English Chess Forum

This is not, as it happens, a proposal for the latest piece of tournament management software. It is a proposal for something else: something to help make the tournaments viable in the first place.

One of the things I've noticed while trying to find players for the Jessie Gilbert International is that there seems to be no systematic way of doing so. You can advertise on forums and Facebook and other such stuff, but it's a bit hit-and-miss. What I'm thinking is this: how about a site where people interested in playing in norm tournaments can sign up, and people interested in organizing tournaments can also sign up... and there be some way of "match-making" the two?

I don't know how exactly it would work, but I'd welcome the input of those who have some idea how to make it happen.

I think in the old days the big tournament organizers would each have had their little black book with names and phone numbers. Maybe ask somebody like Adam Raoof?

Jack,

Do you mean something like this?

http://vesus.org/what-is/

It is quite widely used in Italy.

That looks like the sort of thing I'm looking for. *investigates*

Hadn't realized that Coulsdon was in Sicilia ...

It forced me to put something in the "Province" field. Because we all live in Italy. Well, it makes a change from we all live in America.

It obviously would need some tailoring for UK use - but the general concept seems a good one.

One would imagine that in well run federations there would be somebody whose job it was to "look after" players who the federation would identify as being in need of norm tournaments and pass on such information to the players concerned. Then ideally you, as a tournament organizer, would have details of these officers in your own and nearby federations and Robert would be your uncle.

I recently enjoyed a "northern whinge" with one of the Sunderland players who has had to travel to South Shields for his chess. Bemoaning the loss to the sport of players like Sunderland's Dave Mooney, we noted that he really should have been an IM years ago. We put this down to southern exclusiveness. Clearly whoever was lining up southern players for norm tournaments 30 years ago wasn't looking as far as the north east. Regardless of the merits of the argument it made us feel much better

Brian Towers wrote:One would imagine that in well run federations there would be somebody whose job it was to "look after" players who the federation would identify as being in need of norm tournaments and pass on such information to the players concerned. Then ideally you, as a tournament organizer, would have details of these officers in your own and nearby federations and Robert would be your uncle.

I recently enjoyed a "northern whinge" with one of the Sunderland players who has had to travel to South Shields for his chess. Bemoaning the loss to the sport of players like Sunderland's Dave Mooney, we noted that he really should have been an IM years ago. We put this down to southern exclusiveness. Clearly whoever was lining up southern players for norm tournaments 30 years ago wasn't looking as far as the north east. Regardless of the merits of the argument it made us feel much better

Is that this David Mooney?

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.p ... de=229734G

Graded 217 back in 1995 - was he stronger even earlier than that?

PS. For anyone wanting to link to individual records, click the 'bookmark' link in the side bar (not immediately obvious that is what it is for).

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: Graded 217 back in 1995 - was he stronger even earlier than that?

225 in the 1988 list, down from 229.

By contrast Colin Crouch, based in Durham during the 1980s was 219, down from 217. The I in IM stands for "international", so a certain amount of travelling is necessary in pursuit of a title, or even to play other top English players.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Is that this David Mooney?

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.p ... de=229734G

Graded 217 back in 1995 - was he stronger even earlier than that?

PS. For anyone wanting to link to individual records, click the 'bookmark' link in the side bar (not immediately obvious that is what it is for).

That's the one. I left the UK in 1991 so I'm not familiar with more modern history . I remember him back in the 80's as being in the 220 - 230 range, although obviously memories can be rose-tinted. I knew he'd pretty much given up competitive chess. I just didn't realize how long ago it must have been. I'm sure I've seen him rated in the high 2300's in old Chessbase games but am separated from my computer and database at the moment.

The last time I played him was in 1972 when we were both 16. His grading was still only 160 and I was very happy to scrape a draw playing the white side of a closed Ruy Lopez. The next year his rating took off into the 180's. He was very much influenced by the Bobby Fischer legend. I think he came from a similar broken home and would very much have liked to emulate Fischer by leaving school at 14 and dedicating his life to chess. At 16 he was already behind schedule

Brian Towers wrote: At 16 he was already behind schedule

As well as competing with John Nunn, born 1955, Jon Speelman, 1956 and Jon Mestel, 1957 .

IM Jack Rudd wrote: One of the things I've noticed while trying to find players for the Jessie Gilbert International is that there seems to be no systematic way of doing so. You can advertise on forums and Facebook and other such stuff, but it's a bit hit-and-miss. What I'm thinking is this: how about a site where people interested in playing in norm tournaments can sign up, and people interested in organizing tournaments can also sign up... and there be some way of "match-making" the two?

Sounds a bit like a Linked In for chess https://gb.linkedin.com/. Probably wouldn't be too hard to do ( I wonder if there is some web service to search the FIDE ratings list or if you'd have to download it regularly ) - then you'd need to get buy in from players / organizers.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:One of the things I've noticed while trying to find players for the Jessie Gilbert International is that there seems to be no systematic way of doing so. You can advertise on forums and Facebook and other such stuff, but it's a bit hit-and-miss. What I'm thinking is this: how about a site where people interested in playing in norm tournaments can sign up, and people interested in organizing tournaments can also sign up... and there be some way of "match-making" the two?

1. I see that the English Seniors Championships and the Jessie Gilbert Celebration Events are advertised on the FIDE website calendar.
The link from the FIDE site to the organisers website returns a 404 error. You might want to sort that out.

2. The advertising of Prize money as a percentage of the collected entry fees does not help anyone who wants to know what they might win. Where are last years results and what prizes were paid?

3. The website for the English Seniors is rather hard on the eyes and needs a complete makeover. It needs to be more welcoming and more informative. The website should be seen as a valuable advertising and marketing tool. At the moment it appears only to be a very basic calender of Coulsdon events.