English Chess Forum

From time to time I browse the chess-results site to see what's posted under ENG.

There was a Warwick University Freshers Tournament with an entry of 87. That would have been impressive even in the Fischer era when University based teams would win local and national team events.

http://chess-results.com/tnr680638.aspx?lan=1

That is an impressive number for Freshers, although chess has always been pretty buoyant at Warwick - when I was there it was not unusual to have club nights of 20-30 people attending, and the university has grown significantly in size since then so i can best believe they could get that many players

They've grown a lot since my time; they even won an ECF award recently:
https://issuu.com/warwickchess/docs/war ... rt_2021_22

That report does suggest they're doing rather amazingly well I always thought Warwick should - millions of maths/science people of course.

Managing both womens and 2200+ club nights is genuinely a little bit amazing. Winning all the divisions in the Coventry league is a neat trick too

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 02, 2022 1:25 am

That would have been impressive even in the Fischer era when University based teams would win local and national team events.

My leaving Edinburgh University brought about such an improvement in their performance that they ascended to, and won, the Edinburgh and Scottish Premier divisions in the shortest possible time

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:59 am

That report does suggest they're doing rather amazingly well I always thought Warwick should - millions of maths/science people of course

I visited for the first time on Saturday for the Open Day, and was very impressed with the University (although depressed that I am older than it )

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 9:47 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:59 am

That report does suggest they're doing rather amazingly well I always thought Warwick should - millions of maths/science people of course

I visited for the first time on Saturday for the Open Day, and was very impressed with the University (although depressed that I am older than it )

If they've built anything like as much as Manchester most of us would be much older than most of it

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:39 am

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 9:47 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:59 am

That report does suggest they're doing rather amazingly well I always thought Warwick should - millions of maths/science people of course

I visited for the first time on Saturday for the Open Day, and was very impressed with the University (although depressed that I am older than it )

If they've built anything like as much as Manchester most of us would be much older than most of it

Manchester has been very active and i heard a IM has join them

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 10:39 am

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 9:47 am

MartinCarpenter wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:59 am

That report does suggest they're doing rather amazingly well I always thought Warwick should - millions of maths/science people of course

I visited for the first time on Saturday for the Open Day, and was very impressed with the University (although depressed that I am older than it )

If they've built anything like as much as Manchester most of us would be much older than most of it

True, but Manchester was opened in 1824, not 1965 like Warwick

From my experience of University chess (now 15+ years ago), the 87 at a freshers' tournament aren't all freshers (the club members generally play) and quite a few will be people you never hear from again. The level of some players can be illustrated by the one occasion I was involved in organising said event when at the start of the tournament when participants were asked if they had any questions, one player asked something along the lines of "Are we playing touch-move?". Looking back, I would have liked to reply with two questions of my own: "What game are we playing?" and "What do the laws of that game state?"

I don't know whether other universities have/had the same issue, but trying to shoe-horn matches into term dates was always a bit of a problem, fitting fourteen dates into maybe nineteen weeks if you were lucky. The season after I stopped playing, the team was effectively relegated by completing their fixtures before everyone else, who then knew what they needed to do to survive. [Not my assessment, it's what somebody from one of the clubs involved told me, although there was no suggestion of collusion.]

Richard Thursby wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 15, 2022 10:58 pm

The level of some players can be illustrated by the one occasion I was involved in organising said event when at the start of the tournament when participants were asked if they had any questions, one player asked something along the lines of "Are we playing touch-move?"

I have seen some serious players on Anna Cramling's channel playing clock-move, as they call it.

Richard Thursby wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 15, 2022 10:58 pm

I don't know whether other universities have/had the same issue, but trying to shoe-horn matches into term dates was always a bit of a problem, fitting fourteen dates into maybe nineteen weeks if you were lucky. The season after I stopped playing, the team was effectively relegated by completing their fixtures before everyone else, who then knew what they needed to do to survive. [Not my assessment, it's what somebody from one of the clubs involved told me, although there was no suggestion of collusion.]

I'm not sure about all universities but at Warwick the Coventry League committee were very accommodating and arranged all the main league fixtures to fall within university term dates, with cups and other internal competitions taking place in the holiday season, so we never had problem fitting the matches in before easter - I can't imagine universities even wanting to compete in a league that refused to fit them in such a way.

Richard Thursby wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 15, 2022 10:58 pm

one player asked something along the lines of "Are we playing touch-move?".

If their previous experience had been in online chess, which we are told we must treat seriously, then that is an entirely reasonable question. How does premove fit in?

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:21 am

Richard Thursby wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 15, 2022 10:58 pm

one player asked something along the lines of "Are we playing touch-move?".

If their previous experience had been in online chess, which we are told we must treat seriously, then that is an entirely reasonable question. How does premove fit in?

Fair point. This was, however, before any of Chess.com (in its current form), Lichess, or chess24 existed (taking the three sites mentioned in the History section of Online Chess in Wikipedia). My understanding of the question was that it was from an OTB perspective/background.

Richard Thursby wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:41 am

[was, however, before any of Chess.com (in its current form), Lichess, or chess24 existed (taking the three sites mentioned in the History section of Online Chess in Wikipedia).

Surely ICC and its non-commercial equivalent FICS predate all three?

ICC had coverage for paying members of high level events with GM commentary. Its policy towards engine users or suspected engine users was to stick (C) after their user name. Writing chess engines was a hobby of some in the 1990s and perhaps later. ICC had no real problem with allowing them to be tested on its site provided they were flagged. I think they applied a similar policy to Cyborgs.