ECF Council Meeting 12 April 2014

[Andrew Zigmond]

Andrew...see my earlier post.
There are any number of chess players in this country with a direct interest in FIDE chess and who play in FIDE rated events.
And for the privilage. they are charged a huge membership premium to join the ECF. Money that presumably gets syphoned off to pay into the corrupt, much criticised, FIDE club...?

This `huge` membership premium is £28. If you'd attended my club's (very enjoyable) annual dinner last Saturday you'd probably have paid about the same. I also note the word `presume`.

And you mentioned the FIDE delegate consulting with various ECF officials about policy matters, etc..
Would this include the ECF President, and perhaps the CEO?
Your notion that things should just be left with the FIDE delegate is quite wrong.
As I said earlier, it would be interesting to hear what the CEO`s views are on FIDE policy and our FIDE delegate.

If you bothered to read what I put I never said things should be left to the FIDE delegate - he should consult with the board where necessary, however some members of the board have more involvement with international and FIDE rated chess than others. I tend not to comment on these matters because a) I don't have the knowledge to do so and b) it ultimately doesn't affect me.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Rather than presume, you should look at the accounts. These only show modest amounts being paid to FIDE mostly as rating fees and the 1 Euro per active player as the ECF's membership cost.

You may recall that overcharging players for participation in Internationally rated events was a political decision, so that club players, particularly less active ones, would not have to face the true cost of switching to a per head method of raising money for the ECF.

Well said Roger!

[David Pardoe]

and fights vigorously for English players within FIDE - we should trust him to get on with it and consult with those affected.

Really? ?

I possibly didn't phrase the sentence quoted above very well, obviously we are all within FIDE. However FIDE rules and politics largely only affects FIDE rated events.

....;.by the issues that hamper progress at amateur level while upthread somebody asked why it's such a big deal which Eastern European GM is elected to what role.

My point was that Mr Short knows what he's doing and should (in consultation with the International Director and other ECF officials who are involved with FIDE rated events) be allowed to get on with it, without being chuntered at by club players.

Players are asking very pertinant questions about these issues and this is what these Forums are for.
Amongst the questions I have put concerns what our CEO`s views are on FIDE policy, and whether he has been consulted by our FIDE delegate.
Remember that these matters have contributed directly to the recent chaos at the ECF.

[Mike Truran]

Players are asking very pertinant questions about these issues

Well, some of them are.

[Sean Hewitt]

And for the privilage. they are charged a huge membership premium to join the ECF.

Yep. A whopping £9 a year extra.

[Paolo Casaschi]

and fights vigorously for English players within FIDE - we should trust him to get on with it and consult with those affected.

There are a number of FIDE related issues affecting down to the club players, for example the fact that the FIDE rating regulations exclude the vast majority of chess games played in England. You might want to get evening league games rated for FIDE or not, but it would certainly nice to have the option, as they have in other European countries for their similar league games; probably their FIDE delegate/representative has been more successful in adapting the FIDE rating requirements to the local needs, resulting in countries like Germany and Spain having ten times more FIDE rated players than the UK. This is an issue that I would expect the English FIDE delegate to "fight vigorously for".

[John McKenna]

"The International Director's proposal to be allowed to use £5,500 out of the expected surplus for 2013/14 to make good the shortfall in Olympiad funding indicated by the forecast was carried by 28 to 8 on a show of hands."

A budget announcement calculated to show that the ECF's hand is in its increasingly-bulging pocket and its golden heart is in the right place when it comes to the international stage? Or the start of a deficit-spending regime?

[Roger de Coverly]

probably their FIDE delegate/representative has been more successful in adapting the FIDE rating requirements to the local needs

I don't think there is any sense in which the FIDE rating requirements can be adapted for local needs. Surely it's one set of rules for everyone except perhaps the USA? I would have said that local needs are adapted for FIDE rating requirements, principally by not having leagues or tournaments with sessions of under four hours.

[Paolo Casaschi]

probably their FIDE delegate/representative has been more successful in adapting the FIDE rating requirements to the local needs

I don't think there is any sense in which the FIDE rating requirements can be adapted for local needs. Surely it's one set of rules for everyone except perhaps the USA? I would have said that local needs are adapted for FIDE rating requirements, principally by not having leagues or tournaments with sessions of under four hours.

Someone earlier claimed the the English FIDE delegate "fights vigorously for English players within FIDE". Someone else claimed the England has a significant influence within FIDE. I have no visibility of the inner working of FIDE, I can only judge about the outcomes. My point is that when they discuss about rating requirements who else than the English FIDE delegate (or otherwise English representative) should represent the interest of English chess and make sure the games played here have the possibility of being rated for FIDE? It's not about localizing the rule for every country, it's about "fighting" and "influencing" so that the needs of English players are taken care of.
Or do you think that someone in an ivory tower comes up with random rules for rating games and then everybody else around checks if current practice meets those rules and otherwise just shrug their shoulders?
I guess some FIDE delegate (or other representative) have probably stepped in to make sure the games played in their country would fit within those requirements; this probably helped Germany and Spain to have ten times more FIDE rated players than England.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Someone earlier claimed the the English FIDE delegate "fights vigorously for English players within FIDE". Someone else claimed the England has a significant influence within FIDE. I have no visibility of the inner working of FIDE, I can only judge about the outcomes. My point is that when they discuss about rating requirements who else than the English FIDE delegate (or otherwise English representative) should represent the interest of English chess and make sure the games played here have the possibility of being rated for FIDE? It's not about localizing the rule for every country, it's about "fighting" and "influencing" so that the needs of English players are taken care of.
Or do you think that someone in an ivory tower comes up with random rules for rating games and then everybody else around checks if current practice meets those rules and otherwise just shrug their shoulders?
I guess some FIDE delegate (or other representative) have probably stepped in to make sure the games played in their country would fit within those requirements; this probably helped Germany and Spain to have ten times more FIDE rated players than England.

If you are passionate about this why don't you raise this with the FIDE delegate? His email address is available on the ECF website. Or you could ask your council representative (it's not a perfect system but most of us can find one) to get it on the agenda at council and obtain a resolution for it to be made a priority.

[Sean Hewitt]

I guess some FIDE delegate (or other representative) have probably stepped in to make sure the games played in their country would fit within those requirements; this probably helped Germany and Spain to have ten times more FIDE rated players than England.

I don't understand this conclusion? Games in Germany and Spain still have to be a minimum four hours in order to be FIDE rated. It seems to me that the reason they have more rated players than England is because they have more people playing competitive chess OTB.

[Roger de Coverly]

It seems to me that the reason they have more rated players than England is because they have more people playing competitive chess OTB.

That's true as well, but outside of rapid-play, serious chess with short playing sessions doesn't seem to exist. So they resolve the scheduling problems of evening leagues and weekend tournaments by not running them. So most leagues are weekend leagues and tournaments go no faster than 90 30, admittedly with frequent double round days, but not triple round ones. Someone raised the question of tournaments in France for lower rated players. The French seem to have introduced stars barred tournaments as with Adam Raoof's Hampstead which exploit the shorter playing sessions allowed for rating of U2200 events.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I guess some FIDE delegate (or other representative) have probably stepped in to make sure the games played in their country would fit within those requirements; this probably helped Germany and Spain to have ten times more FIDE rated players than England.

I don't understand this conclusion? Games in Germany and Spain still have to be a minimum four hours in order to be FIDE rated. It seems to me that the reason they have more rated players than England is because they have more people playing competitive chess OTB.

Let's play pretend: let's pretend that the most common form of play in England (the evening leagues) could be FIDE rated and that the leagues decide to actually rate those games for FIDE rating. Two BIG if, but let's pretend. If this happened, do you think that in 3 years from now England would have more or less FIDE rated players?
I don't know much about Germany and Spain, but one of the reasons why Italy has a lot more FIDE rated players than England is certainly that the most common form of play in the country (weekend tournaments, they are very popular, while evening leagues are non existing) are FIDE rated. This might be just a random occurrence (someone in the FIDE ivory tower made the rule and that just worked that way for Italian events) or maybe someone worked to make sure that weekend tournaments could be rated (for example lifting some old rules about the maximum number of games per number of days if I remember correctly).

[Roger de Coverly]

(for example lifting some old rules about the maximum number of games per number of days if I remember correctly).

Stewart Reuben, I think it was, smuggled in a rule that allowed triple round days. The minimum playing time for a single game is four hours while the maximum allowed scheduled length of play is twelve hours. So you could have three games at say 40/100 + 20. The Hastings weekender exploited this for a while until a change of policy which removed most or all of the weekender sections from being rated.

Another dilution was when FIDE extended the rating range downwards was to permit five round events to be rated.

In England anyway, there's still a limited amount of prestige in being an Internationally rated player. That's because to obtain a rating, you had to play in prestige events such as the British Championship, Hastings Masters, 4NCL etc, which had six or seven hour sessions and a relaxed playing schedule.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Someone earlier claimed the the English FIDE delegate "fights vigorously for English players within FIDE". Someone else claimed the England has a significant influence within FIDE. I have no visibility of the inner working of FIDE, I can only judge about the outcomes. My point is that when they discuss about rating requirements who else than the English FIDE delegate (or otherwise English representative) should represent the interest of English chess and make sure the games played here have the possibility of being rated for FIDE? It's not about localizing the rule for every country, it's about "fighting" and "influencing" so that the needs of English players are taken care of.
Or do you think that someone in an ivory tower comes up with random rules for rating games and then everybody else around checks if current practice meets those rules and otherwise just shrug their shoulders?
I guess some FIDE delegate (or other representative) have probably stepped in to make sure the games played in their country would fit within those requirements; this probably helped Germany and Spain to have ten times more FIDE rated players than England.

If you are passionate about this why don't you raise this with the FIDE delegate? His email address is available on the ECF website. Or you could ask your council representative (it's not a perfect system but most of us can find one) to get it on the agenda at council and obtain a resolution for it to be made a priority.

I'm probably not passionate enough. I just made a point of an item where I see the ECF effort failing to make an impact on FIDE rules where other federations did. This just as an example to counter the claim of the ECF "fighting" with FIDE and being very influential. The current priorities of the ECF within FIDE are clearly different, you can't see much else other than "getting rid of Kirsan". That might as well be the right thing to do, I'm too far from those discussions to tell. But it's definitely not the only thing that could be done.

About my council representative, I really have no clue who that might be. The "gold members representative" names are probably listed on the ECF website but when I tried to contact them before the elections last October I got no reply whatsoever.