Questions on ECF Team Selection

[Roger de Coverly]

What does "off the rails" look like, and under what circumstances?

There was controversy 20 years ago about the selection for the Turin Olympiad. The selection looks to have been an attempt to tilt the team in the direction of younger players.

https://bcmchess.co.uk/news/ecf2006olympiadsteams.html

[John Townsend]

"off the rails": disorganized, out of control (Concise Oxford Dictionary).

In this context, I am thinking of problem situations which may arise if guiding principles for selection are not agreed to in advance and subsequently adhered to. Perhaps one or more selectors may become dominant, or the selectors may follow their own agenda. Roger has given an example.

The people may change, but there would be guiding principles to allow for that. I suppose the new people can change those principles, but it is hard to legislate for what future management may decide.

[Rob Coles]

I had a go at answering Alex' question based on teams for Samarkand vs FIDE rating lists.

The Open team consists of 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 for any rating list Jun-Aug. The Women's team consists of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 no matter whether you look at June, July or August (and by September, the selections had been made).

Personally, I think the Open selection is completely uncontroversial. Howell and Short have at a minimum "other commitments"; I've seen Howell describe himself as "retired", but I read earlier in this thread Short has queried if he should have been invited. I'm nowhere near informed enough or strong enough to judge if he has a case, but I think there might be another thread like this one were either selected over more active players! I just don't think you can navigate these situations without leaning heavily on selectors' discretion.

As mentioned, Royal was not British champion when the teams were selected, he was 12th in the July list. So I might understand some concept of selecting for Talent and Future Potential but this isn't very "transparent criteria" to leave out a ~2600 player, or Fernandez who is near to 2550 (IMO would be extremely unfair and would be precisely the kind of "player passed over" that is described upthread). And finally, Royal is a real talent who may well have imagined himself to be on the England Olympiad team this year. I wouldn't discount that not having done enough on rating was a motivator going into the British and I'm not the first to observe that.

There are other strong players deserving of consideration further down either list, but it would only get more controversial from here.

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With regards to whether this fall into Gold reps' remit - my best guess is that if Gold members were polled their views would not cohere in any way whatsoever. There might be a majority in favour of "what's an olympiad"... Personally, I don't think it's a good or productive route to go down, nor high on the list of priorities.

Final thought. I came across these "International KPIs" dated 2019 on the ECF site. While again, I think any 10 ECF members could come up with 9 different opinions and no consensus, I personally think broader membership's contribution to this discussion should best be limited to input towards Objectives which inform the KPIs.
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/international-kpis/

[NickFaulks]

2. What would your open, fair and transparent criteria be?

The job of the selectors is to select the most appropriate team according to their guidelines. It is not their job to draft those guidelines.

Since they are currently required to select teams with a view to getting the best possible result, attaching external criteria cannot be helpful.

My personal feeling is that maximising the team's chances of team medals is correct when this is a realistic prospect. However, other considerations, taken with a view to the future, may be more important than maximising the likelihood of finishing in the top 15.

[Roger de Coverly]

The job of the selectors is to select the most appropriate team according to their guidelines. It is not their job to draft those guidelines.

Since they are currently required to select teams with a view to getting the best possible result, attaching external criteria cannot be helpful.

The guidelines seem written by the International Director, who is also a selector. in fact he is named as Chair.

The other ECF Directors may or may not have any input.

There's a document on the ECF website
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... rdsv4.docx
which has this as a footer

This policy will apply from 2014 onwards unless changed by the ECF Board.
David Openshaw ECF International Director April 2014

The current document at https://www.englishchess.org.uk/selection-policy-2023/ is signed

This policy will apply from 2023 onwards.
— Malcolm Pein ECF International Director December 2022 on behalf of the Selection Committee

The content of the 2023 document is posted earlier in the thread but is mostly the same as the 2014 version.

[John Townsend]

I note the contents of Roger's latest post. The close involvement of the Selection Committee with the drafting of the selection guidelines seems to run counter to what several people in this discussion are all saying. I would suggest that if the guidelines were drafted afresh by persons not connected in any way with the Selection Committee, that would inspire greater confidence.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I found this for 2024-25 https://www.englishchess.org.uk/dcms/"

Thanks!

[John Townsend]

Thank you, Kevin.

The "Selection Policy 2023" seems quite complicated and it is hard to see how it could be reduced to a formula that is not debatable. It allows the selectors appreciable freedom for artistic interpretation.

It is not at all what the majority of the people in this discussion have called for.

[George Bland]

Let's cut to the chase. Rather than discuss principle and process: for Samarkand, who is in the England team who shouldn't be, and who isn't in the England team who should be? The point about Shreyas was explained by the deadline for registration being before the British Championships. So those who want to ask questions and so on and so forth:
1. What mistakes did the Selectors make?
2. What would your open, fair and transparent criteria be?

Hi Alex, I realise the thread may have evolved, but when I brought up the Olympiad I I wasn't trying to attack that specifically, I don't think a bad or wrong decision was made. I really mentioned the Olympiad as it is a very relevant example, and would surely bring more discussion to the topic, I think for most of the commenters here the key point is transparency selection criteria across the board as Keith Arkell has mentioned.
My personal criticisms with selection is the process rather than the result, and improvements to this could not have a negative impact.

[George Bland]

In terms of criteria this may be selfish of my but as a fan and a spectator I think it could be made much more exciting for the average ecf member.
Personally if I could see tournaments happening where I knew the winner would qualify for the team, and team members would gradually qualify throughout the two year cycle - much like Candidates - then it would become much more of an event for me.

I'm just throwing out ideas though, the thoughts of competitors would likely be more important in such decision making.