English Chess Forum

Considering there has been another ECF meeting today. I have to bring up again the point that the ECF membership is a complete joke and rip off . I cannot rationalise the cost of supporting such a misguided institution.

What makes it worst is I have a handful of mates who want to play final weekend. Mainly play ICC only. If they want to be allowed to play in this event they must give £9 a game to the ECF for the "honour".

What a joke

Ben Purton wrote:Considering there has been another ECF meeting today. I have to bring up again the point that the ECF membership is a complete joke and rip off . I cannot rationalise the cost of supporting such a misguided institution.

What makes it worst is I have a handful of mates who want to play final weekend. Mainly play ICC only. If they want to be allowed to play in this event they must give £9 a game to the ECF for the "honour".

What a joke

This is however completely correct by the rules established by the ECF. Note that it's the ECF, not FIDE. The Scots established that one for their SNCL.

Under the new ECF rules, players can play 5 games or more in a non FIDE rated Congress for a mere £ 6.

Alternatively you might be allowed to play them in the 4NCL without being ECF members. In which case their ratings will be trashed by Adam Raoof. Perhaps someone should get up early, go to the captains' meeting and try to make a membership advocate's life a misery.

Its unfair, what if i dont want to support my federation because I believe it is corrupt and just want to play chess?

Ben Purton wrote:Its unfair, what if i dont want to support my federation because I believe it is corrupt and just want to play chess?

Thats the way I feel. For years I refused to be a member of the ECF because of the pathetic leadership of the ECF. Then they took my FIDE rating away even though I had not played a FIDE rated game in England for about 10 years. So they forced me to become a member even though I am a member of the French Chess Federation where I play my Fide rated chess.

Voluntary organisations which get their membership by force are doomed and do not survive.

The whole of the membership system is going to be an absolute disaster. I am glad people are starting to realise this.

On the specific point, I'm not sure I understand. Under both current and future arrangements a player can play an entire 4NCL weekend as a wild card without having to become an ECF member.

On the general point as to whether the new membership arrangements are 'unfair' and 'a rip-off', there's been plenty of ink spilt on the subject on various threads over the past months and I doubt that more debate on this particular thread will to add anything new to the sum of human knowledge.

Ben Purton wrote:Its unfair, what if i dont want to support my federation because I believe it is corrupt and just want to play chess?

Simple, find another federation.

Mike Truran wrote:On the general point as to whether the new membership arrangements are 'unfair' and 'a rip-off', there's been plenty of ink spilt on the subject on various threads over the past months and I doubt that more debate on this particular thread will to add anything new to the sum of human knowledge.

This is undoubtedly true, still...

People who only play 2 or 3 games a year in the 4NCL and no other OTB chess? Really?

Indeed. But as regards the specific point that Ben was making, little has changed.

As regards the wider issue, I have nothing to add that has not been said (at length) by the various contributors over the past months.

Paul Cooksey wrote:
People who only play 2 or 3 games a year in the 4NCL and no other OTB chess? Really?

Ben was, I think, talking about his contemporaries, players in their twenties who may have many other business, study, sporting, social or family commitments which restricts the amount of "serious" chess they can play to one weekend a year and a bit of blitz on servers.

Whilst they can play in the 4NCL as a wild card, it is ECF policy if they have an existing rating to update them on the FIDE rating site as "suspended". In other words it makes them look as if they've been caught cheating or some other crime against the ECF.

I also aware that membership advocates have heard these arguments many times before. They don't however take the slightest notice.

It is characteristic of charging per head that low users pay a high cost per game for individual games. £9 in the example that Ben cites.

Mike Truran wrote:Indeed. But as regards the specific point that Ben was making, little has changed.

Adam Raoof trashing your rating was new last summer. This applied to at least one player who took part in last May's weekend as a wildcard. My suggestion to Ben is that he attends, or gets someone to attend the captain's meeting and asks that the 4NCL lobby the ECF for something like the £ 6 Congress fee to be extended to internationally rated events.

It's also new that it isn't a FIDE requirement, but an ECF one, that you need to be a Direct Member to play in a rated event. Actually that isn't new, but the confirmation of this, as received by Chess Scotland for the Scottish NCL is. To clarify, the Scottish NCL doesn't require individual membership of Chess Scotland or any federation. They content themselves with charging a modest extra for the rating of non-members.

Richard Thursby wrote:

Ben Purton wrote:Its unfair, what if i dont want to support my federation because I believe it is corrupt and just want to play chess?

Simple, find another federation.

Simple?? Could you explain this simple procedure to me in 2-3 lines and give an estimate of the cost in transfer fees?

Roger de Coverly wrote:I also aware that membership advocates have heard these arguments many times before. They don't however take the slightest notice.

I disagree. The tiered membership mitigates the large marginal cost of playing FIDE rated games.

I suspect Ben's problem isn't that his team play no other OTB chess, it is that they play no other FIDE rated chess.

Paul Cooksey wrote: The tiered membership mitigates the large marginal cost of playing FIDE rated games.

That's how much, one Euro per event, is it not?

Using the example of an additional entry into an e2e4 event, by how much does this increase Sean's amount payable to the ECF and by how much does this increase the ECF's payment to FIDE?

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Paul Cooksey wrote: The tiered membership mitigates the large marginal cost of playing FIDE rated games.

That's how much, one Euro per event, is it not?

Using the example of an additional entry into an e2e4 event, by how much does this increase Sean's amount payable to the ECF and by how much does this increase the ECF's payment to FIDE?

I think we've discussed this before.

If you want to say that advocates of membership are wrong, that's fine. I'm just railing against the idea they (/ we ) are ignoring the discussion.

Sticking with Ben and the 4NCL - the new situation will hit him less hard than the old one, right? Gold tier membership is lower than the existing membership his team are required to buy, and they are not having a game fee collected from them on top of it. Right?

Paul Cooksey wrote:Sticking with Ben and the 4NCL - the new situation will hit him less hard than the old one, right? Gold tier membership is lower than the existing membership his team are required to buy, and they are not having a game fee collected from them on top of it. Right?

Right-ish.

They paid no Game Fee at 4NCL, and Gold membership voted on is the same rate as last year.

So taking Ben's "my players only play 3 FIDE-rated players on one weekend a year" argument, the difference in cost to such players between the old world and the new is a swashbuckling £0.