Should we rethink how the British Junior Championship works?

[Wadih Khoury]

Before suggesting to the ECF, I was thinking of gathering thoughts and ideas of the current Junior events scene, especially the British Junior championship.

I am noticing an increasing disaffection in strong Junior events which has many causes and no easy silver bullet.
I was thinking whether it would be feasible and beneficial in the context of English (or British) chess if:

• We split the British junior event from the main event. Rationale: the strongest juniors will now clearly prefer to play in the Championship if they can, or the Open if they cannot. The top 3-5 in rating of each age groups now rarely attend the British junior sections (nor the LJCC and other similar historical events) because of conflicting priorities
• We make the event a 9 round event like many (most?) countries. Having 6-7 rounds is a bit of a joke at high level given the increasing draw percentage and the randomness of swiss pairings. 7 rounds is just enough for 128 players and adds too much variability in the result. This also, in my view, should apply to other top events like UKCC or LJCC
• rather than an open, make the British a 2 or 3 tier qualification event (like the UKCC and LJCC). The rationale is that if you structure your qualifiers as "anyone on 5/9 in the city qualifiers goes to regional qualifier, and top 10-20 of each region qualify to the British", you create a lot of excitement within the junior community. Nothing excites more juniors than cups and qualifications! And also you create excitements at all levels, with an achievable goal at each layer, for each ability level. This in turns nurtures more chess vocations and then creates more needs for coaching, books, etc.. Parents can measure progress and invest more in chess. It creates and feeds an ecosystem, culminating in the final phase of the championship.
• Have separate open and girl sections. I know this one is debatable, but I can't help compare to other championships where 30% of participants are girls

It would start smaller than our neighbours, but with the right support (maybe a Chessable would want to sponsor in order to gain visibility with juniors).
As a medium / long term goal, it would be ideal if we could achieve the same as similar populated countries. As an example, France manages to align 1500+ juniors (including their strongest juniors) for the Junior championship finals (of which a third girls). Including parents and coaches, this pushes the total tournament population to 4,000 which means they are able to get councils to bid for selection. Agen is said to pay 400 (or 500?) thousand euros for the right to organise the event as it brings 3-4 million of economic benefit to the area.

[Andrew Martin]

Your suggestions are excellent, but to implement them would require a lot of work, by professionals and they would need to be properly paid. In the UK, where is the money coming from?

[Nick Ivell]

Ah, therein lies the rub. We have never had that kind of professional set up in the UK.

We are a country that values Holly and Phil stuff, not chess.

[Wadih Khoury]

While it is true that money is quite needed, I don't think you'd need an army of professionals.
After all, the LJCC and UKCC first rounds appear to me to be organised by local organisers (I'd assume some professional, some volunteers).

[Andrew Martin]

Then why haven’t your suggestions been implemented to date? After all, mirroring other successful countries is hardly a new idea.

The issue is that in the UK , with regard to chess, we rely on goodwill, which is considerable, but which means anyone can stop at any time and say that they are too busy.

No blame can be attached to anyone for this, but it does act as a barrier to progress because there is no real accountability. We have to settle for sideways, rather than forward movement.