County Championships

[Sean Hewitt]

I dont know of any congress that runs Open / U175 / U150 / U125 and U100 sections.

How about the British Championships, Sean!

Touche!

But tell me an independent congress that runs those kinds of limits David!!

[IM Jack Rudd]

And besides, the British doesn't run those limits simultaneously. The U125 and U175 are in one week, the U100 and U150 the other.

[carstenpedersen]

Sean

This is the bit I don't get

If we look at the change in the numbers of eligible players for each band, assuming no change to the grading limits, we see the following:-



Open +4.5
U175 +8.9
U150 +10.1
U125 +3.3
U100 -26.8

So far from arguing that we will see more teams because there are less players available in each band, I am suggesting that there will be more teams because there are more players available in each band. The exception is the U100 section which is only 12 boards and already has an abundance of non selected players.

Your argument would be true if the current competitions were:

Over 175
150-174
125-149
100-124
U100

However, they're not, and as you have pointed out yourself teams rely heavely on recruiting from the band(s)
below, so in fact you <B>are</B> reducing the number of players available for each team. I still cannot
see how that can lead to more teams playing.

The "new" U100 tournament would look quite similar in player content to the current SCCU U75 I suspect and as you rightly point out, the SCCU presumably felt there were such players who wanted to play county chess.

Agreed, but only 3, from your analysis large, counties could field a team, and only 10 boards. What makes you think that smaller counties elsewhere (apart from Leicestershire and maybe staffs.) can raise 12 board teams? To me the question is how many of the current U100 teams will disappear when they become 16 board U125. Hopefully not too many but it has to be a risk.

The fact is, if a county only has enough willing players (or captains!) to field, say, 4 teams, then it will only field 4 teams, no matter what the bands are, so I don't believe there will be an increase in teams anywhere, or more accurately, there will be no increases which couldn't also have been achieved with the elegibility distribution left the way it is. It is however a racing certainty that if your draconian reduction of eligible players is approved then some counties will field fewer teams.

[Neill Cooper]

I see that in last year's U175 National stages the MCCU's only representative (Gtr Machester) fielded a team with only 3 players over 150 and they were all U160. So they could field the same team under the new gradings. All other teams use players in the uppers 160s and 170s. Perhaps that is why the MCCU don't mind the changes!

[Neill Cooper]

[quote="Sean Hewitt]However, if we leave the bands the same and look at this years new grades we would have the following eligibility

Open 100%
175 90.7%
150 70.9%
125 42.4%
100 15.9%
[/quote]
There is a big difference between the number of players eligible, and the number who would want to play. I would think the proportion interested in spending 5 to 6 hours of a Saturday on a single chess games is much less for the (NEW) Under 100s than amongst higher graded players. How many counties could put together a 12 board U75 team (with any juniors being U50)?

[Steve Rooney]

It seems to me that the last few posts have got it right. The issue is not about the theoretical availability of players in each grading band, it's about real people and specifically willing captains and drivers. If the grading bands aren't changed in line with the new grades for players next season - I think this was referred to as the status quo option earlier - the most likely outcome is surely less teams competing at under 100. I share Neil Cooper's view that enthusiasm for county chess is easier to find among higher graded players, at least in the case of adult players.

[Sean Hewitt]

Interesting posts from Neill and Steve. The problem with their shared view is that it is difficult to prove or disprove given its a very subjective stance. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but its difficult to rely on a feeling when making these decisions! The comment from MCCU captains was that if they ended up in a different grading band they would simply captain that team instead!

So, are stronger players more likley to play chess at the weekend? Most congress organisers would say no - just look at the size of most weekend opens. But what about county chess? Rather than being subjective, perhaps its better to look at how many teams actually played county chess last year. I've taken the figures from Martyn Harris' previous post on the subject - thanks to him.

Open 25
U175 8
U150 21
U125 20
U100 18

Far from showing that stronger players play more county chess, it shows that each section has approximately the same number of competitors apart from the U175 competition which seems to be a dead duck nationally.

However, this is not the entire story. 5 of the 8 U175 teams came from the SCCU (where all the counties are much bigger than those in other unions) so getting rid of that section would be bad for them - unless some were prepared to play as a second open team. And of the 18 U100 teams, 9 were from the MCCU. So it seems U100 is thriving, but perhaps its only in the Midlands! This is why I worry about the "one size fits all" approach as I fear it is going to be bad for a chunk of players - regardless of which way the decision goes. The solution needs to be more inventive than just grading bands I think, and needs to factor in the variance in sizes amongst counties somehow.

However, it does seem odd to me, given the figures above and the previous figures about numbers of players available, that anyone should be arguing to preserve the U175 section given that only 8 teams compete nationally. If it didnt exist already, I'm sure no-one would be advocating its creation!

[Steve Rooney]

I don't really mind the 'subjective' tag Sean, but I am not convinced that your argument, built on impersonal data, is any more objective because it doesn't deal with the reality in some counties.

But in the interest of objectivity I have had a quick look at the grading data from the last upgrade and it shows that taking the 'new grades' for 2008-09, there would be 17 players in Shropshire under 100. Of this group nine are juniors, a number of whom I would expect to be above the 100 level next season in view of their results this year. Of course there could be some adults whose 'new grade' drops below 100 to counter this, but it still leaves a very small pool of players for an U100 team. This scenario compares to 37 players graded under 100 under the (old) grades this year - which equates to 33 players graded under 125 on 'new grades'.

Currently, Shropshire's U100 is just juniors but last season there was an adult team as well and we would hope that this could return next season. (In fact the adult U100 team didn't compete this year because of a lack of a captain, something that has been a difficulty since the last regular captain went over 100!)

Goodness, life will be much simpler when this regrading settles down, or should we just move Shropshire across the border to Wales and move over to ELO?

[Steve Rooney]

By the way, I would agree with the idea of dropping the U175.

[Sean Hewitt]

...in the interest of objectivity I have had a quick look at the grading data from the last upgrade and it shows that taking the 'new grades' for 2008-09, there would be 17 players in Shropshire under 100. Of this group nine are juniors, a number of whom I would expect to be above the 100 level next season in view of their results this year. Of course there could be some adults whose 'new grade' drops below 100 to counter this, but it still leaves a very small pool of players for an U100 team. This scenario compares to 37 players graded under 100 under the (old) grades this year - which equates to 33 players graded under 125 on 'new grades'.

Steve, I dont think your numbers are quite right. The ECF grading database has far more than 37 U100 players in Shropshire. Looking at that database there are 144 graded players who have a first club (the one they play most games for) in Shropshire. These players are [old] graded thus

175+ 5
150-174 13
125-149 15
100-124 34
U100 77

This is hardly an even distribution. It is perhaps no surprise that Shropshire operates Open, U125 and U100 teams and, as Steve rightly says, ran two U100 teams until last year. I understand that it was only the lack of a captain that prevented a second U100 team this year. Clearly there are not the players to run U175 or U150 teams and these players have to play in the Open team if they are to play County chess at all.

If we look at the "new" style grades for these same 144 players we get the following distribution

175+ 9
150-174 22
125-149 43
100-124 38
U100 32

This looks a far more desirable distribution to me and, captains permitting, might allow Shropshire to enter a team at U150 level next season in addition to their existing teams, especially as these numbers don't include the 20 or so active ungraded players. I certainly dont see why, on this evidence, leaving the bands as they are should prevent Shropshire from operating any of their current teams - including the U100 - next year.

[Steve Rooney]

Sean, I simply can't reconcile the 77 players you claim under 100 in Shropshire with the current active players. However even accepting that your figures are correct, getting a team of 12 from an entire population of 32 under 100s with new grades is not realistic. It just seems unnecessary to try and engineer a change in county teams in the wake of the grade changes. Why not just accept that the grade boundaries move up with the new grades and if any category fails to get sufficient teams to make it viable (under 175?), rationalise he groupings afterwards.

[Richard Bates]

How about something a bit controversial to get everyone's hackles up?

Why is there a need to have a "national stage" of the grading limited competitions at all? What is the purpose of the grading limited competitions? Is it primarily to find the "best" U150 (say) county team in the country, or is it really to give a chance for as many people as possible to have a chance of playing (competitive - against a player of similar standard) county chess, who couldn't otherwise expect to get into their county's Open team?

Considering the clear regional differences apparent from these discussions, would it not make more sense to abolish the national stages, and prioritise the second of these by allowing regional unions to set their own grading bands in accordance with their own circumstances and grading distributions, with the ability to vary them over time. If the SCCU thinks they can have viable competitions with gaps of merely 20pts then let them do it. If the MCCU wants gaps of 30pts with no U175/U180 competition then let them do it. This could lead to an increase in grading limited teams and numbers of games played (more double round competitions etc). And avoid problems when counties get more than one team to finals day when both teams look to draw on the same players (which undermines the whole basis of national stages finding 'best' counties anyway).

And leave the national stages to find the Open champions alone.

[Sean Hewitt]

Sean, I simply can't reconcile the 77 players you claim under 100 in Shropshire with the current active players.

I've published a list of the players below, including the number of games played last season.

However even accepting that your figures are correct, getting a team of 12 from an entire population of 32 under 100s with new grades is not realistic..

Hi Steve, I'm a little puzzled by this as earlier you thought that getting a team out this year from a pool of 37 players was ok, but next year getting a team out from a pool of 32 is not? In any case I think that you forget that there are 32 players graded under 100. On top of this there are about 20 ungraded players, plus any new players who happen along. I note, for example, that Shropshire have used at least 3 ungraded players in their u100 team this year, so the pool to choose from is larger than that shown in my figures.

It just seems unnecessary to try and engineer a change in county teams in the wake of the grade changes. Why not just accept that the grade boundaries move up with the new grades and if any category fails to get sufficient teams to make it viable (under 175?), rationalise he groupings afterwards.

Surely the issue is what should the grading limits be? Given that there is no clean formula where one can say 150 old grade = 162 new grade (as each player is re-graded seperately) it's absolutely right that the ECF takes this opportunity to consider carefully what to do with the grading limited sections. Should they be changed and if so, what to? And if not, why not? I absolutley agree with David Sedgwick on this point - changing now, and then changing again next year (ie "rationalise the groupings afterwards") is not a sensible option. So we should identify what the objectives of the grading limited events are, and try to set limits that deliver those objectives. We shouldn't be bound by what we currently have. As I said before, if we didnt have an U175 event already I doubt anyone could put forward a logical argument for creating one!

[Sean Hewitt]

How about something a bit controversial to get everyone's hackles up?

Why is there a need to have a "national stage" of the grading limited competitions at all? What is the purpose of the grading limited competitions? Is it primarily to find the "best" U150 (say) county team in the country, or is it really to give a chance for as many people as possible to have a chance of playing (competitive - against a player of similar standard) county chess, who couldn't otherwise expect to get into their county's Open team?

Considering the clear regional differences apparent from these discussions, would it not make more sense to abolish the national stages, and prioritise the second of these by allowing regional unions to set their own grading bands in accordance with their own circumstances and grading distributions, with the ability to vary them over time. If the SCCU thinks they can have viable competitions with gaps of merely 20pts then let them do it. If the MCCU wants gaps of 30pts with no U175/U180 competition then let them do it. This could lead to an increase in grading limited teams and numbers of games played (more double round competitions etc). And avoid problems when counties get more than one team to finals day when both teams look to draw on the same players (which undermines the whole basis of national stages finding 'best' counties anyway).

And leave the national stages to find the Open champions alone.

Now that's what I call thinking outside of the box! I don't know what purpose of the grading limited events is, so perhaps someone can tell us.

[carstenpedersen]

It seems to me that this thread is now evolving into two separate debates. One dealing with Seans original question about what should happen with the nominal grading bands next season, in response to the change in grade distribution and a second much more wideranging discussion about the overall structure and purpose of county chess.

The first is clearly very important for the season 2009/10. I presume there isn't enough time to completely overhaul the competition for next season, so the earliest that could happen would be 2010/11? Which still leaves open the question about what should happen next year.

With that in mind, if grading bands were abolished how would the distinctions between multiple teams from the same county be handled?

Presumably they'd become 1st, 2nd, 3rd team etc. To me that suggests a league structure, which leads to a divisional set-up. I think for that to work Richards suggestion to restrict the national stage to the open would probably have to be adopted.

Assuming that you could have a so we could have a structure somesthing like this within a union:

XCCU (a large union)
Div 1 6 teams of 16 players
Div 2 6 teams of 16 players
Div 3 6 teams of 16players
Div 4 6 teams of 16 players
Div 4 6 teams of 12 players (Average grade max 100)

With the winner of division 1 going into the national stage.

YCCU (a smaller union) might go for say
DIV 1 5 teams of 16 players
Div 2 5 teams of 12 players
Div 3 5 teams of 12 players (U125 only)


The advantages I can see are:
1) As Richard suggests, outside Div 1 each union can do as they please, as there is no need to accomodate a national structure.
2) A league structure helps to ensure that all teams, within a union at least, get roughly the same number of matches.
3) Disparities in strength between counties can more easily be accomodated.
4) Promotion/Relegation creates additional interest?

Disadvantages
1) Most teams will have no prospect of reaching a national final - if that is a disadvantage?
2) The usual league arguments about eligibility, and possibly disagreements between captains about players.
Grading limits at least makes it crystal clear who can play for which teams.


Worth considering?