European Schools Chess Championship 2019

[John Higgs]

The European School Chess Championship starts today and runs to 8th June. The event is a 9 round FIDE rated event and is for boys and girls in the U7, U9, U11, U13, U15 & U17 categories. The venue is Mamaia, Romania

The England delegation is 29 players and 5 coaches. The team can be viewed at:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/Juniors ... ools-2019/

The event website is https://ecumamaia2019.ro/

The chess-results link for the event (tab across for your chosen age group) is:

http://chess-results.com/tnr436755.aspx ... ES&flag=30

Latest news, photographs etc can be seen via the twitter feed : @ECFJuniors2019

No twitter account? You can follow the twitter feed via this link:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ECFJuniors2019

[John Higgs]

Excellent team photograph taken before round 1/9:

ADE2C828-8D5D-4F85-8F43-A28CCCD840B6.jpeg (653.91 KiB) Viewed 4099 times

[John Higgs]

The final cross tables and player overview:

https://chess-results.com/tnr436763.asp ... ES&flag=30

[David Robertson]

Your verdict?

Better still, some evidence of valued added from the five ECF coaches provided

[NickFaulks]

Five coaches between twenty eight competitors does not strike me as an unreasonable ratio.

[David Robertson]

Five coaches between twenty eight competitors does not strike me as an unreasonable ratio.

That goes straight to the top of your five most ridiculous comments in this place

The ratio of coaches to players is not, at this point, in question. It's the ratio of player performance to coach value-added that must be addressed. Look at the player performance (pretty undistinguished overall), and ask what value the coaches added. In other words, most players performed to seed or thereabouts - undistinguished seeding positions in the main. What do we ask of the coaches by way of value-added? That they prevented performances being even worse? Or what?

[Adam Ashton]

Five coaches between twenty eight competitors does not strike me as an unreasonable ratio.

That goes straight to the top of your five most ridiculous comments in this place

The ratio of coaches to players is not, at this point, in question. It's the ratio of player performance to coach value-added that must be addressed. Look at the player performance (pretty undistinguished overall), and ask what value the coaches added. In other words, most players performed to seed or thereabouts - undistinguished seeding positions in the main. What do we ask of the coaches by way of value-added? That they prevented performances being even worse? Or what?

I think the forum is a little too concerned with junior results frankly. If I sent my daughter on one of these trips the idea would be to gain experience and spend 9 days or so immersed in chess. I daresay preparing/analysing with coaches would be an essential part of that. It doesn't matter what they score particularly, as long as they have a good attitude and come back a better player than they went. Maybe they will make friends that will keep them playing chess for many years. Whether it is good value for money is surely a decision for parents. In my opinion the coaches are invaluable part of the experience and 5 seems a reasonable number for 28 children.

In terms of elite chess I have no idea why we have high expectations. We actively discourage players from taking chess seriously enough to compete at this level. Most of the kids that medal at the worlds these days do not even attend school and learn chess full time. We will always be reliant on individuals who are unusually driven and our elite program should basically consist of giving them all the support we can.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Obviously it's the chess parents not the ECF that pay for the coaching. It's certainly a chunk of change added onto every international trip. My understanding is that coaching is no longer mandatory, and parents are free to use their own coaches or do it themselves. I think this is a good development in the main as parents who have seen the coaching system in action a few times at these events might want to make other choices. (I think that's as polite as I can make it! Lol)
I think this event also would mark the last event before the new FIDE grading standards kick in for selection for international events. Quite a number of players who have recently played at the World and European Schools will now find themselves ineligible to play further events until their FIDE grades improve. I'd imagine teams will now be smaller and if not winning medals then would have higher average finishing positions. The flip side of this being the clear bias to the South of England being further underlined, as there simply aren't enough FIDE events up there for northern juniors to ever keep up.

[Roger Lancaster]

" ...the last event before the new FIDE grading standards kick in for selection for international events …"

I don't seem to be able to find these. Could someone kindly provide a link?

[John McKenna]

Here -

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/Juniors ... on-policy/

Discussed here, here -

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10028

[Roger Lancaster]

Ah, thanks, John. Knew about that but took Matt's reference to be to some new FIDE edict which I couldn't trace! Appreciate your clarifying.