Female Player Rule

[LozCooper]

I take the attitude though that when I play 4NCL I don't expect to be paid (which is just as well because I doubt anyone would pay me!)

I was informed that Moin pays you to play for West Bromwich in the Birmingham League. Maybe you should get him in charge of a 4NCL team?

Nice idea. Mind you, I'm having enough trouble winning games in the Birmingham League Division 2

[Alex Holowczak]

I take the attitude though that when I play 4NCL I don't expect to be paid (which is just as well because I doubt anyone would pay me!)

I was informed that Moin pays you to play for West Bromwich in the Birmingham League. Maybe you should get him in charge of a 4NCL team?

Nice idea. Mind you, I'm having enough trouble winning games in the Birmingham League Division 2

I wasn't going to mention that...

My match-winning swindle lost all significance when you lost to Simon Smith.

[IngridLauterbach]

Does anybody know the exact numbers of female players in the 4 NCL for the last few seasons?
At the webpage http://www.4ncl.co.uk/growth.htm, (which shows only statistics till 05/06) the number of women playing in that season is given as 98 (for all divisions) - which seems a relative high number to me. Did the change of the rules for division 2/3 have any influence on these numbers?

I find it not easy to understand, why it is so difficult to find sufficient numbers of women players. On the other hand I also would not agree with the statement of Jonathan:

And indeed, if you are a woman, much of your 4NCL experience will be winning points for your team by default.

Except one season I played regularly since the very beginning, if I do remember correctly, I got in all these years two defaults -which I admit, nevertheless annoyed me and if this would happen more often, this really could become a reason not to play..

[Ola Winfridsson]

From personal experience (Poisoned Pawns 2nd team mainly), one of the big problems is that female juniors, just like their male counterparts, give up chess in big numbers when they get into their teens (as happens in any other sport/game), and given that there a fewer girls playing overall, this problem becomes extra noticeable in the 4NCL where there is a requirement to field a female player.

Re the loan idea, I believe that's already allowed (PP borrowed a female junior from Numerica 3Cs a few seasons ago).

[Sean Hewitt]

Re the loan idea, I believe that's already allowed (PP borrowed a female junior from Numerica 3Cs a few seasons ago).

I don't think that is allowed you know!

[LozCooper]

Re the loan idea, I believe that's already allowed (PP borrowed a female junior from Numerica 3Cs a few seasons ago).

I don't think that is allowed you know!

Without knowing the specific case I imagine a player can transfer if he hasn't played for the team he was registered for but I doubt he could play for more than 1 team (other than 1st and 2nd team etc) in a season

[Alan Walton]

Regarding the loan of a 3Cs player

From what I remember is that Robyn Smith was originally registered as 3Cs, but was unlikely to play so we allowed her to play for Poisoned Pawns to get experience

But I think what happened one weekend, with agreement from team captains, was that Robyn played on Saturday for PP but on the Sunday was going to have a defaulted game, so she was allowed for her to play for 3Cs on the Sunday so she didn't miss out on a game (an adult 3Cs player stepped down) and the game counted as normal for 3Cs

I think this was an exceptional circumstance and only occurred the once

Alan

[Ola Winfridsson]

Sean, Loz and Alan: Yes, that was the case. RS hadn't played for Numerica and was too far down the list to realistically get that many games, so we had her on loan for a season or two. She was of course registered for us, but the understanding was that she would return to Numerica once she was strong enough to make their team (the following season of course, not the same one!). Sadly though, if I remember correctly she quit chess only halfway through the season after she'd returned to Numerica from Poisoned Pawns.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Hi Ingrid, great to see you on this forum, and on this thread in particular.

Of course, I wouldn't be Jonathan if I didn't search through my memory relating to Barbican 4NCL history. I think you have had three defaults when playing for us: Barbican 1 v 3Cs (September 2006) Barbican 1 v Slough Sharks 1 (September 2007) and Barbican 1 v Richmond (May 2008). Richmond did at least treat all our women players equally towards their end - the following season they defaulted a game against Natasha (December 2008) and another against Kanwal (in the match against Barbican 2, March 2009) too!

Natasha also had a default win v Guildford 2 a few weeks ago. That, in fact, is what has kicked off this present debate - Nigel Povah finally had had enough and asked for the compulsory rule in division one to be reconsidered. It is worth bearing in mind that Nigel is prepared in principle to pay expenses for women players, but still he could not find one.

By comparison there must be many men (playing above board eight) who have never had a default win in the 4NCL and very few indeed who have had more than two. Thus my earlier comment.

As to the wider question, why is it so difficult to find women players - well, does anyone know the answer? It seems to me that far more women play in Germany and France and I would be curious to hear opinions at to what that is so. These are the most suitable countries with which to compare, I think, because these are also countries where bright young women are generally expected to study hard for exams during their teens, and to go to University and find jobs (outside chess). We say that this is a problem for women's chess in England. So it is, but one wonders, why not to the same extent elsewhere?

[Peter Rhodes]

It seems to me that far more women play in Germany and France and I would be curious to hear opinions at to what that is so.

Yes that's true, I thought I might just add a snippet of information to support your point.

Back when I played in Division4 our female player (whose name escapes me after all this time) actually lived and worked in Germany and commuted over just to play. We're not talking about a titled player here (around 1800-1900 strength iirc) , just someone who loved to play chess !

I think she worked for Lufthansa in their head office doing some kind of IT role. So she probably got cheap (or maybe free) flights - but even so - that's pretty impressive.

As to why female players in UK are so hard to find - I've shared my views before and I am afraid they are a bit cliched - but imho it's all down to image and a particularly British problem.

[Alan Walton]

I have to agree with Peter is someway

When 3Cs were playing in the 4NCL we found it alot easier to get Dutch female players playing for us in the 4NCL, though we did this because of the lack of depth in British female players to be able to compete at the top level

It seems like there is a general failing in the rule if teams have to importing strong female players to be competitive, is this really helping British female chess?

I think it maybe time to either abolish the rule altogether, or as an intermediate step, expand the rule to incorporate junior's under 16 years old (currently Div 2 rule), giving these players more opportunity at highest level and thus gaining valuable experience for the future

Alan

[Matthew Turner]

I believe that the UK Chess Challenge may have had a more significant impact on female participation in chess than the 4NCL. Young girls can very quickly get a lot of recognition and the appearance of success at a regional or even national level. However, then when it comes to competing at other events it can be very tough. I imagine at 6, 7 or 8 it is very difficult to go from the perception of being an elite player to sometimes (quite literally) learning the moves. It is perhaps not surprising that many girls choose to give up.
I do not know how we address this, but I certainly think the lack of girls playing in England (I'll not comment about Wales and Scotland) will cause problems if the 4NCL tries to maintain the 'female player rule' in its current form in future years.

[Ian Thompson]

Natasha also had a default win v Guildford 2 a few weeks ago. That, in fact, is what has kicked off this present debate - Nigel Povah finally had had enough and asked for the compulsory rule in division one to be reconsidered. It is worth bearing in mind that Nigel is prepared in principle to pay expenses for women players, but still he could not find one.

None of Guildford's female players were available for the last 4NCL weekend, so Nigel needed two new players, but only managed to find one for the 1st team. When he asked for help from the rest of the team he did say that he would only consider women based in the UK.

As to the wider question, why is it so difficult to find women players - well, does anyone know the answer? It seems to me that far more women play in Germany and France and I would be curious to hear opinions at to what that is so.

Maybe recognising chess as a sport has a noticeable effect. Parents and children may think that something that is a recognised sport must be worth doing, but something that is merely a game isn't.

Funding could be a factor in France. When I played in the French League about 10 years ago, there was a requirement that each team included a French female player. As a sporting organisation, Le Havre chess club got a lot of money from the local authority, so they were able to field a reasonably strong woman who lived in Lille, pay a couple of GMs to play and cover expenses for the likes of me travelling from England.

[LozCooper]

Nice idea. Mind you, I'm having enough trouble winning games in the Birmingham League Division 2 [/quote]

I wasn't going to mention that...

My match-winning swindle lost all significance when you lost to Simon Smith. [/quote]

Ah, was that the Rc1-h1 perpetual? Very neat defence if I've remembered the right game.

[Michele Clack]

I hadn't realised just how many teams there were in the 4NCL now. It would be pretty much impossible to find enough English women to fill the spots. Despite a lowly ECF grade of 124 I am actually just inside the top 100 English women on the ECF grading database.

In Holland I believe that chess is taught in schools in a systematic way. In England I think girls just don't see chess as something that girls do. The Junior School chess club that I run has no girls at all this year. To increase female participation later on you need to have a lot more girls introduced to chess initially. Nothing short of chess being a compulsory school subject is likely to change the situation.