Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

A forum for the Midland Counties Chess Union.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:45 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 1:15 pm
After matches were played I had to go through every result and check for violations before applying penalties if necessary (and on one occasion overturning the result).
Only in your imagination. The pragmatic approach is to accept the result of the match as played unless one of the captains raises an objection. You would get far less grief that way than by attempting to apply each last sentence of the rules.

Dragoljub Sudar
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Dragoljub Sudar » Sun Apr 01, 2018 5:42 pm

I often agree with you Roger but in this case you're wrong.

Controllers aren't doing their job properly if they don't check whether the rules have been broken and don't apply the penalties.
If Andrew had to trawl through the 'small print' of the rules then that suggests the rules have become too messy and need simplifying.

J T Melsom
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by J T Melsom » Sun Apr 01, 2018 8:58 pm

I also disagree with you here Roger. Just because two team captains are happy and either blissfully ignorant of a rule breach or unconcerned by it, doesn't mean that a corrective action shouldn't be applied otherwise there is little point to having rules. in a multiple team competition there are other parties who might be affected by a match being played under less than stringent rules, especially if they spend the same competition observing the full requirements. It is easy but wrong to see a match as just being between two teams, when in reality there may be a large number of interested third parties. This doesn't mean some rules are not worthless or too obscure for their own good, but that is a separate issue. As Controller in Bucks I have been constantly vigilant to offences including those caused by my own club - and there are some rules (eligibility around up=floats for example)which are extremely difficult for the opposing teams in a fixture to identify.

Michael Flatt
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Michael Flatt » Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:03 pm

Controllers don't have magic powers. If captains or others are concerned about protectng against all and every infringement of the rules they need to pay for an independant recognised Arbiter to supervise their match. I doubt that the players would want to pay anything towards the extra cost.

David Sedgwick
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:08 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:31 am
I'm quite happy to differ about tradition vs progress in the county championships. I will not accept these accusations that I have an agenda to destroy the county championships. As I have said more than once the role of the controller is an administrative one and I had no authority to alter the format. I played a part in the 2015 consultation paper but had no imput into the current consultation. For what it's worth I disagree entirely with the proposal to require teams to have at least one player from certain demographics.

Alex held a consultation and responses were received. The proposals are, at least in part, based upon these. Would you accept that the views of others are as valid as yours?

If direct entry is introduced the only thing that would fundamentally change is that in the more contested union stages the battle for third place becomes slightly less significant. Others things don't change. You would still have a prestigious union stage competition every year. And later on in the summer teams will travel longer distances to play other counties in a five hour long play game just as you do now. I fail to see what has been destroyed.
We are never going to agree what is or is not fundamental to the Counties Championships, but I accept that I should not have used the word destroy. I apologise accordingly and I have amended my post.

I still struggle to see how the proposals in Part 2 of the consultation reflect the responses to Part 1, if the latter have been correctly summarised.

As best as I can tell the weight of opinion is on my side of this argument, but as I have said several times already, Council will decide. I look forward with interest to seeing the details of the proposals which Alex will be putting to Council.
Last edited by David Sedgwick on Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:22 am

Firstly I am happy to accept David Sedgwick's apology above and recognise the passions around the competition.

I think the story can now be told that in mid 2013 I received a private message from Alex Holowczak on this forum asking me whether I would be interesting in taking on the role of controller of the county championships. I was in two minds whether or not to accept but decided to give it a go for two reasons. One was that I knew that if I turned it down I'd always wonder what might have been. The other was the memory of my rather hot headed early posts on the forum where I made some comments about a former CEO I now regret. Put simply I felt I owed the ECF something in return. I actually stayed in the job two years longer than I originally intended; I was ready to walk away from chess organisation in general in 2015 (there were problems locally as well), I don't agree with Alex on everything but he didn't deserve the smear campaign waged against him during the run up to the 2015 AGM and that made me turn back. So I did 2015-16 in the interests of stability and 2016-17 to allow Alex to find a successor.

The role of County Championships controller is largely a secretarial one and I will readily admit that I was probably not the right man for the job. I am already yesterday's controller and I am sure Mark Murrell will be an excellent servant of the competition. At the same time four years in the job has given me some insights and where there is a debate about the future of the competition I will have my say.
Controller - Yorkshire League
Chairman - Harrogate Chess Club
All views expressed entirely my own

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:31 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:45 pm
Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 1:15 pm
After matches were played I had to go through every result and check for violations before applying penalties if necessary (and on one occasion overturning the result).
Only in your imagination. The pragmatic approach is to accept the result of the match as played unless one of the captains raises an objection. You would get far less grief that way than by attempting to apply each last sentence of the rules.
That is an approach I could have taken and, up to a point, might well have done. If I didn't it was because I felt that it was expected of me to do so. The most common violation was a captain playing an ungraded player who hadn't been cleared in advance (and who would have certainly been cleared otherwise). Until 2016 there was the additional complication of a well known SCCU figure publishing the results on his site (often before I'd had a chance to verify them) and picking through the results with a precision worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
Controller - Yorkshire League
Chairman - Harrogate Chess Club
All views expressed entirely my own

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Apr 02, 2018 7:37 am

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:31 am
The most common violation was a captain playing an ungraded player who hadn't been cleared in advance (and who would have certainly been cleared otherwise).

I don't see why a Controller shouldn't take the view that if the opposing match captain accepts the ungraded player, that the Controller should as well, Ban them or insist on a higher board placing for subsequent matches if you must. The most ridiculous application of that rule was against an ungraded player playing in the Open where his position in the board order was queried. Not being prepared to grandfather the earlier Union rulings is a bit over the top as well.

Neil Graham
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Neil Graham » Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:23 am

Firstly perhaps this debate should be in the Counties Championship section rather than here?

Secondly I am always interested (not) in opinions of people who do not even have a team in these competitions. There are rules for these competitions and Andrew applied them fairly and properly whilst Controller. If you're a captain you need to acquaint yourselves with those rules and if you fail to do so the only fault is yours.

Finally and in answer to the last post. A few years ago we had a match in one of the graded sections. We had an ungraded player in our team who had been correctly passed by the Controller at the time and I had an e-mail to confirm this. Our opponents turned up with an ungraded player, not cleared, who won in double quick time - after the match we found details on a local grading list that indicated he would not have been eligible for the section.
We appealed and won and the ECF official involved said he wouldn't even have been eligible for the section above let alone the one in which he played. Since then the rules have been tightened and hopefully the same sort of situation won't occur again. The responsibility of sorting out eligibility clearly rests with the team selecting players not the opposition.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Mon Apr 02, 2018 11:58 am

As Yorkshire League controller I remember saying that players and captains had a choice. They could either have rigid eligibility rules that would be applied no matter what or fluid rules that relied on trust but might occasionally lead to potential violations slipping the net. What they can't have is both.

Roger does have a point about allowing players cleared at union level to carry forward to the national stages. Had I continued as controller with the time to do the job justice (which I don't, the main reason I stood down) I might have asked union controllers to do this with a proviso that I could reject these if I felt the cleared grade was wrong. A recent dispute shows that it could potentially be dangerous for the ECF to have to accept all union stage rulings at face value.

Personally I would have preferred the penalty for playing an uncleared player (provided no other rules were broken) should have been financial rather than a points penalty. I also never saw the point of having to guesstimate grades for juniors with no prior grading history.
Controller - Yorkshire League
Chairman - Harrogate Chess Club
All views expressed entirely my own

Mick Norris
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Re: Counties Championship 2017-18 Graded Sections

Post by Mick Norris » Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:56 pm

Mick Norris wrote:
Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:28 pm
Neil Graham wrote:
Sun Mar 11, 2018 9:12 pm
Any suggestions on which three teams might qualify here?
http://www.mccu.org.uk/cm17-18/u120/u120.htm
So, there are now 5 counties tied on 6 points following the appeal; a very competitive section
And I think the tie is broken as follows (with my apologies for being unable to get a table looking sensible):

U120 Notts Warks Derbys Staffs Lincs Total
Notts xxx 5.5 4.5 9 12 31
Warks 6.5 xxx 9 5 4.5 25
Derbys 7.5 3 xxx 8 4.5 23
Staffs 3 7 4 xxx 6.5 20.5
Lincs 0 7.5 7.5 5.5 xxx 20.5
Total 17 23 25 27.5 27.5
Any postings on here represent my personal views

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