British Championships 2025

[Andrew Smith]

It seems strange that the most popular event at the Championships seems to be the over 65's with 47 entries already....

[MJMcCready]

Not to mention most of the top players arent even interested.

[IM Jack Rudd]

The over-65s is always one of the leaders at this stage. I suppose a lot of that is a lack of needing to rely on the decisions of other people (parents in the case of juniors, employers in the case of people of working age).

[Nick Burrows]

Not to mention most of the top players arent even interested.

3 of the top 4 rated players have entered.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

For those who are lazy, can we have links please?

Oh, OK, here you are:

https://www.britishchesschampionships.c ... ants-2025/

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Not to mention most of the top players arent even interested.

3 of the top 4 rated players have entered.

I presume David Howell is the missing one from the top 4 (so far)?

[MJMcCready]

Not to mention most of the top players arent even interested.

3 of the top 4 rated players have entered.

I presume David Howell is the missing one from the top 4 (so far)?

Just checked again. There are quite a few more titled players than a few weeks back but not yet enough. That said how many GMs do we have now?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Well, Matthew Wadsworth should officially be a GM by then. He is listed as an IM currently.

On his FIDE rating card it says: "Grandmaster 2025 2nd FIDE Council Open".

I think the next FIDE Council (could not easily find confirmation) will be at the following: "The XXXI FIDE Congress will take place on 28-31 May 2025, during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union."

https://www.fide-europe.org/congresses/next-congress/

Oh, oops.

The Polish Association of European Law (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Prawa Europejskiego, PSPE) is honoured and humbled to announce that the next FIDE Congress will be held in Katowice. The XXXI FIDE Congress will take place on 28-31 May 2025, during the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will further emphasise the importance of European law and European integration in general.

FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE POUR LE DROIT EUROPÉEN (FIDE)

Rookie mistake.

So does anyone actually known when the 2025 2nd FIDE Council is being held?

[Alex Holowczak]

This is a week out of date now, but the "unique entries" for Liverpool are tracking very well compared with Leicester and Hull. A "unique entry" is people: i.e. this counts people that entered, regardless of how many tournaments they entered.

image (4).png (75.08 KiB) Viewed 2631 times

The hot start will be because the entry form went live earlier this year, but either way it is hard not to be encouraged - similar graphs tracking other metrics also look good.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is the sharp rise to around 18 days out due to the cutoff point for late entry fees? And the continuation after day 0 is entries taken for the later events, obviously. Are you allowed to say what the break-even point is? I am assuming you will make that easily. This should be de rigeur for an episode of 'The Apprentice' (but who is the ECF's Alan Sugar?).

[Alex Holowczak]

Is the sharp rise to around 18 days out due to the cutoff point for late entry fees?

Yes

Are you allowed to say what the break-even point is? I am assuming you will make that easily. This should be de rigeur for an episode of 'The Apprentice' (but who is the ECF's Alan Sugar?).

Break even? The British Championships are budgeted to make a loss, given it is our flagship event and in the Board and Council's opinion, worthy of spending money on. If it broke even we would be doing it wrong.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh, oops. OK then. I probably should have picked up on that at some point (the BCC being budgeted to make a loss)... I will not ask which income streams make a 'profit' to make up for that. I might ask if there are signs of the interest in chess over recent years translating through to the ECF finances? But maybe that is also the wrong question, or not possibly to answer definitively.

[Graham Borrowdale]

While there is obviously some cross-subsidy, so the entry fees help to cover the overall congress costs, titled players, etc, I would not see sections as ‘profit or loss making’ as such, as part of the attraction of the British is seeing those titles players in action. Take them away and the entries in the lower sections might well fall. This was always one of the arguments against hiving off the top players and having an all-play-all in London, although that might be an attractive event in its own right.

[Mike Gunn]

Is the sharp rise to around 18 days out due to the cutoff point for late entry fees?

Yes

Are you allowed to say what the break-even point is? I am assuming you will make that easily. This should be de rigeur for an episode of 'The Apprentice' (but who is the ECF's Alan Sugar?).

Break even? The British Championships are budgeted to make a loss, given it is our flagship event and in the Board and Council's opinion, worthy of spending money on. If it broke even we would be doing it wrong.

In the old days (>20 years ago) the target was that it should break even. However, in the absence of sponsorship, the prize fund would fall and our top players would not compete. I agree with the current approach - you want to see most of our top players competing and the ECF should do what it can to ensure this happens. (These days there are contributions from the John Robinson and Chess Trusts too which help meet that objective.)