2011 BUCA Championship (February 26/27)

[Alex Holowczak]

I think a possible issue with the costings is that many students would be able to bunk up with somebody at Oxford for free, so the whole the accommodation is in effect an 'additional' cost.

The problem is, the entry fee would have to be increased then, as the venue costs would be much higher than they would be for another venue, and the facilities wouldn't be as good. It would probably be more expensive that way around. There needs to be a compromise somewhere down the line, but I don't think many students realise this (judging by the number of "We don't care about the accommodation, can we stay elsewhere?" e-mails I've had).

[David Sedgwick]

This seems like a small scale version of the controversies about the World and European events held in Turkey.

I've heard of complaints about cost from a few sources. I find this very worrying for the future of English chess. The train fares and accommodation would make the total cost for the weekend at somewhere in the region of £100. The cost is almost equivalent to that of a 4NCL weekend, and comparable with most weekend congresses that aren't on your doorstep. Things like Sean's events would cost a bit more, because of the requirement for two nights' accommodation. So if you're not prepared to spend £100 for a weekend at what amounts to the national championship for students, then you're probably not going to play any chess once you leave University.

I don't think that follows. The fact that you can't afford the cost while you're at University doesn't mean you won't be able to do so in later years. I didn't play much chess in my student days and the financial and academic pressures weren't as great then as they are now.

However, the BUCA Championship is an important initiative and I hope it will continue. I'd like to wish Alex and everyone else involved a successful and trouble free weekend.

[Matthew Turner]

I think a point is that Cambridge could afford to play if they wanted to. After all the University used to manage to field a County team. It might require the organisation of a few pint-a-point tournaments, or writing a few begging letters to the University, but I think it is disappointing that nobody at cambridge was prepared to take the venture on and run with it.

[Peter Roberson]

Where do you find these keen chess players?! There are 6 160+ players at my college alone, but it's a struggle to get even half of them to play a match a few seconds walk from there accomodation. I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't find 4-6 out of the 30 (guesstimating) in the university willing to pay for the weekend. (Indeed this isn't a good thing). The most keen (~4 of us) are already spending two weekends this term playing 4NCL...and Cambridge doesn't really have weekends.

I agree it's disappointing that there was no 'central' funding, but I'm completely clueless what attempts were made or how the funding bureaucracy works.

I hope it goes well for the more keen universities!

[Adam Raoof]

Like most team events, participation usually depends on one enthusiastic person to organise players into a squad and make arrangements, or delegate the various functions. A club can have a very healthy membership and still have trouble fielding teams because nobody wants to take on the Captain's role.

Cambridge could no doubt afford to play, and has enough decent players to make up a team (or two). But without a catalyst no transformation into an active team will take place!

[Alex Holowczak]

Where do you find these keen chess players?!

Poland, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Old Hill.

There are 6 160+ players at my college alone, but it's a struggle to get even half of them to play a match a few seconds walk from there accomodation.

I worry about the standard of Cambridge students if they can't differentiate between "there" and "their".

I agree it's disappointing that there was no 'central' funding, but I'm completely clueless what attempts were made or how the funding bureaucracy works.

Well, you'd probably have to attend a meeting and ask for it. Our Guild has rather clumsily said that they will stop funding a club or society if we're not represented at a thing called Guild Council, meetings of which are held every three weeks. This basically means they have to fund us in some way, otherwise it's a stupid threat. So we managed to get some money that way. I have no idea of how Cambridge's equivalent works, but your President (Alex Gordon-Brown, I believe?) should know exactly how to go about it.

[Alex Holowczak]

But without a catalyst no transformation into an active team will take place!

If I can get a team of 4 to play 10 Cannock League games a season (from a squad of 6, plus the odd fugitive from Birmingham City University), then Cambridge could do the same with their legions. Perhaps the fact that I'm at Aston and they're at Cambridge has something to do with it. You don't get into Cambridge without working very hard for the previous 7 years of your life. Whereas students at other Universities are probably more open to the idea of doing something non-academic with their time.

Having no spare time - Peter is right when he says there isn't much - is pretty much a feature of modern day education if you're going to go to Oxbridge and go on to earn £50,000+ per year. Frankly, I could never be bothered with all that effort. I felt the opportunities I'd miss by slaving away would be far more valuable than the £10,000 per year less I might earn when I'm older.

[Alex Holowczak]

There have been some changes to the various teams. I've had no official confirmation of the changes to Oxford, but having been involved in the discussions about it, I am prepared to accept it as their team until I'm told otherwise. The changes have evened it up a bit! The file can be downloaded from http://www.buca.org.uk

[Alex Holowczak]

The bad news is that Durham have had to withdraw, due to not being able to get access to an otherwise free minibus.

However, I had had interest earlier in the week from the School of African Studies, London (SOAS), but they left it so late to contact me that I had to decline their entry. We hadn't the equipment, space, and it would have introduced a bye, which wouldn't have been popular. After some frantic contacting, it looks like they're able to field a team still anyway (they have 3 at the time of writing), so it looks like the problem will be negated!

[Eoin Devane]

However, I had had interest earlier in the week from the School of African Studies, London (SOAS), but they left it so late to contact me that I had to decline their entry. We hadn't the equipment, space, and it would have introduced a bye, which wouldn't have been popular. After some frantic contacting, it looks like they're able to field a team still anyway (they have 3 at the time of writing), so it looks like the problem will be negated!

You mean the School of Oriental and African Studies. A longer name to go on the wall charts.

[Alex Holowczak]

You mean the School of Oriental and African Studies. A longer name to go on the wall charts.

That's the one.

The wallcharts will say "SOAS".

[Alex Holowczak]

As it happens, SOAS are known as Scratch, since they have 2 players from SOAS, one from King's College London, and one other reserve. We have one other reserve who isn't playing (me!). Aston are playing the Scratch team, thus winning 4-0 by default, which isn't a fix...

Round 1:
1) Bristol v Oxford
2) UCL 1 v Southampton
3) Swansea v Bath
4) Warwick v LSE
5) BCU v UCL 2
6) Aston v Scratch

[Eoin Devane]

If you're posting updates on Twitter (no idea if you actually are), is there any chance that you could copy them here for the time being, since Twitter appears to not be working for me?

[Alex Holowczak]

If you're posting updates on Twitter (no idea if you actually are), is there any chance that you could copy them here for the time being, since Twitter appears to not be working for me?

I'm not; not enough time at the moment! Will post here if I can. I will have to start playing at some point.

[Alex Holowczak]

Round 1 results:
Bristol 0.5 Oxford 3.5
UCL1 3.5 Southampton 0.5
Swansea 1.5 Bath 2.5
Warwick 3 LSE 1
BCU 0.5 UCL2 3.5
Aston 4 Scratch 0 (1-3)