Olympiad

[CliveHill]

Point taken - patience is not my strong point, which is why I have to take a zen like pause before starting the longer game. Or so I learnt last summer!

[Roger de Coverly]

The Olympiad is in trouble.

The background to this appears that the Norwegians discovered in 2010 that to get the Olympiad in 2014, they also had to run the World Cup in 2013. What they should have done, but apparently didn't, was to go back to their main sponsor, the Norwegian government, for more money. Alternatively they could have told FIDE that a World Cup bid was not on the table. Presumably they assumed that either the government or commercial sponsorship would make up the funding gap.

That might have been a valid assumption, but there was a change of government late in 2013, with the new Government whilst honouring previous commitments wasn't prepared to underwrite a blank cheque for sporting or cultural spending. Presumably the previous Government was prepared to finance the World Cup, otherwise it may have smelt a rat in being asked for part of the Olympiad funding a year early.

If the Olympiad gets cancelled what happens to the Congress and FIDE elections?

[Chris Rice]

According to the latest Chess Base article it looks like we are going to get a happy ending. The final papargraph says:

"Addendum: We have spoken to the organisers and [our] Chess Federation contacts in Norway and did not find the mood pessimistic or gloomy. They are working hard on a solution, and the prediction is that the Olympiad will go ahead as planned."

http://en.chessbase.com/post/trouble-in ... nderfunded

[Roger de Coverly]

According to the latest Chess Base article it looks like we are going to get a happy ending.

From which

In an interview, Børge Robertsen, Director of the Chess Olympiad, said that if the 15 million Kroner was not allocated, it would mean less hospitality for the participants, and a reduced cultural program and opening ceremony. In December, Robertsen had stated that things were on schedule.

A Google translate of one of the newspaper reports had "smaller meals" instead of "less hospitality", reminding you of someone's joke about arbiters and their affinity with pies (and Chinese takeaways etc.)

[Jonathan Rogers]

According to the latest Chess Base article it looks like we are going to get a happy ending. The final papargraph says:

"Addendum: We have spoken to the organisers and [our] Chess Federation contacts in Norway and did not find the mood pessimistic or gloomy. They are working hard on a solution, and the prediction is that the Olympiad will go ahead as planned."

http://en.chessbase.com/post/trouble-in ... nderfunded

Well, quite. I understand the need for scaremongering to find the extra funds but the fact remains that the shortfall is not all that large, relatively speaking. Why, I was at a Legal v Banks match the other day, in the Bronowski Cup, and I should think that if one had asked for a whipround to save the event, the other participants could have plugged the gap immediately ...

[Roger de Coverly]

What Robertsen says is no doubt true, but not the point. I spoke to them in Khanty, as lots of people did, and they knew perfectly well that they were bidding for the World Cup.

Contemporary reports bear this out.

http://www.chessdom.com/news-2010/norwa ... s-olympiad

They knew about the World Cup several months before Khanty. They've got more entries than they anticipated, which cannot help with their budget. According to a poster on chessvibes, they may have to supplement the available hotels with private accommodation.

But what will they do? There's an apparent shortfall in sponsorship income or excess of expenses and the Government is unwilling to make up the difference.

[NickFaulks]

They will spend the next two weeks praying that at the point where federations have to make a real commitment to sending teams, as opposed to expressing an interest in doing so, a reasonable number will drop out. It's unfortunate that thay have done such a good job telling us all that, after a few recent duds, this Olympiad is going to be excellent and is not one to be missed.

[Martin Crichton]

Might explain why I've heard nothing about my arbiting appointment!

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... iters.html


didn't see your name there Sean, unless you had a sex change and changed it to Lara Barnes

did see 3 IRL arbiters going.....

change your federation to IRL and you'll be flying..... bypass all the politics associated with being registered under ENG

get yourself on the IRL ticket for 2016

[Mike Truran]

Faroe Islands 4 England 1.

Maggie Thatcher, as they say in your language in the boxing bars around Madison Square Garden in New York: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!

[David Sedgwick]

Faroe Islands 4 England 1.

Normally about half the arbiters come from the host Federation. On this occasion the Norwegians indicated some time ago that they didn't have enough suitably qualified people of their own and would be including a number from other Scandinavian countries.

Hence the four Faroese arbiters come as no surprise.

... bypass all the politics associated with being registered under ENG

Sadly, there is something in that.

I won't be making any further comment in the near future.

[Martin Crichton]

Ireland chess playing population circa 1,000

England chess playing population circa 40,000

I wasn't aware of any special relationship that we (Ireland) had with the Norwegians!

[NickFaulks]

I was surprised at first by this list, but on closer analysis less so ( except by IRL - are they viewed as being on the extremity of the continent and therefore somewhat Nordic? ).

Take out Norway/Nordic and there simply weren't many Europe slots to go around. For major federations, one or two is par for the course and in some quarters the UK is seen as a single unit.... Lara had to go, after Turkey, so job done. I don't know how the ACP list played out, but it may have compounded the problem.

[Paolo Casaschi]

Ireland chess playing population circa 1,000

England chess playing population circa 40,000

Ireland is certainly over-represented, but this comparison is definitely unfair. FIDE can only look at the number of FIDE registered players, from the last rating list IRL has 819 active players while ENG has 3415.
Based on their 35035 active players, how many arbiters would you then expect from India?

Looking those numbers is actually interesting, the top 10 list has some surprising entries (I had to look up which country is IRI with 10213 active registered players):

Code: Select all

	   Fed	Active players
  1	IND	35035
  2	FRA	33845
  3	ESP	28115
  4	RUS	25296
  5	GER	19547
  6	TUR	14286
  7	GRE	12142
  8	IRI	10213
  9	ITA	10105
 10	POL	9884
 11	USA	9014
 12	CZE	7662
 13	HUN	6845
 14	BRA	6749
 15	SRI	5401
 16	SRB	5215
 17	SVK	4785
 18	COL	4634
 19	UKR	4522
 20	DEN	4399
 21	BEL	4370
 22	NED	4225
 23	CRO	4159
 24	AUT	4011
 25	POR	3722
 26	ROU	3684
 27	ARG	3527
 28	ENG	3415
 29	SLO	3141
 30	VEN	2884
 31	SUI	2634
 32	EGY	2468
 33	SWE	2342
 34	PER	2299
 35	NOR	2129
 36	ECU	2067
 37	AUS	2055
 38	MEX	2054
 39	BUL	1917
 40	CHI	1855
 41	CAN	1747
 42	RSA	1738
 43	LTU	1726
 44	PHI	1633
 45	SIN	1591
 46	MAS	1590
 47	ISR	1429
 48	CUB	1400
 49	DOM	1387
 50	UAE	1367
 51	BAN	1346
 52	AZE	1316
 53	KAZ	1253
 54	GEO	1252
 55	ISL	1217
 56	NEP	1126
 57	CHN	1072
 58	VIE	1066
 59	FIN	1061
 60	BOT	1032
 61	ALG	904
 62	BIH	878
 63	IRQ	857
 64	BOL	837
 65	CRC	832
 66	IRL	819
 67	BLR	764
 68	LAT	741
 69	JOR	737
 70	ARM	735
 71	ZAM	654
 72	URU	633
 73	EST	583
 74	ESA	550
 75	LBA	539
 76	TUN	534
 77	UZB	527
 78	MNE	480
 79	MDA	452
 80	SYR	437
 81	INA	419
 82	PUR	410
 83	SCO	408
 84	NGR	401
 85	ANG	395
 86	NCA	390
 87	KOR	374
 88	MAR	364
 89	PAR	359
 90	LIB	355
 91	LUX	350
 92	TTO	344
 93	THA	334
 94	MKD	328
 95	NZL	328
 96	CYP	310
 97	WLS	307
 98	BAR	261
 99	PLE	255
100	TKM	251
101	BRN	247
102	HKG	247
103	SUR	233
104	FAI	228
105	KGZ	227
106	UGA	224
107	PAN	222
108	KSA	214
109	MGL	201
110	YEM	193
111	HON	189
112	JAM	183
113	ZIM	170
114	KEN	162
115	ALB	155
116	MLT	153
117	JPN	147
118	BRU	141
119	SUD	134
120	GUA	128
121	MTN	128
122	JCI	104
123	PLW	102
124	TJK	102
125	MAD	101
126	KUW	99
127	FIJ	91
128	AFG	89
129	AHO	85
130	PAK	79
131	QAT	79
132	AND	76
133	ARU	64
134	FID	62
135	TPE	62
136	MAW	59
137	MNC	58
138	MYA	57
139	MDV	55
140	BHU	54
141	BAH	53
142	NAM	52
143	MAC	49
144	GHA	47
145	BER	45
146	ETH	45
147	TAN	40
148	CMR	38
149	GUM	38
150	GUY	38
151	LAO	38
152	GAM	32
153	SOL	30
154	SOM	28
155	TOG	28
156	SEY	26
157	TLS	25
158	LES	24
159	RWA	20
160	MOZ	19
161	MRI	19
162	SWZ	18
163	HAI	17
164	COM	16
165	ISV	15
166	PNG	14
167	CGO	12
168	LIE	12
169	GCI	11
170	MLI	10
171	OMA	10
172	SEN	10
173	SMR	10
174	BDI	9
175	STP	8
176	GAB	6
177	IVC	5
178	SLE	5
179	CAM	4
180	IVB	2
181	CAF	1

The top 9 countries count for more than 50% of the players. I wonder how many people would like to see FIDE run exclusively by those 9 countries...

[Martin Crichton]

the actual players I referred to (playing population)

from the ECF grading database

The database includes everyone who has played graded chess, even 1 game, since the early 1990s. Currently (May 2014) the total is 105,878 players, of whom 12,087 have current grades.

I stand corrected... still about 10:1 roughly in line with the populations

[Roger de Coverly]

Ireland is certainly over-represented, but this comparison is definitely unfair. FIDE can only look at the number of FIDE registered players, from the last rating list IRL has 819 active players while ENG has 3415.
Based on their 35035 active players, how many arbiters would you then expect from India?

You are misinterpreting the statistics. The number you are quoting are the totals of those who have ever played a potentially FIDE rated game and thus are on the ratings server.

Using FIDE's own definition of "active", having played a rated game in the last year, England's count is around 1250 and Ireland's about 200.

To get an accurate figure, one method is to look up the ranking of the lowest rated active player.
So for England
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=432741
giving a count of 1258
and for Ireland
http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2505665
giving a count of 199

So one way of looking at it, is that England are doing proportionately rather better than Ireland at enabling players to retain active ratings. Hardly surprising given the absence of rated events in Ireland.