Female players wanted

Venues, fixtures, teams and related matters.
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John Upham
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Female players wanted

Post by John Upham » Thu May 10, 2012 12:13 pm

AMCA is seeking ambitious female players for the 2012 - 2013 season to play for the AMCA Dragons in Division One and / or on a high board for the AMCA Rhinos in Division Three.

AMCA has not previously had a team in Division One and our main objective will be to remain there!

Please contact me on +44(0)1252 514372 or [email protected]
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Alan Walton
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alan Walton » Thu May 10, 2012 12:47 pm

John Upham wrote:AMCA is seeking ambitious female players for the 2012 - 2013 season to play for the AMCA Dragons in Division One and / or on a high board for the AMCA Rhinos in Division Three.

AMCA has not previously had a team in Division One and our main objective will be to remain there!

Please contact me on +44(0)1252 514372 or [email protected]
Are you prepared to get your cheque book ready :wink:

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John Upham
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by John Upham » Thu May 10, 2012 12:53 pm

Alan Walton wrote:Are you prepared to get your cheque book ready :wink:
Are you offering to make "the change" Alan? How much is "the operation" in the private sector these days?

Some people will do almost anything to join us!

For the purposes of the 4NCL is female defined in terms of gender or sex?
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Alan Walton
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alan Walton » Thu May 10, 2012 1:02 pm

John Upham wrote:
Alan Walton wrote:Are you prepared to get your cheque book ready :wink:
Are you offering to make "the change" Alan? How much is "the operation" in the private sector these days?

For the purposes of the 4NCL is female defined in terms of gender or sex?
Very good, don't know the official definition

But on a serious point, I remember the problems Kev McCarthy had when Pandora's Box got promoted to the first division, and some of the ridiculous demands they were asking for, one 150 grade asked for accommodation to be covered and appearance fee

John McKenna

Re: Female players wanted

Post by John McKenna » Thu May 10, 2012 1:42 pm

Look at it this way -
Males graded 150 are a dime a dozen.
Females rated above 1800 (150) number only 30 in Lawrence Cooper's extract of ENG affiliated players from FIDE May list.
By comparison the 30th ENG male player on said list is IM Lawrence Trent 2433 and GM Keith Arkell is 29th.
While I don't think there should be parity between male and female in this instance, surely a female player is worth something in terms of supply and demand alone.
Last edited by John McKenna on Thu May 10, 2012 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 1:57 pm

Alan Walton wrote:But on a serious point, I remember the problems Kev McCarthy had when Pandora's Box got promoted to the first division, and some of the ridiculous demands they were asking for, one 150 grade asked for accommodation to be covered and appearance fee
A female player has to be worth at least £20/game to a 4NCL team, because that's the penalty for not fielding one at all. (You'd have to default the board if you don't.)

There is a lower supply of English female players (30, apparently) compared with English Grandmasters (24 are active), and I can't imagine many GMs play in the 4NCL for free. No one thinks twice about them having an appearance fee.

If I were a female player, I'd be charging £20/game for my services as a minimum.

Female players are probably a more valuable commodity to a 4NCL Division One team than a Grandmaster.

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John Upham
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by John Upham » Thu May 10, 2012 2:03 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: If I were a female player, I'd be charging £20/game for my services as a minimum.

If you become one we will pay you £20 per game. Would that apply to all divisions? We have places in our Div three teams.
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 10, 2012 2:08 pm

John Upham wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote: If I were a female player, I'd be charging £20/game for my services as a minimum.

If you become one we will pay you £20 per game. Would that apply to all divisions? We have places in our Div three teams.
Thanks, but I will politely decline your offer. :lol:

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu May 10, 2012 2:17 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: and I can't imagine many GMs play in the 4NCL for free.
Barbican 4NCL perhaps. That's what they say in public anyway.

The difference is that nowhere in the 4NCL rules does it say that you have to field a GM in every match. Whilst I'm sure the one female rule was very valuable to the development of a strong English ladies team in the 1990s, the undesirable side effects are becoming apparent.

In fairness, the players don't even get to play their peers. Where a team has a hired FM or above female player, the board 8 player is likely to be facing half a season of 2200 male players.

Alan Walton
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Alan Walton » Thu May 10, 2012 2:29 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Alan Walton wrote:But on a serious point, I remember the problems Kev McCarthy had when Pandora's Box got promoted to the first division, and some of the ridiculous demands they were asking for, one 150 grade asked for accommodation to be covered and appearance fee
A female player has to be worth at least £20/game to a 4NCL team, because that's the penalty for not fielding one at all. (You'd have to default the board if you don't.)

There is a lower supply of English female players (30, apparently) compared with English Grandmasters (24 are active), and I can't imagine many GMs play in the 4NCL for free. No one thinks twice about them having an appearance fee.

If I were a female player, I'd be charging £20/game for my services as a minimum.

Female players are probably a more valuable commodity to a 4NCL Division One team than a Grandmaster.
But you don't have to pay for a Grandmaster (male) if you don't want to, but you are forced to have a female within the team, and hence the extortionate demands by some players, just a knock on effect of there being a small pool of female players

John McKenna

Re: Female players wanted

Post by John McKenna » Thu May 10, 2012 2:58 pm

Roger >... the one female rule was very valuable... in the 1990s...<
Although the rule - like any other - could be having "undesired side-effects" it must still provide an incentive to females to improve and participate in a team playing in the top division, even if it means facing strong males.
If/when the level of female play and the number of higher-rated females rises (And, how to achieve that is a more important consideration than the subject under discussion here.) current problems may disappear.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu May 10, 2012 3:12 pm

John McKenna wrote: it must still provide an incentive to females to improve and participate in a team playing in the top division, even if it means facing strong males.
I used to think that as well. The current position seems to be because of mismatched games, that female players require compensation for playing in the top division. Improving players seem to prefer to take a place in a third division team with their board determined by their rating.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Female players wanted

Post by Paul Cooksey » Thu May 10, 2012 3:19 pm

John McKenna wrote:Females rated above 1800 (150) number only 30 in Lawrence Cooper's extract of ENG affilated players from FIDE May list. By comparison the 30th ENG male player on said list is IM Lawrence Trent 2433 and GM Keith Arkell is 29th.
I don't think that comparison is completely correct. There are 7 open boards, so the 30th rank female compares to 210 in the open list in terms of winning points. I'd be surprised if many high 190 players are getting conditions. (If they are, please let me know :) )

I think the point at which a female player can expect GM like conditions is when they can play on a higher board. Even if it is only board 7, they are suddenly much more useful to a team. That said something seems reasonable, even for less strong women players. But there is a point at which they are only saving the £20 default fee Alex notes.

It would be interesting the hear the view of the relevant ECF Directors on how they think the rule is going. From a team point of view only, it is a bloody nuisance. On the other hand, I'm happy to support womens chess, and if this is an effective way of doing it, fair enough.

I do feel the evidence so far is that the 4NCL rule is benefiting international women players, by pulling some into the league with conditions. But no new IM strength home nations women players for a while now, so perhaps a bit disappointing in that respect.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by Sean Hewitt » Thu May 10, 2012 4:33 pm

Personally, I prefer positive rather than negative encouragment. So instead of you must play a female player and we will fine you / dock game points if you don't I would rather see a system of you may play a female player if you wish, and we will reward you thus. My suggestion was half or one game point added to the team score for the match in question.

I was in the minority though so we move on.

LawrenceCooper
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Re: Female players wanted

Post by LawrenceCooper » Thu May 10, 2012 5:49 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
John McKenna wrote: It would be interesting the hear the view of the relevant ECF Directors on how they think the rule is going. From a team point of view only, it is a bloody nuisance. On the other hand, I'm happy to support womens chess, and if this is an effective way of doing it, fair enough.

I do feel the evidence so far is that the 4NCL rule is benefiting international women players, by pulling some into the league with conditions. But no new IM strength home nations women players for a while now, so perhaps a bit disappointing in that respect.
I'm not sure if I'm relevant or irrelevant but I admit to some bias in this area. I like the rule and wish it still applied in Division Two. I think there is an ample pool of female players in England but they often end up registered for teams but don't get any games or they get discarded in favour of foreign imports. I want to see more girls/women playing and the 4NCL is definitely an incentive that keeps some of them playing.

It's some years since I've run a 4NCL team but I've been fortunate enough to have captained (from my fading memory) Harriet Hunt, Jovanka Houska, Heather Richards, Melanie Buckley, Natasha Regan, Kanwal Bhatia, Aly Wilson, Amisha Parmar, Marieanne Howard, Abigail Cast, Heather Lang as well as "foreign imports" Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Martha Fierro, Christin Andersson etc

I'm not sure if I should have a complex about how many of them gave up after playing for my teams though :oops:

From an international perspective the more girls/women that are playing the better the chance of producing players who will make it into the England team or compete for titles.

From an ECF perspective the more girls playing the more potential members.

I have been asked to find female players on a number of occasions this year, I've been successful in a few cases albeit when I only have 24-48 hours notice it's very hard to find one. I've also had cases where someone has been eager to play but when I've reported back to the captain they've found someone else and not told me, hence one very disappointed player :(