British Championship 2014 Schedule

[Jonathan Bryant]

[
Although those events have just one place each, whereas the Major Open has a variable number (all players who achieve a certain score qualify).

Good point, which I’d forgotten.

Well, if the tournament as it stands offers me a decent chance of qualifying for the British Championship then it’s clearly not fit for purpose.


I understand the financial logic of trying to get everybody qualified for the British but I don’t particularly like it. If it must be like this, why don’t they just be honest and say 'anybody who’s prepared to pay can enter?'

[Dewi Jones]

Can we just turn up on the day for the weekenders or do we need to register beforehand?

[ThomasThorpe]

Turn up on the day - preferably an hour before it starts. If you can send an email to [email protected] it would be much appreciated

Tom

[Alistair Campbell]

Did he ever?

The winner of the World Amateur was awarded the FM title. This was played at Hasting one year and Jessie Gilbert was awarded the title. I believe there was a plan to incorporate the World Amateur into the Major Open one year, but I don't recall if it actually happened. I certainly don't think the FM title has generally gone with the Major Open.

It happened in 2004 - http://www.chessscotland.com/archives/Brit2004.htm. Thanks for answering the question though.

Although it was reported that Joe Redpath had won the FM title and an IM norm for his Major Open victory, I don't believe this actually happened. I'm not sure what the story was.

[MartinCarpenter]

I think they wouldn't like 'anyone who can pay can enter' because the lure of a british championship qualifying space is still - perhaps! - a useful marketing tool for the weekend congresses able to offer it. Or perhaps its so devalued that it doesn't work anymore?

It looks rather like the MO might be dying of natural causes, which would force some sort of change. 74 in 2011 in Sheffield, 52 in 2013 and about 25 this time round. Maybe it has always fluctuated rather.

[Roger de Coverly]

Maybe it has always fluctuated rather.

With the exception of the Isle of Man in 2005, the Major Open entries were always at least 60 as late as 2010 in Canterbury.

The ECF has made qualification for the British easier in at least two ways:-
(a) by awarding places to all FIDE rated tournaments including the supporting events at the British.
(b) Not enforcing any tie-breaks thereby allowing multiple qualifiers from the same tournament.

The demographics underlying the growth in numbers of the British Seniors also undermines the Major open.

This year the Major Open and British overlapped with the final days of school terms for a number of players. Not just pupils, but teachers as well. Having parallel events to the Major Open also offering qualifying places also directly undermines it.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I think they wouldn't like 'anyone who can pay can enter' because the lure of a british championship qualifying space is still - perhaps! - a useful marketing tool for the weekend congresses able to offer it.

This is the argument that is made every year. I don’t find it convincing.

How many entrants to tournaments have a realistic chance of getting a qualifying spot. Of those are only playing in the event to get a chance of qualifying for the British?

That’s leaving aside issues of why tournament players should get chances to qualify for the british championship when higher rated club players who don’t play in tournaments don’ and why anybody should anybody have to enter a tournament they’d rather not play in just so they can get a chance of entering a tournament that they would like to play in.

That’s also leaving aside the fact that you can already phone up and ask to play the money and you’ve a chance of being let in - as was pointed out on these boards during Sheffield.

[Roger de Coverly]

How many entrants to tournaments have a realistic chance of getting a qualifying spot?

Anyone capable of scoring 3.5 or more in a weekend Open can seize a qualifying spot if there is one available. That's particularly towards the end of the season when many of the higher rated players will already be qualified.

[Adam Raoof]

Having a qualifying spot for the British does lend an event a certain amount of kudos - I know that when we have standard FIDE Open events at Golders Green (next one 23-25 August!) I get quite a few players who are interested in qualifying and who know that towards the end of the season they can sneak a BCQ with a slightly lower score because of all the pre-qualified players. Whether they would have played if there had not been a qualifying place is a moot point.

The main 'problem' is the British itself, not the satellite tournaments. I don't honestly think that most organisers, if starting from scratch and trying to maximise entry numbers / prestige, would end up with the current format or venues.

[Jonathan Bryant]

How many entrants to tournaments have a realistic chance of getting a qualifying spot?

Anyone capable of scoring 3.5 or more in a weekend Open can seize a qualifying spot if there is one available. That's particularly towards the end of the season when many of the higher rated players will already be qualified.

I’m aware of this, of course. I’m not convinced it’s a strength of a system. Nor do I see why the ECF would want to encourage people to enter tournaments at the end of the season rather than the start. Or, to put it another way, why should tournament organisers who run events towards the beginner of the playing year be disadvantaged.

We could examine entries to Adam’s tournaments, I suppose. See if there’s a difference in entries throughout the year for the key 'likely to score 3.5 or more' demographic. But then, that could be affected by many factors.

[IM Jack Rudd]

On the subject of the overall strength of the British, I notice that the unseeded player on board 2 in this year's first round was Jeremy Menadue, playing in his first British since 1995. In the first round of that year, he was... the unseeded player on board 2.

[Roger de Coverly]

playing in his first British since 1995.

Some other highlights from that year, also played in Swansea.

There were only 52 players, with the Olympiad team missing.

Sadler won with 8.5, Summerscale second with 8, Levitt, Parker and Arkell with 7.5, Ward, Turner, Howell (James), Hebden and Bates with 7.

In total there had been 923 entries but

with a record number of entries for the Major Open

It was also observed

Clearly this is the impetus caused by bring the FIDE rating list down to 2005

The Major Open also incorporated the U-18 titles, won by Adam Hunt and Mandy Haslinger.

Jeremy had presumably been 28th seed in 1995. I'm not sure if he had a FIDE rating, but it could well have been around 2200, despite his BCF grade of around 185. The effect for "170/180 players" of the new FIDE cutoff of 2000 was that it flattered you by only rating your better performances.

Future GMs are shown in the report (which goes down to 6 points) with low ratings. Nick Pert is 2160, Luke McShane 2170 and Simon Williams 2250.

[Lewis Martin]

Well, how would you quantify the 'overall strength' of the British?

Using one player that plays once every while in the British isn't really a good metric. (By the way Jack, excellent win today, was following it this afternoon!)

While last year was a special event, it seems to be not too dissimilar to this year with regards to the ratings of the higher seeds and lower seeds. For example, I was 2043 this time last year, and played Alex Longson who was 2279 at the time if memory serves me correctly. This is similar to the first round pairing of Tambini-Rudd this year.

However, what has changed is the board number where this is. That is simply due to the fact that there were more people playing last year. Though the higher boards in the first round last year were higher rated since Paul Girdlestone, 2155 at the time, just missed the cut off to play the top seed. However you could argue that this is also in part due to some more GMs there, GMs Jones, Gordon, Gormally and Kosten come to mind.

I don't think anyone is going to care too much about this as to devise some kind of metric to compare different competitions.... (Chris Kreuzer, I'm looking at you )

[IM Jack Rudd]

The British Championship itself has an interesting mix of aims. It aims to (a) be a national championship, (b) be a place where people can realistically gain title norms, and (c) not cause the entire event to make a big financial loss. Aim (c) conflicts rather heavily with (a) and (b), which doesn't help.

In terms of its meeting its aims this year, I do not have the relevant info for (c) to hand. For the others: (a) - we have one of the six eligible 2600+ players playing, which is something. The tournament's seemed to do OK over the last few years; the winners from 2009 onwards have been Howell, Adams, Adams, Jones and Howell, all of whom are in the England Olympiad team.
(b) Seven GMs playing is plenty for a norm tournament of this size. Five IMs and five FMs, however, is not so good. It's something I think we need to look at in the future.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Well, how would you quantify the 'overall strength' of the British?

One of the things I did four years ago when I looked at this was to see where the entries in the field were in terms of rating spread. I found that most of the bloating of the field came below the mid-point of the elo-range but above the very bottom. A 'stronger' British (IMHO, at least) would be top-heavy or at least evenly spread.


One of the problems of having a large number of relatively modestly rated players (by British Championship standards) is that norms can be quite tricky because you have to play an awful lot of games before you get to the top guys. That’s after the first few rounds have come and gone, of course.

How successful has the British been as a norm generator in the 21st century?