe the special deal now withdrawn, was that the local Yorkshire results were deemed submitted by the county on the basis that only games where one of the players was an ECF member would be graded if outside the main league. The main league would have paid 58p per game per non-member.

[Roger de Coverly]

However their membership rights/advert states that all games for members will be graded, so I suppose if we still try to provide the results they will have to honour what is written on their website.

If they had listened to Stewart Reuben, this particular problem would not have arisen.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... 54-Jun.doc

from which
iv. Can we clarify the consequences of NOT being a member under this scheme? Should we attempt to establish that (a) a non-member cannot play at all in graded events; (b) their games will not be graded (i.e. not processed); or (c) their games will be graded but the non-member’s grade not published?
There was no support for option (a).
There was discussion of the practicalities of option (c). In particular, it was unclear how feasible it would be to prevent the underlying grade from being disclosed by organisers.
AF asked how option (b) might work in practice. SR said that it should operate as for FIDE ratings, i.e. the non-member is a rating “black hole”, whose games are simply not rated. AF and others were concerned that this would be considered penal towards members paired against such players, who would find themselves involved in an ungraded game through no fault of their own.
AF asked for a straw poll of Board members’ views on the three options. The results were:
Option (a) - No votes
Option (b) - 1 vote
Option (c) - 7 votes