Hastings 2010/11

[William Metcalfe]

Thanks for clearing that up Loz i was sat here trying to work out what i was missing lol

[Colin Gardiner]

not looking good for the status of the grand prix if even hastings cant get their results in within the required month.not sure that one month rule is working for the players.

[Roger de Coverly]

not looking good for the status of the grand prix if even hastings cant get their results in within the required month.not sure that one month rule is working for the players.

I don't think the Hastings Masters is included, which is odd given that the international rating of the event has been on the FIDE site for some weeks. I don't suppose it helps that I don't think there is a facility for the ECF grading system to accept data files in the FIDE format.

Checking the website shows the cross-tables for the "other" events having been generated by Tournament Director - which I thought could automatically generate rating files in the ECF format.

[Alex Holowczak]

Checking the website shows the cross-tables for the "other" events having been generated by Tournament Director - which I thought could automatically generate rating files in the ECF format.

I can confirm that TD can automatically generate both ECF grading files, and FIDE rating files.

[Sean Hewitt]

And the ECF can grade from FIDE rating files.

[Richard Haddrell]

I don't think the Hastings Masters is included, which is odd given that the international rating of the event has been on the FIDE site for some weeks.

... and the ECF can grade from FIDE rating files.

The ECF does grade from FIDE rating files when people send them. Hastings have not yet missed the Grand Prix deadline with the Masters.

not sure that one month rule is working for the players.

You could put it another way. Are congresses working for the players when they sit on results? The Grand Prix deadline was introduced so that the ongoing leader boards, published on the ECF website and updated every month or so, could be kept reasonably up to date. Last year’s leader boards were significantly affected, at the end of the season, by the sudden inclusion of events from many months back. There were complaints, unsurprisingly.

There will be congresses out there who haven’t heard about the deadline. Not that it hasn’t been advertised, but information takes a while to seep through sometimes. At a rough count, 142 congresses have reported so far this season; and 22 of them have been outside the deadline. (This excludes the deadline-missers who still haven’t reported, but I don’t think they can be very numerous.) So next year when everyone’s cottoned on, we extend it to grading, right? Well, it’s been suggested.

In case anyone’s wondering, the one-month deadline was not imposed by me. Wiser heads than mine make that sort of decision. I just press buttons to make leader boards.

Richard Haddrell
Grading Administrator, ECF

[Colin Gardiner]

so now its official hastings hasnt got its results in on time so all grand prix pts earned in all hastings trts completely wasted.pretty poor show.

[Andrew Farthing]

The failure to meet the 30-day deadline is a matter for the Hastings organisers, of course, but I'd be interested to know what the balance of views is about the rule itself.

As a regular congress player myself, I'm interested in the Grand Prix, and I sympathise with Colin's view that it's the players that are being penalised here. On the other hand, I also understand why those who complained about the old system felt the way they did and I can see why the change was made.

[Adam Raoof]

The ECF Grand Prix

“The Grand Prix is a year-long individual competition based on graded congresses and restricted to Direct Members of the Federation. All congresses graded by the ECF are included, provided their grading results reach the ECF within one month of the last day of the event. Leagues, knockouts, invitational events, team competitions, internal club competitions and matches are not included.” (http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=38#rules).

The definition of ‘reach the ECF’ is that they are with the Grading Administrator, Richard Haddrell, within the month.

The one month deadline was introduced in response to a complaint that results were not appearing in a timely fashion on the Prix leader boards.

One player wrote to the sponsors and to the Grading Administrator in June 2010. The point was made that individuals may choose whether to play in events based on the published standings, and if these are badly out of date, this may penalise contenders for the top spots.

We agreed. The ECF can only update leader boards (we aim for monthly) when we have the results and not all events are very prompt at sending grading files to the Administrator. At the time that the complaint was made we were still waiting for tournaments that had finished in December to report their results. This new rule was an attempt to rectify that situation.

In order to communicate this new rule, the following methods were used;

- An announcement was placed on the front page of the ECF website in (mid-July.)

- We amended the GP page, including an update to rules (in mid-July.)

- We arranged for the information to go in the automated response to online registration (in mid-July. )

- We informed all the graders, and asked them to remind congress organisers as required. (31st July)

- We announced it on the EC Forum, “ECF Matters | ECF Grand Prix”, (1st August.)

- We put a prominent announcement, in red, at the top of "Events Received for Grading 2010-11". The addition of "GP" by an event to indicate inclusion is a much later development.

It is now February 2011 and I can confirm that since it was introduced, reporting of results has significantly improved.

Nevertheless several established congresses and international tournaments have missed the deadline and their results have not yet been included in the Prix. This has led to a complaint from one player and the organisers of the tournament that he participated in that failed to meet the deadline. An energetic discussion between interested parties then followed. [I declare an interest here: investigating the other events that missed the deadline, I discovered that one was my own - the London Classic weekender and rapidplay.]

Tournaments have no excuse for sending in results for grading later than one month after the end of the event. The local grader may have the files, but the ultimate responsibility must lie with the organisers. Many events are run using software such as Tournament Director which has a full range of reports including the ability to generate ECF grading submission files. Even using software which is not generally used for ECF events, but for FIDE events with specific pairing rules and using Elo ratings it is possible to generate reports that are acceptable to the ECF Grading Administrator.

We think the rule is good. We therefore either apply the rule, or we don't. To avoid accusations of preferential treatment for one tournament over another we cannot practically have a situation where a person or a committee decides whether a tournament has valid reasons for missing a deadline, and another does not.

However, the remit of the ECF Director of Home Chess is to support the congress circuit and to increase the number of people playing in tournaments. I hope that the Grand Prix has a positive effect, and would hope to magnify its effect over the coming years. Therefore in this first year of the new, tough, rule I am obviously torn between making allowances for / penalising events who miss the deadline for grading, as the actual outcome of that is to penalise the players competing in those events, which must be considered unfair.

I note that many significant events do not even mention the ECF Grand Prix on their website or entry form, but nevertheless form part of the Prix. The ECF needs a volunteer to contact tournament organisers and encourage them to promote the Prix, and to remind organisers of their responsibilties regarding grading of events. We think we have such a volunteer now, and we will be chasing up organisers. However it is still the organisers responsibilty to read the rules of the ECF Grand Prix and to meet their requirements.

After consultation, I have therefore decided the following;
All events outstanding which took place prior to 18th January 2011 have a further two weeks from this date (i.e. until Friday 4th March) to submit grading to Richard Haddrell.
Any such event outstanding after that date, or events completed post 18 January arriving over a month late as stated in the rules, will not be included in the Prix.
In acknowledgement that not all events appear to have been aware of the 30-day rule to this point, any events who have already submitted but were late, will nevertheless be included in the Prix.

[Carl Hibbard]

The failure to meet the 30-day deadline is a matter for the Hastings organisers, of course, but I'd be interested to know what the balance of views is about the rule itself.

Who were the organisers?

[David Sedgwick]

The failure to meet the 30-day deadline is a matter for the Hastings organisers, of course, but I'd be interested to know what the balance of views is about the rule itself.

Who were the organisers?

The membership of the Committee of the Hastings International Chess Congress is as follows:

President: The Right Worshipful the Mayor of Hastings, Councillor Kim Forward

Chairman: Paul R Smith

Congress Director: Con Power

Congress Secretary: Alan Hustwayte

Congress Treasurer: Ann Penfold

Publicity Officer: Pam Thomas

Chief Arbiter: David Welch

International Consultant: Stewart Reuben

Representing Hastings Borough Council: Councillor Maureen Charlesworth; Councillor Dominic Sabetian

Representing Hastings and St. Leonards Chess Club: Steve Blewitt

Players' Representative: Jack Rudd

Other Members: Raymond Keene OBE; David Sedgwick; Gerry Walsh

The above is quoted from the Congress Programme

As one of the number, I accept collective responsibility for the failure to meet the original deadline. I'd like to thank Adam for the reprieve, and I'll be endeavouring to ensure that anything outstanding is submitted by 4th March.

The Congress, like a great many other events, relies on voluntary officers who do their best.

[LozCooper]

Blewitt appears to be an ironic name in the circumstances

[Matthew Turner]

I think Adam made absolutely the right decision to extend the deadline. You do not want to penalise the players for the errors of the organisers. The problem that I have with the whole situation is that it seems to me that this eventuality was easily predictable. Why couldn't somebody work out what was going to happen when the first major event missed the deadline BEFORE the new rule weas introduced? I see that Adam says the rule is now hard and fast, but wait until the British, or the British rapidplay, or some other big event misses the deadline will it be? I doubt it.

[Sean Hewitt]

I think the problem has been one of communication. Adam rightly says that the responsibility for getting results in on time lies with the organisers. But the list of those who were informed did not include organisers. Instead, the ECF relied on graders to tell organisers which was bound to result in some organisers not being told.

As an organiser I don't mention the ECF grand prix. Why? Because no-one from the ECF has asked me to, nor have they explained or sold it to me. I know I have to get my results in within a month (because I'm a grader) but I have no idea how the grand prix works, or what the prizes are for winning it.

Given that the ECF recently wasted a load of money sending out hundreds of game fee invoices for events that had already paid up I would have thought an email to organisers to explain the grand prix might be worthwhile.

[Adam Raoof]

I think the problem has been one of communication. Adam rightly says that the responsibility for getting results in on time lies with the organisers. But the list of those who were informed did not include organisers. Instead, the ECF relied on graders to tell organisers which was bound to result in some organisers not being told.

As an organiser I don't mention the ECF grand prix. Why? Because no-one from the ECF has asked me to, nor have they explained or sold it to me. I know I have to get my results in within a month (because I'm a grader) but I have no idea how the grand prix works, or what the prizes are for winning it.

Given that the ECF recently wasted a load of money sending out hundreds of game fee invoices for events that had already paid up I would have thought an email to organisers to explain the grand prix might be worthwhile.

Completely spot on.

[edit: I am preparing just such an email, and compiling a mailing list of organisers...]