Media comments on chess

[Roger de Coverly]

In such cases where both
players were due a white would it not suffice to do the pawns behind the back routine.

That used to be the method or an equivalent, "random" pairings.

"Random" pairings are now unpopular, because of the fear that it enables arbiters to be partial towards some players more than others. So pairing systems are supposed to be deterministic. Given the same sets of data and the same set of rules, all arbiters or their programs would be expected to come up with the same set of pairings.

As regards the Board 1 colour in the first round, tournaments have different rules. The British Championship has the rule that the top seed is White in odd numbered years. That's a tournament where in the past and present, the top seed was likely to be the same player for several years running. e2e4 link it to the result of a recent sporting event. Others don't disclose.

[Adam Raoof]

In Hampstead we just use the Swiss Manager facility for generating a random colour for board one. In Golders Green we used to choose a random colour for the Open and then alternate for each section.

[LawrenceCooper]

In such cases where both
players were due a white would it not suffice to do the pawns behind the back routine.

That used to be the method or an equivalent, "random" pairings.

"Random" pairings are now unpopular, because of the fear that it enables arbiters to be partial towards some players more than others. So pairing systems are supposed to be deterministic. Given the same sets of data and the same set of rules, all arbiters or their programs would be expected to come up with the same set of pairings.

As regards the Board 1 colour in the first round, tournaments have different rules. The British Championship has the rule that the top seed is White in odd numbered years. That's a tournament where in the past and present, the top seed was likely to be the same player for several years running. e2e4 link it to the result of a recent sporting event. Others don't disclose.

My all-play-alls were often done based on a coin toss at a sporting event (eg a tennis or cricket match) so it was strictly 50-50 if players would get 5 whites or 5 blacks.

[JustinHorton]

Unusual venue

[Stewart Reuben]

When lumbered with the need to decide on who is to have White on board 1 of a Swiss, I seldom toss a coin because I do it so badly. So I commonly use a black pawn and a white pawn in my hands for one of the two players to make a choice.
e2e4 have an excellent system to do it in advance. They choose perhaps a football match which is televised. Then, if there is an odd number of goals, the higher rated gets White on odd. If it is even, he gets Black. 0-0 is counted as odd.

Most pairings are now computerised.
Player A has gone WBWB and player B BWBW. Clearly A gets White in round 5.
A hs gone WWBB and B WBWB. A gets W as 3 in a row is very much frowned upon.
But what is 1 has gone WBWB and 2 WBWB? Then the higher ranked player gets alternation. Assuming it is 1, when WBWBW for him. I use the term ranking, not rating as they may have the same rating. Then the one given the lower pairing number is ranked higher.

You expect players who have more Whites to finish higher in the tournament table. Thus there is often an imbalance of colours. On high boards, more people seeking Black. On low boards more people seeking White. There were elaborate ways introduced in Britain to overcome this is the 1970s, but interest in this seems to have died.

If you have a tournament with 9 rounds, getting White in round 1 is a considerable advantage. You get off to a better start. You are likely to have White in the last round. You will probably have 5 Whites. Gibraltar has 10 rounds. The disadvantaged of that is that some players will get 6 of 1 colour and 4 of the other.

We seem to have moved away from media comments!

[Kevin Thurlow]

I have also used the date to determine colour of top seed in round 1- odd numbered date, white; even numbered date, black.

[Stewart Reuben]

Kevin >I have also used the date to determine colour of top seed in round 1- odd numbered date, white; even numbered date, black.<


But there are more odd numbered days in the calendar. That gives a small bias in favour of the top seed.

[Geoff Chandler]

'We seem to have moved away from media comments!'

“Tennis is like chess at 90 mph.” Robin Williams.

http://www.insidetennis.com/2011/12/ten ... ning-life/

Thanks for the answers about ways arbiters have overcome the pawns behind the back method.
You could roll dice rather than tossing coins or choosing the date. Just a thought.

[Stewart Reuben]

The Times Monday 11 July. Page 10 extract.
ANGELA EAGLE M.P.
Profile written by Henry Zeffman..
Angela Eagle introduced herself yesterday as the woman ready to topple Jeremy Corbyn, putting her party loyalty, political skill and wide-ranging support at the heart of her pitch for the Labour leadership
Longstanding friends will know that she has done this before. At a meeting of the British Women's Chess Association in Torquay in August 1982 the organisation's president was ruthlessly removed in a coup engineered by two young chess champions, Ms Eagle and her twin, Maria, who is also a Labour M.P.
The group's meetings were usually genteel gatherings of volunteer officials but this time the Eagles arrived with a large group of proxy voters in tow, who swiftly installed Maria as president with Angela at her side.
More than three decades on, Ms Eagle finds herself on the other side of the chessboard, protecting an organisation's old guard from a disruptive influx.
The article then continues...

I don't know Henry Zeffman, but his comment on the BWCA is very accurate.
But I never even thought to mention that coup in my write-up on the Torquay 1982 British Championships. Sheila Jackson only scored 5.5/11, but her 3rd round encounter with Ray Keene attracted considerable media attention. The game started on Wednesday and concluded on Saturday with a win for the GM. Leonard Barden had realised this might spark media interest and wrote about it in the Guardian and a controversy between Sheila and the ECF about whether there should be favourable treatment for female participation in the Championship.

Neither Eagle twins played in any of the formal events in the congress. A word of warning though. After they took over the BWCA, there was no substantial activity by the organisation for some years.

See the thread on Angela on this site.

[Roger de Coverly]

Neither Eagle twins played in any of the formal events in the congress. A word of warning though. After they took over the BWCA, there was no substantial activity by the organisation for some years.

I have a vague recollection of this. It seems they preferred playing the game of politics to the game of chess. Perhaps they should have concentrated their efforts on becoming FM or IM standard. British chess in that respect has gone backwards. We had three home grown female IMs in Susan, Harriet and Jovanka not so many years after the BWCA coup, but none since.

[Matt Mackenzie]

IIRC Sheila Jackson was a beneficiary of that "coup", at the expense of Dr Jana Miles (as she then was)

Letters were exchanged on the subject between them in CHESS magazine.

[Stewart Reuben]

The Child Genius series started again last night on Channel 4. There were chess sets scattered round in the play room, but no sign in the first episode of any other chess activity. I don't know whether any strong chessplaying competitors are taking part this year.

[Roger de Coverly]

IIRC Sheila Jackson was a beneficiary of that "coup", at the expense of Dr Jana Miles (as she then was)

Was the argument about whether the British Ladies (Women's) title holder should be the best performer against her rivals in a restricted tournament or whether it should be the best performer in an "open" tournament? Eventually the BCF opted for the "open" approach, which paralleled the changes to the junior titles, where separate sections for under 21 and under 18 were abolished. The abolition of separate female junior events preceded the changes to the British Championship proper.

It's not something that's been embraced in the Seniors Arena. Whoever wins the Over 50 tournament is unlikely to be the best player of that age, even though, for the time being, the winner of the Over 65 could be.

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger >It's not something that's been embraced in the Seniors Arena. Whoever wins the Over 50 tournament is unlikely to be the best player of that age, even though, for the time being, the winner of the Over 65 could be.<

I did recommend the British 50+ be subsumed within the British Championship. Then a GM would win it. The separate British 50+ could then be described as British Open 50+. But this idea was ignored. It is difficult as it would not be open, being limited to British Isles players.

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't think anyone has linked to this report yet.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/educa ... 34176.html

Bad news if true for some of influence in the chess world.