English Chess Forum

The following comments referring to Junior events at the British Championships are taken from another thread posted today. I am curious as to why these suggestions are being made when there doesn't seem to be any requirement or justification in support of them. Are these serious proposals?

Home Director wrote: With respect to the British, there are some outstanding points to tidy up in a questionnaire that has already been written for the 2016 event. It isn't published yet in case we think of something else to add to it in the meantime.

- Whether the Under 8s should be standardplay or rapidplay; in particular whether the parents of this year's Under 8s feel they are able to write down the moves. Standardplay is the Junior Director's preference, but we'll see whether that's viable.

- Whether the junior tournaments should be "open", or there should be a separate Girls tournament played separately. I don't think we have a strong feeling here, but the views of the parents of the girls who play are important here.

Michael Flatt wrote: Are these serious proposals?

They seem to be. I don't know whether under 8's can be assumed capable of scoring their moves. You could argue it as a necessary qualification condition for entry into a national championship.

As regards separate girls' championships, these were abolished thirty to thirty five years ago. What is the logic for their reinstatement?

Roger de Coverly wrote:As regards separate girls' championships, these were abolished thirty to thirty five years ago. What is the logic for their reinstatement?

If you want the winner of a championship to be the best player, it's obviously undesirable to subsume one championship within another one containing stronger players. If the number of entries in each category are sufficient for two separate tournaments, that's what you should do.

Ian Thompson wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:As regards separate girls' championships, these were abolished thirty to thirty five years ago. What is the logic for their reinstatement?

If you want the winner of a championship to be the best player, it's obviously undesirable to subsume one championship within another one containing stronger players. If the number of entries in each category are sufficient for two separate tournaments, that's what you should do.

Bit of an illogical step though considering every odd numbered age group is going to be subsumed into the even numbered age groups because of the shortened tournament. And I would guess that the stronger girls would likely want to play in the "boys" events anyway which would then leave the objective of finding the 'best' player from running an individual tournament somewhat undermined.

Roger de Coverly wrote:
As regards separate girls' championships, these were abolished thirty to thirty five years ago. What is the logic for their reinstatement?

No one seems to have considered the possibility that the decision might be guided by how the competitors themselves feel about this. And before some bachelor asks why then are the parents being asked, the answer might possibly be that children sometimes share their feelings with their parents. Odd as that might seem.

In the meantime we can all speculate with great authority on how eight year old boys and girls do feel about this issue, how they should feel, and how we can make them feel the way they should feel.

Richard Bates wrote:Bit of an illogical step though considering every odd numbered age group is going to be subsumed into the even numbered age groups because of the shortened tournament.

Because of the shortened tournament? No, that's not the reason.

Richard Bates wrote:And I would guess that the stronger girls would likely want to play in the "boys" events anyway which would then leave the objective of finding the 'best' player from running an individual tournament somewhat undermined.

We can all guess. But we're not going to guess - we're going to ask them.

Alex Holowczak wrote:

Richard Bates wrote:Bit of an illogical step though considering every odd numbered age group is going to be subsumed into the even numbered age groups because of the shortened tournament.

Because of the shortened tournament? No, that's not the reason.

Richard Bates wrote:And I would guess that the stronger girls would likely want to play in the "boys" events anyway which would then leave the objective of finding the 'best' player from running an individual tournament somewhat undermined.

We can all guess. But we're not going to guess - we're going to ask them.

You'll never get re-elected doing things like that

As Chairman of a County Junior Chess association, Junior Chess Club organiser, after school club leader and junior competition organiser I do have some interest in Junior Chess. It puzzles me as to where these proposals originate and what is driving them.

In our recent Megafinal the girls showed themselves perfectly capable of competing with the boys on an equal footing. Have the likes of Pia Cramling and Judit Polgar been wasting their time in demonstrating that there is no inherent difference in the ability of males and females when it comes to playing chess?

It does seem rather wasteful for the ECF to indulge in a whole raft of consultations on so many topics simultaneously and without any discernible objective. The scatter gun is a very inefficient tool.

Michael Flatt wrote:It does seem rather wasteful for the ECF to indulge in a whole raft of consultations on so many topics simultaneously and without any discernible objective. The scatter gun is a very inefficient tool.

Michael Flatt (two days ago) wrote:The British is the premier ECF tournament and it seems wrong to me that a single person can make such changes without proper consultation.

So you've gone from accusing me of taking unilateral decisions, to suggesting I'm consulting people too much, in the space of two days?

I think I'll bow out of this one here.

Alex,

I can only suggest that you are trying to accomplish too much at one time.

Why not take a step back and rethink your priorities and strategy?

Michael Flatt wrote:It puzzles me as to where these proposals originate and what is driving them.

There's a long running consensus, tradition and practice in British chess, that separate female events are few and far between. This contrasts with Germany, France and other countries where their equivalents of the 4NCL are divided into Open and female only competitions. The ECF Directors may have decided this is wrong and want to develop female only events, starting with an English Ladies Championship and subdividing the British junior events. If so, perhaps they might announce their policy decision.

Once the unilateral decision has been taken to reduce the length of the British Championship Congress, the obvious problem comes has to how to handle the Junior events, since they will have to take place in parallel rather than one after the other. From that viewpoint amalgamation saves on arbiters and may also increase numbers enough for viable tournaments. I doubt segregated tournaments would attract sufficient entries to individual sections to be viable as stand alone tournaments.

Roger de Coverly wrote:This contrasts with Germany, France and other countries where their equivalents of the 4NCL are divided into Open and female only competitions.

Germany and France do this, presumably, because they can. Searching the FIDE ratings for active, female players from these countries ordered by rating (descending) shows that the 100th strongest active German female player is Mira Kierzek rated 2015 and for France, Lena Arnas rated 1886. Doing the same search for England throws up only 84 players, two of whom are listed with ratings of zero because they either haven't yet got enough games or their rating is below 1000. The 82nd player is June Barton rated 1001.

This gives a very small pool of eligible players for your female only 4NCL division which is likely to be further reduced by the top women players who want to play 4NCL chess playing for open teams unless fixtures are arranged to allow them to play in both.

Brian Towers wrote:
This gives a very small pool of eligible players for your female only 4NCL division which is likely to be further reduced by the top women players who want to play 4NCL chess playing for open teams unless fixtures are arranged to allow them to play in both.

This supposed lack of interested female players is something of a myth as in the last two seasons I've had 14 (in 2014-15) and 12 (in 2015-16) play for my two 4NCL teams and that's in Division Three and Four.

LawrenceCooper wrote: This supposed lack of interested female players is something of a myth as in the last two seasons I've had 14 (in 2014-15) and 12 (in 2015-16) play for my two 4NCL teams and that's in Division Three and Four.

You do seem to have cornered that market - perhaps you should be more willing to share?

NickFaulks wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote: This supposed lack of interested female players is something of a myth as in the last two seasons I've had 14 (in 2014-15) and 12 (in 2015-16) play for my two 4NCL teams and that's in Division Three and Four.

You do seem to have cornered that market - perhaps you should be more willing to share?

I give opportunities to those who haven't found teams or have spent a season sat on the subs bench either without being used or possibly getting a game or two in an emergency and then demoted again.