English Chess Forum

I have just been sent information about the ECF U18 / U13 County Championships 2013.

Sunday 30th June 2013, The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School.
Format similar to last year at Eton College. Details attached.

Edit: Details in attached file updated

Thanks for the post Neil, the Herts Schools Chess Association (HSCA) organising team are grateful to The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree for letting us use their facilities and are looking forward welcoming county teams to this prestigious event.

The school will be laying on two large playing halls and comfortable team rooms to ensure we have a successful tournament. The venue is located minutes from Junction 4 of the M1. There is free car parking on site including parking for coaches. It is a short taxi ride away from Radlett and Elstree/Borehamwood train stations which are on the Bedford to Brighton Thameslink line.

We are hoping that the tournament attracts the large number of teams that converged to Eton in June 2012 and hope that the finishes that are as close and exciting (see result - http://www.bjca.org.uk/resultsList.php?season=2011-12).

For more information please see http://englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/the- ... pionships/ or email [email protected].

I will keep the forum updated with entries as we receive them.

Regards, Yogesh, HSCA

Entrants to date:
Number of teams
U18 U13 Open U13 Minor
Sussex 1 1 1
Berkshire 1 0 1
Hertfordshire 1 1 1

Update 22APR2013

Entrants to date:
County (Teams per section U18, U13 Open, U13 Minor)

Sussex (1,1,1)
Berkshire (1,0,1)
Kent (1,1,1)
Devon (1,0,0)
Hertfordshire (1,1,1)

Regards, Yogesh

I notice that all U13 and U18 players are required to be 'bronze level or above' members of the ECF.

Is this a new rule?

Ray Sayers wrote:Is this a new rule?

see
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5409

It appears to have been decided in March, but not announced until now, conveniently after the ECF Council meeting which might have had something to say on the subject.

Great. I've tried before to get parents of Junior players to stump up for memberships and they were not interested (and yes, I have paid for my daughter, so I am not passing judgement on the principle, rather than the practical effect).

It will be interesting to see if this affects the number of entries.

Over the last month or so I have been busy trying to get Oxfordshire teams together for this based on the original communications sent out. With the change of rules some (parents of) players who had expressed interest have withdrawn their support. I am no longer certain that I will be able to enter an U18 team made up of school years 9 and above, which is a great shame since it looked like I was going to get a good mixture of very experienced players for the higher boards and enthusiastic over 13s for the lower boards. I assume that this rule change is all related to the motion at the ECF.

The problem is that although £8 doesn't seem like a lot to charge for games being graded for the season, if you say to parents 'I want Jimmy to play in this match, but you have to pay £8 to register him with the ECF' they lose interest in the idea.
They are not massively bothered by the grading side; neither, fankly neither are most of the kids.
The issue in this particular instance is there is no middle ground - membership (according to the rules) is compulsory, whether you want the games graded or not. I fear we are going to have issues raising a team in our County too, but we shall try.

The original rules were amended inline with communications from the ECF, probably soon after the meeting in March. Membership is only required for the U18 and U13 Major sections which will be graded. Membership is not required for the U13 Minor but will NOT be graded. Please let me know if the membership criteria prevents an entry from your county into the tournament as I can feed that forward to the ECF and to the organisers of next years event.

YogeshJina wrote:The original rules were amended inline with communications from the ECF, probably soon after the meeting in March.

It's rather suspected that the amendments postdate the April ECF meeting. If they pre-date that meeting, it's a change that was sneaked through without a discussion of the wider perspective.

If the ECF wished to propose a form of free membership applicable only to secondary school team events, would it have been opposed?

Ray Sayers wrote:The problem is that although £8 doesn't seem like a lot to charge for games being graded for the season, if you say to parents 'I want Jimmy to play in this match, but you have to pay £8 to register him with the ECF' they lose interest in the idea.
They are not massively bothered by the grading side; neither, fankly neither are most of the kids.
The issue in this particular instance is there is no middle ground - membership (according to the rules) is compulsory, whether you want the games graded or not. I fear we are going to have issues raising a team in our County too, but we shall try.

Are you sure? I thought membership was only required if the event were to be graded

LawrenceCooper wrote: Are you sure? I thought membership was only required if the event were to be graded

Individuals or even teams don't decide whether the event will be graded, that's done by the organiser. In effect it imposes an entry fee of £ 8 per head for every new player. New players won't get a published grade without playing 9 games, so it's just an extra overhead on teams for those players likely to only make a single appearance in a graded competition the entire season.

It's a logical consequence of the ECF's membership scheme.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote: Are you sure? I thought membership was only required if the event were to be graded

Individuals or even teams don't decide whether the event will be graded, that's done by the organiser. In effect it imposes an entry fee of £ 8 per head for every new player. New players won't get a published grade without playing 9 games, so it's just an extra overhead on teams for those players likely to only make a single appearance in a graded competition the entire season.

It's a logical consequence of the ECF's membership scheme.

But the organisers have the choice if the event is to be graded and thereby if players have to be members.

There are 3 Sections: U18, U13, U13 Minor.

The rules say all participants in the U18 & U13 events must be bronze and above. I thought at first this meant all U13 events.

Yogesh has clarified and said above that the U13 Minor event is not graded, so those players don't have to be bronze members.

But, as far as I can see, it is still compulsory for the U18 & U13 players.

That is the problem - if you could play without having your games graded, I don't think it would be an issue. It is the compulsory nature of it which causes concern.