British Chess Championships 2011

[Sean Hewitt]

I agree with Stewart Reuben that the time limit of 40moves in 90minutes followed by all the moves in 30 minutes with a 30 second increment from move one is the best time control for the British Seniors Championship.
Ken Norman

And also the English Senior Championships www.e2e4.org.uk/seniors

[Justin Hadi]

Any idea as to when the major open games will be available?

[Stewart Reuben]

The games eventually become available in the paper-based bulletin, possibly in October. The same applies to the Senior and the Junior events. I'm not sure about whether the other games ever become available.
The system is so 1970s. Clearly the games should be available on the internet or chessbase.
Stewart Reuben

[IM Jack Rudd]

The games eventually become available in the paper-based bulletin, possibly in October. The same applies to the Senior and the Junior events. I'm not sure about whether the other games ever become available.
The system is so 1970s. Clearly the games should be available on the internet or chessbase.

I agree with you, but attempting to convey this to the rest of the bulletin team is... an interesting exercise.

[Alan Burke]

If the games were made available on the internet, wouldn't this prevent the ECF from gaining some investment from the sale of the Championship Brochures ?

[Roger de Coverly]

If the games were made available on the internet, wouldn't this prevent the ECF from gaining some investment from the sale of the Championship Brochures ?

All of the games played in the British Championship are available for download at the championship website. Usually they were available during the following morning. This was extremely useful for participants since it's then possible to review the prospective opponent's entire tournament.

The games which never seem to become fully available for download, either at all or within a short period after the tournament are those from the Major Open, the Seniors, the under 16 etc.. Tales of woe are told of the difficulties of deciphering the games of players in other junior events or just other events, but the results of these labours are never released in PGN form.

[IM Jack Rudd]

If the games were made available on the internet, wouldn't this prevent the ECF from gaining some investment from the sale of the Championship Brochures ?

I think it's marginal; the market for printed bulletins is probably not the same as the market for games in a database-readable format.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I've said before that an edited bulletin, with the best games pulled out and annotated, and published after the event, sometimes even approaching the standards of a tournament book, would find a market. Small, but a market would be there. I also think the ECF should consider it an obligation to make a more permanent and considered record of its main event. Though having said that, do any events publish proper tournament books any more?

[Adam Raoof]

OK, what is the minimum that should be included in a daily bulletin?

[Alan Burke]

Even if the market for the annual Championship Brochure may well be similar or less to that of having the games online; if people are so anxious to have a record of the games, then what is wrong in them paying for the priviledge (as per the tournament brochure) instead of getting them for free on the internet ? Why should the ECF provide the service free of charge when somebody has had to wade through all the matches (including trying to decypher many of the illegible notations) to provide them for others to use ?

Throughout the tournament, players were also able to get photocopies of any match they wanted for the price of 2 for 20p so they could study their opponent's previous matches - and this did prove to be both very popular and a good way of raising some funds for the ECF.

Chris K .. the ECF do publish the Championship Brochure after the event every year which includes the vast majority of matches from all the sections played

[IM Jack Rudd]

Even if the market for the annual Championship Brochure may well be similar or less to that of having the games online; if people are so anxious to have a record of the games, then what is wrong in them paying for the priviledge (as per the tournament brochure) instead of getting them for free on the internet ?

You're missing the point. It's not about paying for it or getting it free; it's about the format the games appear in. The way many people do chess study, printed bulletins - while nice to have and good souvenirs of the event - are unhelpful for their purposes. They want the games in a database so they can integrate them into their existing databases on their computers.

[Roger de Coverly]

OK, what is the minimum that should be included in a daily bulletin?

From a participant's viewpoint, I don't think you need a printed daily bulletin. Hastings now does without. What you do need is the pgn file of all the games played during the previous rounds, preferably in time to review them prior to facing your afternoon opponent. A daily review in the style of John Saunders' Gibraltar reports or Steve Giddins' Hastings reports has been done for the British in the past, but has been dropped in recent years. Andrew Martin's youtube videos were an interesting novelty this year.

[Stewart Reuben]

I have not discussed this with anybody hitherto. I believe there should be a souvenir book of the
100 BRITISH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIPS to be published as soon after the event concludes in Torquay 2013 as possible. Such books appeal to a niche market. There might be one game from each year, data about the winners and a history. It would not be very profitable, but might be very worthwhile. I might write it myself, but there are historians who could do some of the work better. Two years may seem a long time, but it can go by very quickly. Although I go back to 1956, there were 22 years on and off when I had nothing to do with the event.
Thoughts?
Stewart Reuben

[Alan Burke]

Jack .. I do know of some players who still prefer the matches to be in book form, although it is understood that the 'majority rules' and more and more people might want the games to be online. My point concerns the decrease of funds for the ECF if the games were able to be obtained free via computer instead of people paying for the daily bulletin / annual tournament brochure / photocopies.

Would players perhaps be willing to pay online for copies of the matches, thus still allowing the ECF to benefit financially for all the work done in producing the list of games ?

[Paul Cooksey]

I like the idea of a 100 British Championships book.

The format Stewart Reuben suggests may be inspired by a book I recently bought and am reading currently; Soviet Championships by Cafferty and Taimanov. The format of crosstable and half a page or so of text followed by an annoted game works well. Generally the Soviet Championship book is nice, hardback, good paper and some high quality photos. But the thing that makes it interesting is the Super-GM annotations.

I guess winners might be persuaded to contribute a game for recent championships, or allow annotations to be reused. But 100 games is a lot, so an annotator for earlier years would be needed. I am not sure if the cost of a top author would be prohibitive. (I'd vote for Nunn ahead of RDK )

I should admit I bought the Soviet Championship book from the half price shelf, so I doubt much profit could be made. But seems to me a better use of ECF money than most things.