England teams for 2011 European Team Championship

[Mick Norris]

England men v Armenia tomorrow

Greece v Azerbaijan

[Mick Norris]

Israel England 3 : 1
10.1 IM Klinova Masha 2316 - IM Houska Jovanka 2415 ½ - ½
10.2 WIM Porat Maya 2299 - IM Ciuksyte Dagne 2327 ½ - ½
10.3 WIM Efroimski Marsel 2230 - WFM Yurenok Maria S 2106 1 - 0
10.4 WIM Vasiliev Olga 2305 - WFM Bhatia Kanwal K 2087 1 - 0

Italy v England tomorrow

[Christopher Kreuzer]

England men v Armenia tomorrow

Frying pan into the fire?

(We do out-rate them on board 5, but they don't have to play their board 5...)

[Jonathan Rogers]

England men v Armenia tomorrow

Frying pan into the fire?

(We do out-rate them on board 5, but they don't have to play their board 5...)

And I'm not sure that we even have our board five at the venue yet (see earlier comment).

Well, this is a tough pairing to say the least; but Armenia have proven to be the specialists of winning 2.5-1.5 in team events. So quite probably, if we do lose, it won't be heavily (not least because on Adams' form, I can see him holding as Black and Short may be OK with White).

Earlier, when I said that the original plan was probably to make the top ten, I was well aware of our seeding. But when did we last outperform our seeding in terms of our finishing position? I suspect that Dresden 2008 was the only time in recent years when we held our seeding despite playing a good range of the stronger teams. Note, that this is not to say that all recent campaigns have been doom and gloom throughout, rather that we have just tended not to finish very well, which is all-important in terms of finishing positions.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Earlier, when I said that the original plan was probably to make the top ten, I was well aware of our seeding. But when did we last outperform our seeding in terms of our finishing position? I suspect that Dresden 2008 was the only time in recent years when we held our seeding despite playing a good range of the stronger teams. Note, that this is not to say that all recent campaigns have been doom and gloom throughout, rather that we have just tended not to finish very well, which is all-important in terms of finishing positions.

Good points, especially about last-round pairings. Not having to face Armenia (among others) in the final round is a silver lining of sorts. Get the tough matches out of the way first, and set up a match with Scotland at some point...

[Richard Bates]

Does England actually play with any sort of underlying team/match strategy, or is it every man for himself and hope we get more points than we give away?

[Michael Yeo]

And I'm not sure that we even have our board five at the venue yet (see earlier comment).

Close inspection of most of the photos of Danailov making Svidler's first move suggests that your fears are unfounded. E.g:

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Ah, but that could be Richard Pert! (Seriously, well spotted). Anyone know who the captain is? I vaguely remember some uncertainty about that (see first post in this thread where it was posted as "to be confirmed"), but must have missed any subsequent announcement.

[Alex Holowczak]

Anyone know who the captain is?

Lawrence Cooper definitely for the Open team, Glenn Flear for the Women, I think.

[LozCooper]

Ah, but that could be Richard Pert! (Seriously, well spotted). Anyone know who the captain is? I vaguely remember some uncertainty about that (see first post in this thread where it was posted as "to be confirmed"), but must have missed any subsequent announcement.

The announcement was posted to the ECF site on the 28th October.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?paged=2

[Alex Holowczak]

Does anyone understand how the pairings are done?

Take the top scoregroup; 4/4:

Romania WB
Greece WB
Russia WB
Azerbaijan WB
Spain WB

That's the order based on gamepoints descending. Russia are number 1 seeds. Logically, I'd downfloat Spain, leaving the pairings as Romania v Russia and Greece v Azerbaijan.

However, we seem to have ended up with Greece v Azerbaijan, Romania v Spain, and Russia downfloating.

This question was borne out of trying to work out how England ended up with white against Armenia - Georgia's downfloat against Scotland seems equally odd - and I assume I'm misunderstanding the pairing logic. Does anyone know what it is, or can anyone work it out?

[Alex Holowczak]

Actually, I think I've just got it.

What seems to be happening is that they're pairing from the extreme ends of a scoregroup, keeping colours in consideration, and then (presumably) floating from the middle.

This means Romania v Spain, Greece v Azerbaijan, with Russia downfloating. This is what actually happened. Time to follow that logic on to other scoregroups to see if I can recreate it...

[Alex Holowczak]

That logic flows for the next scoregroup:

Russia WB (downfloat)

Poland BW
Ukraine BW
France BW
Hungary WB
Germany BW
Israel WB
Croatia BW
Bulgaria WB
Netherlands WB

I was initially foxed by the ranking order; the standings sort by Buchholz as TB3; but it works if you then sort by seeding instead of Buchholz.

This means that you get the pairing of
Russia v Netherlands - which surprised me, you might have floated up Croatia to avoid a colour transfer.
Bulgaria v Poland
Croatia v Ukraine
Israel v France
Hungary v Germany

I'm not sure I like a system where the median of one scoregroup downfloats against the bottom-placed team on the scoregroup below!

If you look at the 2 point scoregroup; there are 11 teams. The median is Latvia. Look which teams are either side of the median!

[IM Jack Rudd]

Interesting. I take it the logic is that as soon as a downfloater is selected, it instantly becomes the top seed of the scoregroup below, but I can't see why it gave pairings with doubled colours...

...unless, of course, it's just ignoring colours. That has some logic for a team event.

[Alex Holowczak]

Interesting. I take it the logic is that as soon as a downfloater is selected, it instantly becomes the top seed of the scoregroup below, but I can't see why it gave pairings with doubled colours...

...unless, of course, it's just ignoring colours. That has some logic for a team event.

I think they are ignoring colours, unless a team's colour sequence becomes +3 or -3. (Where +1 means you've had one more white than black.)