129th Varsity Match.

[Joey Stewart]

They are still kids really, just bigger and not at school anymore.

[Michael Jones]

Why are students so bad at this sort of thing? After all, these people are meant to be the highly-skilled elite of the next generation. Particularly at Oxford! Yet they don't have the practical skills to get to a bus stop on time?

Academic excellence and ability to deal with everyday practicalities usually come in inverse proportion.

[Keith Arkell]

Academic excellence and ability to deal with everyday practicalities usually come in inverse proportion.

Correct. It's a mirracle that there has yet to be a collision between a bicycle and a road crossing John Hawthorne given all the close shaves I have witnessed.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Given that we were missing three of our regular top four (Ravi, Robbie and Ed) for that match, I think we could have done with Keith turning out for us in that fixture.

I must admit I was very glad when Steffen sat down on board 1 as I was expecting to play him myself, and he's beaten me rather easily in our two meetings. I'm sure it will be a lot closer tonight.

[Eoin Devane]

I'm sure it will be a lot closer tonight.

I'm not. As I understand it, we're even weaker this evening. If it were football, you might say that we're blooding some of the youngsters (though some of them aren't actually that young!).

[LozCooper]

I did play one or two times for them in the past,in the days of my ex-brother-in-law Stephen Walker's education there; but no I'm back in Paignton,and my next club match will be for ''Drunken knights-Surrey Division''

Quite logical now that you are in Paignton

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

I'm sure it will be a lot closer tonight.

I'm not. As I understand it, we're even weaker this evening. If it were football, you might say that we're blooding some of the youngsters (though some of them aren't actually that young!).

Jesus, I don't know quite what to say. Do you want to hazard a guess at the estimated grade of your bottom two boards tonight?

What I don't understand is that Ravi turned up to organise the match, then buggered off, leaving a default on board 4 and two complete beginners on boards 5 and 6. Here is the game from board 5:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nd4 4. Nxe5 Bd6 5. Nc4 Qe7 6. Nxd6+ Qxd6 7. Bc4
Nf6 8. O-O Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxc2 10. Qxg7 Qf8 11. Qe5+ Kd8 12. Bxf7 Nxa1 13.
Qf6+

Just about everyone who played for your second team tonight was clearly stronger than half your first team.

[Eoin Devane]

Jesus, I don't know quite what to say. Do you want to hazard a guess at the estimated grade of your bottom two boards tonight?

What I don't understand is that Ravi turned up to organise the match, then buggered off, leaving a default on board 4 and two complete beginners on boards 5 and 6. Here is the game from board 5:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nd4 4. Nxe5 Bd6 5. Nc4 Qe7 6. Nxd6+ Qxd6 7. Bc4
Nf6 8. O-O Ng4 9. Qxg4 Nxc2 10. Qxg7 Qf8 11. Qe5+ Kd8 12. Bxf7 Nxa1 13.
Qf6+

Just about everyone who played for your second team tonight was clearly stronger than half your first team.

Hi Jon - sorry about that. Ravi told me that he had something he had to go to at 8.30, so he couldn't play himself. I didn't realise quite how weak the team was going to be. The top two are legitimate first team players and, well, as you saw, they actually performed well. Chris Smith continued his excellent season with a win on 1, and I seem Mark Jackson held you to a draw. The player on 3, Alastair Irving, was a player from my squad that I gave to the firsts for this match. There was supposed to be another of our second / third team players on 4, no idea what happened to him. And as for those on 5 and 6, I don't know them so can't really comment.

On paper, at least, everyone on my second team this evening is stronger than all but the top two of that first team. But heh, what am I supposed to do? I've got a reasonably committed core group of players who are happy to play for my team. If the first team players can't (or can't be bothered) to play their matches, then am I supposed to give away my own team to fill in for them? The first team have a big enough squad of players, as they've actually taken four of the best from my squad already this year. So I really don't feel I should be bailing them out at my own team's expense. The fastest way to lose players is to keep bumping them from team to team and not building any sort of squad atmosphere.

Please don't interpret any of the above as a criticism of Ravi. It's not meant to be. I think he's actually done a great job since taking over the captaincy from me a couple of months back. I could not have continued to captain two teams, so to have someone as dedicated as him take over was really helpful from my point of view. In this case, I really think circumstances have gone against him. First of all, it's always difficult to get players to play in the last week of term, which this is. Secondly, the match this evening was essentially meaningless. Uni 1 have no hope of winning the league, and are miles ahead of the relegation place(s). So there isn't really as much motivation for some of the less-committed / busier players to slot the match into their schedules.

That said, I apologise once again. It is really unfortunate that this happened.

[AustinElliott]

First of all, it's always difficult to get players to play in the last week of term, which this is.

I never cease to be amazed how short the Oxbridge terms are. Out here in Redbrick University-ville there are FOUR more teaching weeks AFTER this one before we break for Easter.
* Sigh *

Always remember years back an Oxford academic telling me in all seriousness at a conference somewhere how he was having to fly back to do a tutorial/supervision on the late May Bank Hol Monday "because there's simply no other time free in the term". I did have to point out that his students were only there 24 weeks a year, as opposed to 30 at the rest of the UK Univs. Ah well.

I'm actually surprised they can fit all the Oxford League matches into the Oxford terms. Never thought about that before.

Finally, speaking as a grumpy veteran of some 25 yrs in academia, I would agree that many students are not very good with boring practicalities...! Though I'm pretty sure I wasn't either when I was their age.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Don't know about that. A grand total of one member of their team (their top board) actually plays for Cambridge in 4NCL! There is a genuine (contemporary) link between the Oxford 4NCL team and their University side, though.

Not sure where you get that idea from (about 4NCL participation). It depends what you mean by "contemporary", I suppose.

The current season's 4NCL registrations for both Oxford and Cambridge can be seen here:

http://www.4ncl.co.uk/1011_reg_CAMB.htm
http://www.4ncl.co.uk/1011_reg_OXF.htm

Comparing that with the Varsity Match line-up for 2011, we can see that:

For Cambridge: Pinter, Shridar, Quist, Tyomkyn and Lee are registered for the 4NCL squad.

For Oxford: Zakarian and Tsanas are registered for the 4NCL squad.

You're right, of course. The reason for my mistake, which will perhaps get me into deeper trouble, is that I was only thinking of their first division team.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

You're right, of course. The reason for my mistake, which will perhaps get me into deeper trouble, is that I was only thinking of their first division team.

Well, the real point of all this, I think, is to realise that there is often little or no connection between the 4NCL teams that bear the names of the universities and university towns, and current students of the universities. I think the posts elsewhere in this thread about how some university students struggle to be organised and how levels of organisation can vary from year to year, illustrate that point well. There can sometimes be lots of overlap, sometimes none (apart from an alumni connection). Certainly when I was a student, I would have struggled to turn out for the 4NCL, simply because I usually had lectures on Saturday mornings.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

As for their 4NCL team, it is true that most of them are alumni. Not that there's anything stopping that, of course! Some current students play in their lower team. Cambridge University funds all of that though, despite very few of them being students. I dread to think what would happen if they lost their funding.

Can I ask where you are getting this information from?

Yes, you can ask. I spoke to the Cambridge President (Alexander Gordon-Brown), and that was what he told me.

OK. That helps clarify things somewhat. I've been in e-mail correspondence with those who organise the Cambridge University 4NCL teams and I was told that CUCC (Cambridge University Chess Club) pays an amount that part-covers the entry fee of the two teams. The rest of the entry fees and any other expenses is covered by subscription from players who are not current students. Current Cambridge students pay nothing.

I suspect this latter point is where the confusion arose, as Alexander Gordon-Brown may have meant that the funding covers current students, rather than the whole team, which is what I interpreted your "Cambridge University funds all of that though, despite very few of them being students" bit to mean. More accurate would have been for you to say "part" rather than "all", or to be clearer that you were quoting what someone else told you. I was also perplexed to read your (slightly alarmist) comment "I dread to think what would happen if they lost their funding". I suspect in that case the alumni (mostly having jobs and all that) would make up the shortfall, and current students would continue to be able to play but would have to pay something.

As for the name of the teams including "University", I think this arises from the fact that almost all the registered players are either current or past Cambridge University students. Clearly the pool of past students will be greater than the pool of current students. Also, some students who start playing for the 4NCL team while they are students carry on playing even after they leave the university, which helps build up continuity.

One thing I can say is wrong in Alex's post is the comment that "Cambridge University funds all of that".

Cambridge University funds all of the entry fee, and puts some other contribution towards the team. This was discussed in the same conversation I had with the Cambridge President.
So don't shoot the messenger.

I'm not shooting the messenger, but I do think you should say who told you something like that when you post it on a public forum like this. That and the context in which the conversation took place, as when I asked about this, there was some puzzlement expressed as to why this matter had been raised in the first place. As far as I can tell, the first person to mention the 4NCL team was Jonathan Rogers (see posts elsewhere in response to that) and you bounced your views/reports on what you had heard, off his comments. This somewhat random topic drift is pretty typical for an internet forum thread, but it can be puzzling to those not used to that.

[Jonathan Rogers]

"Not that it matters but"

I actually mentioned the lack of connection between the University team and the 4NCL team (by which I meant, foolishly, their first division 4NCL team) in defence of current Cambridge students. I was responding to Joey's comment that Cambridge students were too arrogant to think of anything other than varsity or 4NCL, and I was effectively saying "well, hang on, it is not as though the current students are playing 4NCL either".

That's another typical forum thread phenomenon which I have noticed - how one comment sparks several others, and it is forgotten what the point or motivation of the original writer was!

[Jonathan Rogers]

While we are on the subject, some of us will know that Cambridge used to have a very successful SCCU team, which sometimes won the National Counties Championship. But the strength of that team was based on the fact that anyone who joined Cambridge University Chess Club (when a student) became a member for life, and thus continued to be eligible to play for the county until the end of his life, no matter where he lived or worked on graduation. When the rules were tightened, Cambridge shortly afterwards stopped competing in the SCCU zone altogether.

I think that the tightening of the rules was right; the former situation was an abuse of the notion of a county team (I won't write a long post defending that). Of course one of the benefits of the 4NCL is precisely that they can legitimately revive this "once a Cambridge man, always a Cambridge man" spirit if they wish to do so (and they seem to have done so quite successfully).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

While we are on the subject, some of us will know that Cambridge used to have a very successful SCCU team, which sometimes won the National Counties Championship. But the strength of that team was based on the fact that anyone who joined Cambridge University Chess Club (when a student) became a member for life, and thus continued to be eligible to play for the county until the end of his life, no matter where he lived or worked on graduation. When the rules were tightened, Cambridge shortly afterwards stopped competing in the SCCU zone altogether.

I think that the tightening of the rules was right; the former situation was an abuse of the notion of a county team (I won't write a long post defending that). Of course one of the benefits of the 4NCL is precisely that they can legitimately revive this "once a Cambridge man, always a Cambridge man" spirit if they wish to do so (and they seem to have done so quite successfully).

I'd like to discuss this more, but this is the wrong thread for it. Do you think you could start a new thread on this topic?