English Chess Forum

The World Junior Chess Championship started today in New Delhi. England has two representatives in IM Ravi Haria and Cumbria and Lancaster University player, Holden Davis. Ten more tough rounds ahead!

http://chess-results.com/tnr479945.aspx ... NG&flag=30

We can but hope that Holden Davis enjoys his time in New Delhi, sight-seeing anyway. His time at the board will likely be less pleasant. Seeded 91 of 93, rated 500 Elo below the 64th seed, and a colossal 825 Elo below the top seed, Mr Davis of ENG has it all to do. Good luck to Ravi Haria as well

He fundraised hard and I don’t think he should be begrudged wanting to sign off his junior chess years with a memorable experience. The flip side might be at ECF 164, he’s probably more comfortable in Majors than Opens, and this is going to be tough event to score points in.

He is probably a bit better than his grade suggests tbf.

(yeah, but *that* much better?)

Round 3. Ravi Haria gets white against Praggnanandhaa on board 3. No respite for Holden Davis on board 46.

Round 4. Ravi is playing GM Sargsyan and Holden is playing FM Flores.

Matt Bridgeman wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 16, 2019 9:12 pm

No respite for Holden Davis on board 46, as he gets a 2161 Canadian.

The additional incentive to avoid losing that one is that, if he does lose, he'll be the lowest rated player on 0 points and in line for the bye in Round 4.

Sadly Holden might get the bye as he went down to FM Sargsyan in 15 moves.

In Round 4 it looks like we have an Iranian player failing to turn up to play an Israeli (Zlatin-Gholami, board 22).

Bless! What a crap arbiter.

Matt Bridgeman wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:02 pm

Bless! What a crap arbiter.

I don't understand. What was the arbiter supposed to do?

Can’t they manipulate the pairings slightly to avoid somebody having to default?

Matt Bridgeman wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:25 pm

Can’t they manipulate the pairings slightly to avoid somebody having to default?

FIDE have, in their infinite wisdom, decided that slightly-less-than-strictly-by-the-rules pairings are a greater evil than by-the-rules pairings that won't actually be played, and so the arbiters are not allowed to do that.

(I'm not sure what would happen if they did. Would FIDE invalidate norms from their own event?)

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:34 pm

(I'm not sure what would happen if they did. Would FIDE invalidate norms from their own event?)

I would certainly hope so. One thing that the new administration has got right is to follow other sports in outlawing such discrimatory behaviour. It is disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that it continues to find support here.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:47 pm

One thing that the new administration has got right is to follow other sports in outlawing such discrimatory behaviour.

Presumably a Gelfand v Maghsoodloo pairing would not be forbidden in the Isle of Man. Currently they are half a point apart, but both have the same colour and are close on rating, so it may never happen.

A possible next conflict point is Gibraltar where there is a track record of cooking pairings, not for Chinese world champions but for Iranian players.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:47 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 17, 2019 3:34 pm

(I'm not sure what would happen if they did. Would FIDE invalidate norms from their own event?)

I would certainly hope so. One thing that the new administration has got right is to follow other sports in outlawing such discrimatory behaviour. It is disappointing, although perhaps not surprising, that it continues to find support here.

Well, it depends what other sports you're talking about. Football goes to great lengths to avoid pairings that will cause this sort of incident.