Discuss revised England teams for 2010 Olympiad

[Roger de Coverly]

I stand corrected. Should've looked up the ratings rather then blindly follow the report. I presume once the Georgian team is announced they'll have a pretty reasonable line-up?

Players whose ratings are inactive have been shown as unrated.

Apart from WLS,SCO,IRL,JCI and GCI, other open teams with English based players are

Mauritius (Roy Phillips)
IBCA (Colin Crouch)
New Zealand (Nicolas Croad - currently of Reading).
Uganda (the Kawuma brothers)

[Paul Littlewood]

Why is there so much emphasis on rating these days ? I am sure the French team's order has been chosen taking into account a whole lot of factors of which rating is just one of them. Anyway a team which has less than 100 points difference between their highest and lowest rated can surely play their team in just about any order without upsetting people.

[Leonard Barden]

Ben Edgell: The top five Fide rated Georgian men average 2629, which is below England. Georgian women are a different matter and if entering will be medal contenders.

Incidentally if England women, currently seeded 37th, had been able to field our top five rated players they would be seeded 14th.

Paul Littlewood: In normal circumstances with Bacrot absent you would expect France to field Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, one of the best young players in the world, on Board 1. The fact that he is not suggests that Tkachiev's 2009 French title decided it.

[Alex Holowczak]

Germany are seeded 42nd, with their top four players refusing to take part.

See http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/arkad ... -olympiad/

So you think the ECF has problems?

"So, from a 110,000 Euro budget he manages for “top chess” in Germany, less than a quarter is left for the Olympiad for male and female teams combined."

So Germany's International budget is less 27,500 Euros (but presumably over 20,000 or so), and ours is £8,000 (+ Malcolm Pein)? Yet we have as full strength a team for the two competitions as we were going to get, and Germany can't afford it? I have a feeling this may be a case of inflated financial expectations from the Germans. Naiditsch seems to have unreasonable expectations; finding sponsorship really isn't easy. Perhaps easier in Germany than here, though.

I also think that Robert von Weizsäcker's letter to Naiditsch wasn't nearly as bad as he tried to make it sound.

I'm not sure what his criticism of Mr. Bonsch is about, he's obviously going to struggle to help a 2600+ chess player prepare for a game. If they don't have money for the team, they won't have money for a trainer, will they...

I think the only justified criticism there is of Mr. Alt's scheduling of the National Championship.

Modern chess players seem to have inflated expectations of the financial rewards of becoming a top player. As a result, nearly everything is in Russia, as they're the only country that can afford to fund all of the prize money the top players want to play for. There aren't enough sponsors coming in to chess to make that viable. Luckily, English players seem to realise this. Given that they probably aren't getting paid as much as other players in other countries to play in the Olympiad, I'm certainly happy (proud?) that they're playing for England for whatever little they're getting.

[harrylamb]

Harry Lamb panicked. Had he waited about 12 hours I would have found him accommodation, probably with the Scottish teams. He also lied to the Daily Telegraph about me.
Stewart Reuben

Stewart.

I was abroad on August 5 when you posted this and I have missed the comment until now. Saying I lied to a national newspaper about you is an allegation I take very seriously. I ask you to withdraw it.

If you are not prepared to withdraw it I ask you to state to me and this forum what the alleged lie was. I did not lie about you to the Daily Telegraph and you are blackening my character. If you do not withdraw I have the right to know what lie you are alleging so I can defend my reputation.

H Lamb

[Stewart Reuben]

Harry Lamb.
You effectively said to the Daily Telegraph that I had wilfully left you in the lurch, content because I was staying in a 4 star hotel and thus unconcerned about your welfare. You left Elista (site of the 1998 Olympiad) without ever having appraised me of your accommodation problems. I was left to find out that you had returned to England from others. We spoke extensively the night before you left. Had you told me it was unsatisfactory, I would have recommended you wait until the following day when other arrangements would be made. My accommodation to put it mildy was not four star, two star would have flattered it. My role, by the way, in Elista, was as a member of the Pairing Committee. I had no role there regarding accommodation, nor responsibility for the well-being of the English representatives. That said I was at the time Chairman of the BCF and thus was concerned with the welfare for all our participants.
Of course the newspaper may have misinterpreted what you had said to them. But you never made any effort to correct what seemed to me a deliberate, incorrect and painful slur on me. I did not rebut it at the time because I believed that might lead to further unfavourable publicity.
Stewart Reuben

[Alex Holowczak]

Maybe you two should settle this in private...

[Gavin Strachan]

Maybe you two should settle this in private...

I am enjoying this more than tv feel free to continue on the forum! No need to go private.

[Stewart Reuben]

Once Harry went public, I felt it necessary to respond. But I agree it should have been private.

Stewart Reuben

[harrylamb]

Once Harry went public, I felt it necessary to respond. But I agree it should have been private.

Stewart Reuben

I am running a weekend tournament this weekend. I will have more to say on this subject when the tournament is over. But in the meantime I do find Mr Reuben's post quoted above hypocritical. Eleven years after the event. With total silence from both of us for eleven years. Mr Reuben suddenly says "He (Harry Lamb) also lied to the Daily Telegraph about me (Stewart Rueben)." I would suggest that Mr Reuben is the one who went public. I said nothing for eleven years. Then Mr Reuben besmirched my character in public. Consequently I responded to his public and possibly libelous post.

I repeat. I ask Mr Reuben to withdraw his public statement of August 5 that "He (Harry Lamb) also lied to the Daily Telegraph about me (Stewart Reuben)"


Harry Lamb

[Sean Hewitt]

I repeat. I ask Mr Reuben to withdraw his public statement of August 5 that "He (Harry Lamb) also lied to the Daily Telegraph about me (Stewart Reuben)"


Harry Lamb

Actually, you asked Stewart to withdraw his statement OR state to the forum what the alleged lie was. Stewart has chosen the latter of the two options you asked him to consider.

If you are not prepared to withdraw it I ask you to state to me and this forum what the alleged lie was.

Whether what Stewart wrote is libellous or not rather depends on whether his version of events is true or not! You haven't actually commented on the content so we don't if his version of events is materially different to yours or not.

[John Upham]

Whether what Stewart wrote is libellous or not rather depends on whether his version of events is true or not!

When I considered mentioning a previous jail term of an individual I was advised that even though I was factually correct it could be considered defamatory to mention it.

I believe that the law of defamation has been modified over the last few years to include mentioning things that are true as well as less true or even false.

Maybe there is an expert on these matters who is a member of this esteemed forum?

[Rob Thompson]

I'm not an expert on libel law, but i know a decent amount about it.

Basically, Libel law is the only context in the British judicial system where you are guilty until proven innocent. This means that it is on the defendant (he who made the claim) to prove that it is true beyond reasonable doubt, rather that the prosecutor (he who found the claim libellous and sued) to prove that it's not true and caused damage.

If Stewart can prove to a high enough standard for a criminal court of law that what he said was totally true, then all is well and good.

In theory, anyway.

In reality, anyone with more funds than their opponent can grind them down through many legal proceedings until the defendant has to yield, regardless of the truth of the matter. This (or at least the prospect of it) is what happened in the cases of Nadhmi Auchi (link here) vs the Guardian; when the guardian published an article on his corruption, they were sued for libel. Despite the fact that they were correct (he was convicted in 2003 for corruption) they couldn't match Auchi's fund of billions, and so were forced to settle.

Another notable case was between Trafigura and the BBC. It followed a similar path. I will leave to you to research more into it if you wish, but my point is that whether the statement was found to be libellous or not depends far more on the funds available to prosecution and defence than it does on the actual truth on the matter

[Alex Holowczak]

but my point is that whether the statement was found to be libellous or not depends far more on the funds available to prosecution and defence than it does on the actual truth on the matter

Doesn't it make you proud to be British?

[Jonathan Rogers]

John, you can certainly mention that someone went to prison, if they did, even if your point is just to gloat (cf, every single newspaper in respect of Jeffrey Archer). But context does matter - beware that your text will be looked at as a whole, and it might be amenable to the interpretation that the person has, or might have, since reoffended.

Without judging, or even caring about, the merits of the dispute in this thread, it seems clear to me that Stewart should have raised them much nearer to the time, and initially in private too. There are many bad things about the law of defamation, but the fact that there is a one year time limit for bringing proceedings does send the appropriate message that aggrieved parties should settle the matter sooner rather than later.