Playing "weakened" sides in leagues?

[David Blower]

Hope what I am trying to get at in this post makes sense.

Would you say that your club fields sides not as strong as they could be, for some of your teams in some of the leagues to lets say give new members and junior players a chance of games. Is it unfair if say a side already winning promotion plays some less experienced player to give them a game, but maybe make it easier for the opposition. Or is it up to the chess club what players it plays and if it affects another chess club, tough luck.

[Sean Hewitt]

Would you say that your club fields sides not as strong as they could be, for some of your teams in some of the leagues to lets say give new members and junior players a chance of games. Is it unfair if say a side already winning promotion plays some less experienced player to give them a game, but maybe make it easier for the opposition. Or is it up to the chess club what players it plays and if it affects another chess club, tough luck.

I would say that it is up to the club to decide what team it wants to field in a given match. If any other club doesn't like it, tough!

[Niall Doran]

Or is it up to the chess club what players it plays and if it affects another chess club, tough luck.

I would personally say it’s up to the chess club, and the captain of the team concerned, what players play in any given match.
I’m currently captain of my club’s second team, and I have decided, along with the rest of the players in the club, that the second team will be used to give new/young players a bit of experience. I do this by playing a mix of experienced and inexperienced players, hopefully allowing the new guys to pick up a few things.
We have no interest in getting promoted (for various reasons), so the results aren’t too important, as long as we get enough wins to avoid the drop, which can be achieved easily if necessary by playing a full-strength team in the last couple of games if necessary.
If I’ve understood your point correctly, you’re worried that by fielding teams of different strengths, we’re creating an unlevel playing field. I personally think that that’s part of the nature of sport in general, and yes some opposing teams will have easier matches as a result.

[MartinCarpenter]

This happens all the time for random organisational reasons anyway. Quite a lot of the teams in the Yorkshire Saturday league have a 15-20 spread in their average strength/board over a season and that's over 8 boards so really quite substantial.

[David Williams]

Or is it up to the chess club what players it plays and if it affects another chess club, tough luck.

I would personally say it’s up to the chess club, and the captain of the team concerned, what players play in any given match.
I’m currently captain of my club’s second team, and I have decided, along with the rest of the players in the club, that the second team will be used to give new/young players a bit of experience. I do this by playing a mix of experienced and inexperienced players, hopefully allowing the new guys to pick up a few things.
We have no interest in getting promoted (for various reasons), so the results aren’t too important, as long as we get enough wins to avoid the drop, which can be achieved easily if necessary by playing a full-strength team in the last couple of games if necessary.
If I’ve understood your point correctly, you’re worried that by fielding teams of different strengths, we’re creating an unlevel playing field. I personally think that that’s part of the nature of sport in general, and yes some opposing teams will have easier matches as a result.

So the other teams in your division will know that they may be giving up their evening to give your new/young players a bit of experience, and that come the end of the season their may be easy wins or heavy defeats (depending on whether you are top or bottom), as a result of which promotion or relegation may not go to the most deserving team. I'm actually not saying you are wrong, but it's not a victimless approach.

[AustinElliott]

This happens all the time for random organisational reasons anyway. Quite a lot of the teams in the Yorkshire Saturday league have a 15-20 spread in their average strength/board over a season and that's over 8 boards so really quite substantial.

What Martin said. Coming back to chess after a long absence, I've noted that the primary determinant of team strength (which varies widely) seems to be 'who is available to play on a given day'. Away matches at a distance, and on a different weeknight to usual club night, particularly so. And more so lower down the club - first team players naturally tend to be the most 'committed', I think... but lower down the seeding order chess competes with all sorts of other stuff.

On a similar sort of theme, I suspect one of the reasons juniors are so useful to clubs, apart from their often rapid improvement, is that they almost always WANT to play - and tend to have long-suffering parents used to ferrying them to matches...

[Niall Doran]

So the other teams in your division will know that they may be giving up their evening to give your new/young players a bit of experience, and that come the end of the season their may be easy wins or heavy defeats (depending on whether you are top or bottom), as a result of which promotion or relegation may not go to the most deserving team. I'm actually not saying you are wrong, but it's not a victimless approach.

Regarding players giving up their evening, most of the players on most of the other teams in the division are already quite weak, so that's not really an issue. However even if it was, I'd still field the team I want to field. When players commit to a team, they have to accept that the odd game will be a mis-match. As captain of my club's second team, I'm personally committing to playing in a division where most of the opposition are a lot weaker than I, which recently led to a three-year unbeaten run, due mostly to the fact that all my opponents are significantly weaker. It's a team game, not just a bunch of individuals playing together.

And you're right, it's not a victimless approach! However at our level, whether a team gets relegated/promoted or not is rarely a matter of life and death, and if due to the vaguaries of player availability, whether teams meet at the start or the end of the season or home advantage, the best team doesn't win, well that's just the nature of sport!

[Greg Breed]

So the other teams in your division will know that they may be giving up their evening to give your new/young players a bit of experience, and that come the end of the season their may be easy wins or heavy defeats (depending on whether you are top or bottom), as a result of which promotion or relegation may not go to the most deserving team. I'm actually not saying you are wrong, but it's not a victimless approach.

Regarding players giving up their evening, most of the players on most of the other teams in the division are already quite weak, so that's not really an issue. However even if it was, I'd still field the team I want to field. When players commit to a team, they have to accept that the odd game will be a mis-match. As captain of my club's second team, I'm personally committing to playing in a division where most of the opposition are a lot weaker than I, which recently led to a three-year unbeaten run, due mostly to the fact that all my opponents are significantly weaker. It's a team game, not just a bunch of individuals playing together.

And you're right, it's not a victimless approach! However at our level, whether a team gets relegated/promoted or not is rarely a matter of life and death, and if due to the vagaries of player availability, whether teams meet at the start or the end of the season or home advantage, the best team doesn't win, well that's just the nature of sport!

Ah, that is starting to sound more like manipulating the results. If your standard team is generally much stronger than the rest of the teams in the league and you win most of your matches, throwing the last couple to ensure you DONT get promoted is akin to match fixing. Were I in your division I would eventually complain that your team deserves to be promoted and playing in the division above.
There may not be any rules to specifically stop that sort of thing, but I would guess that most leagues have some stipulation for the spirit of the game.

[MartinCarpenter]

There's quite a lot of clubs/leagues where having both teams from a club in the same division is fundamentally unworkable due to the board order regulations, so its actually very understandable.

The thing that stops this sort of thing being easy to abuse is the players in the club itself. So long as they're happy doing this then fine. You might I suppose want to be a little careful not to artifically affect relegation/promotion candidates but thats probably quite hard.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

There's quite a lot of clubs/leagues where having both teams from a club in the same division is fundamentally unworkable due to the board order regulations, so its actually very understandable.

How do such regulations vary in different leagues around the country? I'm currently, this season, captaining the Richmond B side in division 1 of the Thames Valley League (TVL) as we got promoted last year. Historically, B-teams in this division get relegated again straight away (Ealing B last year won 1 and lost 13 matches, as you can see here:

http://www.thamesvalleychess.org/archive/div12011-2.htm

Ealing had to run both an A-team and a B-team last year. This year, Richmond (the full name is Richmond and Twickenham Chess Club, I should add) are in the same situation. The TVL rules centre on a system of nominations and a quota system. Nominated A-team players (7 players have to be nominated, and matches are over 8 boards) can only play for the A-team. Players that are not nominated can play up to five times for the A-team, but if they play more often than this, they are then barred from the B-team (and lower teams). The exact wording is: "A player who has played more than five times in total for any team (or combinations of teams of one club) shall not be eligible to play for any lower team during the season."

It seems to work reasonably well, allowing some overlap between the teams.

Full details, if anyone is interested, are here:

http://www.thamesvalleychess.org/rules/ ... ersion.htm

How do other leagues handle this sort of thing? In what way do board order regulations impact having two teams in the same division?

[Graham Borrowdale]

...they may be giving up their evening ...

Nobody should regard playing in a chess match as giving up an evening, and if they do then I would suggest the team would be better off selecting somebody else. Most of us play chess because we want to and not because we are cojoled into doing so.

As for the avoiding promotion thing, many teams, say 2nd teams, know that they will be mismatched if they get promoted, and would prefer to play their chess in the lower division. I think many leagues have provision that promoted teams can choose not to take up their promotion if they don't want to.

[Ian Kingston]

I've never picked a 'weakened' team to manipulate results, but occasionally captaincy can throw up a dilemma. On Monday night I was a player short for my Derby & District League first team, so I wanted a player from the second team. Unfortunately, they had a Notts League match that night.

So did the third team.

And the fourth team.

And the fifth team.

Not to mention the seventh team.

Just as well they were all playing at home, really.

I could have made life difficult for everyone by taking a second team player anyway, but I decided to give a talented junior from the fifth team a shot at making a name for himself. (His father captains the fifth team and was happy with this. The fifth, sixth and seventh teams are predominantly juniors gaining league experience in the bottom division.) The resulting grade difference on bottom board was only 18 points in the opposition's favour, and who knows how much a junior might have improved? As it happened, the youngster lost after a hard fight (and gained some good experience), my team won, disruption was minimised and everyone was happy - except, ironically, the second team, who lost when the player I would have stolen blundered early on.

[Roger de Coverly]

How do other leagues handle this sort of thing? In what way do board order regulations impact having two teams in the same division?

Given the overlap of people and clubs, it's unsurprising that the rules in both the Berks and Bucks leagues are similar to those of the Thames Valley.

There isn't a consensus to make changes, but it's alarming from a sporting viewpoint that a player nominated for a second team can then play all the matches for that team and half of the matches for a first team. Unlike the 4NCL, board order regulations on "order of strength" only apply within teams. But only leagues run on a rating restricted basis, so with the right combination of players, it's possible for one player to play two player's worth of games.

It's reasonable for the lowest ranked team of a club to select the team on a bottom up basis, so the bottom board is the club's weakest player, provided they how to keep score, press the clock and make mostly sensible moves.

[Greg Breed]

As for the avoiding promotion thing, many teams, say 2nd teams, know that they will be mismatched if they get promoted, and would prefer to play their chess in the lower division. I think many leagues have provision that promoted teams can choose not to take up their promotion if they don't want to.

This is true and happens in Leagues I play in - has happened in fact. The only criteria I would state is that if the same team wins the division twice running then it gets promoted. If it gets relegated the following season, fine. At least they will have had a chance to play stronger opposition.

The team I captain in the Hillingdon League is one of those "in-between divisions". Probably too strong for division 2, but not strong enough to compete for anything in division 1. We remained in division 1 for about 4-5 seasons despite finishing bottom each time because each team winning div 2 didn't want to go up. That suited me fine! Finally the div 2 winners had won it twice running, took promotion and we went down. I hope for a rapid return to div 1 and expect a subsequent return back down to div 2 the season after. C'est la vie.

[MartinCarpenter]

Board order regulations between two teams in the same division can vary dramatically.

The Yorkshire league is 'reasonable' board order by strength within each team and sharing only permitted on boards 7 and 8 between teams in the same division. So basically once a team gets promoted you have to move from having more or less a single shared squad to two distinct ones. In fact York has at times had this situation with our third team being in the second division and spare players in the first team - I never did like playing down then because it felt like you might get the team artifically promoted beyond a level of strength that they could sustain.

The Durham league apparently forces the nomination of four seeded players for each 5 man team who can then only play for that team. Moreover these seeded players have to be your strongest players overall. So at beats the first team can have the 1-4th strongest players and the 9th. The 5th-8th would have to play on the second team. That seems downright bizzare to me, but maybe there's reasoning behind it

The Manchester league must be quite flexible overall, because my old club there certainly relied on people covering for more than one team quite a bit to get teams out. To be fair they did also run a lot of teams! Non simultaneous games. That's the sort of arrangment that can break down if you get too many teams promoted and you're forced to split into distinct squads for which there simply aren't quite enough players.