23-04-2014, 02:28 PM
Robin,
Posts crossed in the Ether. Re: your point about having an under 8 good enough to go to the World or European Championships. I am sure that Scotland has a couple of players who are good enough. However, there are two big problems.
1. You have to decide whether it is a good idea (from lots of perspectives) to send/encourage a player this young to play a two week long chess tournament
2. How do you identify the best players when they won't have played much and you'll be selecting players who are developing at different rates several months ahead. Things are further complicated because Scotland is sparsely populated, so with the best will in the world junior officials cannot possibly have first hand experience of how well all the U8's in different regions are playing.
Perhaps at the end of the days there are more important things for the development of junior chess in Scotland and too much attention is focused on World and European Championships (I would say this is definitely true in England).
Posts crossed in the Ether. Re: your point about having an under 8 good enough to go to the World or European Championships. I am sure that Scotland has a couple of players who are good enough. However, there are two big problems.
1. You have to decide whether it is a good idea (from lots of perspectives) to send/encourage a player this young to play a two week long chess tournament
2. How do you identify the best players when they won't have played much and you'll be selecting players who are developing at different rates several months ahead. Things are further complicated because Scotland is sparsely populated, so with the best will in the world junior officials cannot possibly have first hand experience of how well all the U8's in different regions are playing.
Perhaps at the end of the days there are more important things for the development of junior chess in Scotland and too much attention is focused on World and European Championships (I would say this is definitely true in England).