English Chess Forum

Sid Kirby was a stalwart member of the York RI chess club and will be missed by his many friends there.

RIP Sid

I never knew you
Though perhaps I did
In any club on lower boards
In lower divisions. You were
Always there, doing your best
Which was never very good -
But still, it was your best.
And now you are at rest.
Grade 24C
RIP

24C was his lowest grade - showing on the ECF's o/l grading d/b as July 2008 - but it's based on the highest number of games he played in a season.

His other entries there show the less graded games he played the higher his grade got.

David Robertson wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:31 pm

RIP Sid

I never knew you
Though perhaps I did
In any club on lower boards
In lower divisions. You were
Always there, doing your best
Which was never very good -
But still, it was your best.
And now you are at rest.
Grade 24C
RIP

He and his grade are now in the infinite.

Andrew Zigmond wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 04, 2019 12:47 pm

Sid Kirby was a stalwart member of the York RI chess club and will be missed by his many friends there.

I learnt that such people are very important to chess clubs when I ran a small junior chess club. One player turned up each week and lost many games. Other players appreciated that there was someone they could beat. And the club graudally grew. If weaker players feel unappreciated then they leave and another member becomes the weakest player, and so clubs can continue to shrink. They same can happen in leagues, with the weakest club withdrawing as each match is a lost cause, and the team players get demoralised. I know how it feels from when I used to play for Berkshire in the SCCU Open championships.

John McKenna wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:01 am

24C was his lowest grade - showing on the ECF's o/l grading d/b as July 2008 - but it's based on the highest number of games he played in a season.

His other entries there show the less graded games he played the higher his grade got.

As he lived in Yorkshire both of these figures may be based on considerably fewer than all the games he played. Chessnuts shows him playing 20 - 25 games per year from October 2005 to July 2016, after which there are no more results for him.

I didn't actually know Sid Kirby personally although I used to see him at events and he played in the annual Harrogate vs York friendly match a few times. A grade ultimately only measures your performance against other graded opposition rather than being an indicator of playing strength in itself and the absolute lowest tier (complete beginners) tend not to play competitive chess which keeps the grade of players at the level just above artificially low as they don't tend to get many graded games against beatable opposition. In any case the 24C grade dates back to 2008.

Sid Kirby was 91 at the time of his death and his grading history only begins in 2004 when he was already in his seventies.

What Neil C wrote, above, is sad but true.

What Ian T and Andrew Z wrote is interesting.

Delving back a bit further - no sign of him in the paper ECF grading lists for 1996/7 & 1997/8.

Yorks may have been hiding their lights under a bushel in those days (as Ian T indicates above), too, so he may have been an active player within the county.

His ECF grading history shows that he also played the Yorks & Hartlepool tournaments on occasion.