British Championship Congress 2020

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Richard Bates
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Richard Bates » Sat Jan 25, 2020 8:58 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:35 am
IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:12 am
Qualifiers!

Gibraltar Masters, Route F

David Spence (2321 TPR after four games)
Tim Wall (2303 TPR after four games)
Tim Wall is a good player and will not dishonour the British Championship - I'm not sure why he can't have an automatic right to play in it.

Nonetheless, this route is absurd. A start of 0.5 / 3 followed by a win against a 2106 rated opponent should not get the job done. The system needs looking at.
It's very strange. It's even a lot easier than the old route (before the clampdown on 'easy' qualification when Alex was Home Director) which was a 2400 performance I think. At least IMO it should require, say, three such performances. One of the arguable issues with the qualification routes is that they don't really have a great deal of equivalence. Some are clearly far easier than others, and that doesn't seem right.

Maybe the aim is to recreate the "paying tail" by stealth? The problem is that the long British tail, whilst objected to by some on 'quality' grounds, didn't actually have a huge impact on the tournament proper when it was an 11 round tournament. Now it is 9 rounds that is far more debateable.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:14 pm

"It's very strange. It's even a lot easier than the old route (before the clampdown on 'easy' qualification when Alex was Home Director) which was a 2400 performance I think. At least IMO it should require, say, three such performances. One of the arguable issues with the qualification routes is that they don't really have a great deal of equivalence. Some are clearly far easier than others, and that doesn't seem right.

Maybe the aim is to recreate the "paying tail" by stealth? The problem is that the long British tail, whilst objected to by some on 'quality' grounds, didn't actually have a huge impact on the tournament proper when it was an 11 round tournament. Now it is 9 rounds that is far more debateable."

Well, yes. The problem is also that those who have been driven away might decide they can't be bothered to attend again.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:42 am

And another qualifier.

Peter Sowray (TPR 2320 after 5 rounds)

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:25 am

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 9:42 am
Peter Sowray (TPR 2320 after 5 rounds)
I think he was on the list as already qualified as an FM above 2300.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:27 am

Ah yes, so he was: rating over 2300 in July.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:11 am

Richard Bates wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 8:58 pm
It's even a lot easier than the old route (before the clampdown on 'easy' qualification when Alex was Home Director) which was a 2400 performance I think.
The old rule used to be that you were the highest placed player or joint highest placed player amongst those not already qualified. This rule starts to cause problems if you make automatic qualification too easy. I recall noticing the Scarborough Open one year that all the players on 4/5 or above were already pre-qualified, so those on 3.5/5 got qualification places. That has a cumulative effect as well.

I think there should be a sort of Grand Prix qualification. It doesn't have to be complex, perhaps just accumulate x points in Opens over a predetermined period. In that context 1st May to 30th April makes more sense than 1st July to 30th June, as it would enable potential qualifiers to make travel and accommodation arrangements in plenty of time for the current year's championship.

Alan Walton
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Alan Walton » Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:24 am

Call me a cynic; but it seems to me all the ECF are doing is making the qualified list as big as possible to maximise there entry fee income; might as well just make the event truly open and be done with the duplicity

Nick Burrows
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Nick Burrows » Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:28 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:11 am

I think there should be a sort of Grand Prix qualification. It doesn't have to be complex, perhaps just accumulate x points in Opens over a predetermined period. In that context 1st May to 30th April makes more sense than 1st July to 30th June, as it would enable potential qualifiers to make travel and accommodation arrangements in plenty of time for the current year's championship.
This may also rejuvinate the existing Grand Prix somewhat, by having an actual prize to play for.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun Jan 26, 2020 12:03 pm

We had a Grand Prix for last year's British. Nobody who qualified via the Grand Prix took their place up. This is why it was scrapped and replaced by the current route F.

There will be discussions as to how well route F has worked, and whether we should stick with it, amend it, or replace it.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jan 26, 2020 12:09 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 12:03 pm
. Nobody who qualified via the Grand Prix took their place up. T
I assume the qualifiers were notified, there was no publicity anywhere else. In any event a qualification period running 1st July to 30th June doesn't make sense for an event starting in mid to end July. It wouldn't have helped either that those on the fringes wouldn't have known whether they had qualified until the final results had been processed.

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JustinHorton
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:56 pm

Alan Walton wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:24 am
Call me a cynic; but it seems to me all the ECF are doing is making the qualified list as big as possible to maximise there entry fee income; might as well just make the event truly open and be done with the duplicity
Although how would a venue's limited capacity be catered for - first come first served?
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Richard Bates
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:07 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 12:03 pm
We had a Grand Prix for last year's British. Nobody who qualified via the Grand Prix took their place up. This is why it was scrapped and replaced by the current route F.

There will be discussions as to how well route F has worked, and whether we should stick with it, amend it, or replace it.
I had assumed that for most the "Grand Prix" route would end up mainly providing players for the following year's congress? I'm sure that Alex alluded to the fact that people would be allowed to carry over qualification at the time. It was never particularly likely that people would take up places given the short notice period (unless they had already entered the Major Open).

Richard Bates
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Richard Bates » Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:15 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:11 am
Richard Bates wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 8:58 pm
It's even a lot easier than the old route (before the clampdown on 'easy' qualification when Alex was Home Director) which was a 2400 performance I think.
The old rule used to be that you were the highest placed player or joint highest placed player amongst those not already qualified. This rule starts to cause problems if you make automatic qualification too easy. I recall noticing the Scarborough Open one year that all the players on 4/5 or above were already pre-qualified, so those on 3.5/5 got qualification places. That has a cumulative effect as well.
That was the rule relating to specific Congresses which were granted a qualification place. I believe that latterly there was also a "performance route" introduced for any FIDE rated congress of a 2400 performance (partly to encourage FIDE rating of Congress Opens).

Anyway my basic point was that logically qualification routes should be designed (to the extent possible) to be broadly equivalent in difficulty to each other, but catering to players who generally play in different types of events, or who have different levels of activity. It doesn't make sense to me for there to be a minimum "strength based qualification" of "FM + 2300" at the same time as having a qualification route of a single 4 game period at the start of a rated tournament of 2300. The latter IMO should be higher and/or should require more than a solitary such performance*, which if pairings fall favourable can pretty much be achieved with only a single decent game result.

*(assuming no such ulterior agenda as suggested).

Roger de Coverly
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:21 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:56 pm
Although how would a venue's limited capacity be catered for - first come first served?
The only venue in recent years where space was a consideration was Aberystwyth. Arguably that was over crowded given that the demo board area for spectators was provided. The Major Open didn't attract many entries though and they had an overflow venue mostly used for the junior events.

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JustinHorton
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Re: British Championship Congress 2020

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:31 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 5:21 pm
JustinHorton wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:56 pm
Although how would a venue's limited capacity be catered for - first come first served?
The only venue in recent years where space was a consideration was Aberystwyth.
Well yes, but if the event were entirely open the situation would be a little different.
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