Stewart commendably supports Ben by mentioning his team captaincy: however, it should not be overlooked that Paul himself has contributed tremendously at club and county level; perhaps not as long as I have, for Paul would have had to have begun at the age of nine to match me; and, certainly, he can't challenge Stewart's longevity when it comes to chess organisation, for Paul would have had to have been active pre-birth.
It is unfortunate that many have responded as if Paul had cried havoc and unleashed the dogs of war, he has made some pertinent comments, not all of which I propose to address. Indeed, perhaps, Carl might consider moving the club verses Internet debate to another forum, for I'm not convinced it should be discussed under ECF matters. Not that I have ever stood for a rigid adherence to convention. OTB verses the Internet always brings to my mind the Windoze-Linucks (sic) wars, they go on and on, yelling at the unconverted with no change in attitude in prospect. Perhaps John Upham should set up a poll, although I fear the choice of voting medium dictates the outcome?
Ben Purton wrote:
I could understand the critisism of my "list 99" comment from another poster, perhaps I was a bit over the top with that.
Chess has always had its share of oddballs, not only was the choice of language "over the top", it was also wildly inaccurate. The boom was unambiguously a consequence of the Fischer-Spassky match of 1972. It is a pity that nothing has come near it subsequently. When I was a club secretary, my attitude was that the club should accept anyone, unless their behaviour was impossible. For instance I know of one adult at a tournament who behaved aggressively towards a young child, so aggressively that the boy was reduced to tears. Had this been a one-off, I'd have been all in favour of letting him in, but all the evidence was the other way. Happily this individual applied to join a different club instead, who unwisely allowed him to join; it occasioned no astonishment to me to learn that this same individual lifted up a clock and hurled it at the secretary of that club, breaking the timepiece. Does one ban, the blind, the deaf, the autistic? I hope not.
I once had a conversation with a poet (dare one write poetess any more?
) in which I mentioned chess's oddball image to her. I suggested that more women might help counter this public perception. She not only rejected this viewpoint, she refuted it; for she pointed out that poetry has an oddball image too, and there are plenty of women who like poetry. A better perspective is that this country has a long anti-intellectual tradition. We all know that chess players come from diverse backgrounds, but Joe Public does not, nor will he ever be sufficiently interested to be bothered.
As Claire Summerscale knows what I look like, and reads these forums,
I shall hastily explain my attitude to women in chess. To me they make for a much better atmosphere, they also constitute half the country's population, it is a pity that more cannot be cajoled into playing: yes, sexism has something to do with it, it must also be intimidating to turn up at a venue with wall-to-wall men; yet games like football are even more sexist, without putting women off. Only a misogynist could object to more women. Should disproportionate resources be allocated to women's chess? On a purely numerical basis, no; for one can obtain more bang for chess's limited buck by targeting juniors of both sexes: but giving a marginal preference to women's chess over men's? why not? I am not arguing for prizes for women to be higher, prizes should be a function of how well a player has done in a contest.
Ben Purton wrote:
However I dont really understand this "mouse" analogy you use.
By what your saying, your firstly being critical of my postings on such things as one member one vote and womens chess etc. If you care to disagree with this please specify which topic instead of simply saying "long drival".
Firstly, to show there is no ill will, one question you asked previously in this forum was who was your London League representative? for years and years it was Alan Martin, not to be confused with the highly capable Andrew Martin. Unless things have changed recently, it is still Alan.
Now for something you won't like so much, in my defence I'll quote a precedent; le Tondu endeavoured to have complaints looked at, if he thought they were justified, he did something about them. I hope you can approach what is written below with a similar attitude.
What you write above encapsulates some of Paul's objections, at least so far as I understand them. I do not believe that Paul wrote, literally: "long drival". It is misspelt, and Paul does not make many spelling errors, you do. I'm not going to say, learn to spell, if one has been badly taught at school, it is a difficult problem to overcome. However, assuming you have administrative privileges on the computer you use to post here, you could download the Firefox browser: it can be obtained from
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/ . Having downloaded the installer and scanned it for viruses, you should install it, then look to adding a *British* English dictionary from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3 . Other browsers also have spelling facilities, I'm sure someone can point you in the right direction should you prefer not to use Firefox. Assuming you are using Firefox, every time you edit a post that you intend to submit here, spelling errors will be underlined in red: to correct them, right click with your mouse and select the appropriate alternative, if available. Unfortunately, this will not save you from burying sentiment in sediment, but it's a start. It should only add a minute, at most, to your editing time, assuming you can touch type.
There are other errors in what you write above, for instance: "However I dont .."; however, I won't press too hard here, one step at a time. I am not arguing for error free posts, this is impractical, indeed impossible; but better is desirable. It is desirable as it shows that the writer cares about what he writes, language is a means of thinking; clarity enables others to get your drift; certainly some writers prefer more complicated structures, but careful reading, plus a dictionary, should ordinarily be sufficient. How can one assume that a message has been understood if it has been conveyed in a non-standard way?
Ben Purton wrote:
I think Club's are good for matches, in your example you use matches. But actual clubnights to me are a thing which will continue to decline over the future. Clubs are more "teams" than clubs these days.
It has always been the case that club nights have been dominated by team matches for many clubs. The first club I belonged to was Islington; that had an active club night on Fridays, sans matches, but few of the stronger players put in an appearance. There are still clubs with a non-team ethos on certain evenings.
Ben Purton wrote:
Before the growth of ICC and Internet chess in general, club nights played an essential role in promoting a players game.
Not true. Many players improved by playing competitive games, not necessarily at clubs, and self-study; plus, in a few instances, tuition. I can't think of a single player, say above 220 ECF, who would credit his advancement to a talking shop of weak players. Certainly Fischer in New York benefited from a club night, but he was talking to strong players; whether this, in the final analysis, adding to his playing strength, I have no idea. This is not to disparage a weak player, a relative term anyway; however, someone graded below 120, say, is unlikely to have something playing-wise of value to say to a player of 190, say, which is unknown to the latter. Some of the best organisers I have met do not have a high grade, there is no correlation between chess grade and ability in other areas, at least none I have seen. A chess player with a high grade has shown he is good at chess, nothing more. I welcome the participation of players of all strengths, we all admire the game.
Ben Purton wrote:
For players who like to watch GM games, you cannot find that in local clubs easily.
In London we are spoilt, just log onto the London League website to see when Athenaeum and Wood Green first teams are playing.
