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End of A 5 Year plan
#11
REF Previous start of season grades.


Andrew does the method below always give the right answer ??


(1) Go to grading section
(2) Find Ian McDonald
(3) Go to season 2006/7
(4) Click on games
(5) Click on any of Ian's opponents
(6) I find that that player played Ian McDonald J10 998 (pub)

If I go to another tournament I get the same data on Ian so I assume start of season grade rather than live grade at time of tournament.

Same route gives Daniel as 1151 grade at start of season 2007-2008

Never trust fathers to know their children's date.

Daniel did play in Primary Individual in June 2008 - just checked
#12
Mike Scott Wrote:You certainly put a lot of hard work and time as IJD - and we remain grateful for the chances this gave Jonny -, and as part of the SJC organising events, but I am not sure exactly what initiatives and actions as IJD you are referring to that would have contributed to the claimed improvements amongst the lower rated juniors who would never attend an international event.

Mike,
returning to the second half of your post from earlier today.

It was never my policy to publish all the initiatives and actions that were underway. But since you ask here is a partial listing.

Kirkhill School, developed with Jacqui's help from a brand new school club into national champions at P5 and P7 ages. Three of those Kirkhill players were amongst the 26 competing in Liverpool last weekend.

Much greater representation in World and Euros in the youngest age groups. This results in greater aspirations for their peer group one hopes and the increase in their playing strength rubs off on their opponents on their return. This being the model used at Kirkhill -of course not all the Kirkhill players were individually coached by me.

Coaching arranged for most of the younger international debutants ahead of the event. Frequently done by me.

For the World/Euro events that I attended I functioned as the second coach.

Principal coach for those was Alan Tate, continuity is a good thing here.

For Glorney events for 2 of the previous 3 years our main coach was GM Matthew Turner, in my view the best coach resident in England but also a long time paid up member of Chess Scotland. Here too continuity is good and I know Matthew was disappointed at not making the Dublin Glorney event this summer year.
In the absence of Matthew in Dublin three of our best young coaches took his place, Andrew Green, Calum MacQueen & Chris MacDonald. This was Andrew's 2nd year as he also coached at the 2010 event in Wales along with David Oswald.

A significant number of players I coached when weak players of say 500 grade or less have reached international standard. I'm not naming them here. But I calculate 50% have already played in Liverpool Quadrangular teams.


From the IJD budget - supported by sponsorship arranged by Angus - many of the elite juniors got into online chess for the first time.

On another occasion when the budget approached the "use it or lose it" stage all U12 representatives selected to play for Scotland received a free chess book - often doubling the size of their chess library. If they were not playing that year's Edinburgh congress the book turned up in the post - preceded by an e mail.

As you know from private correspondence I am not heading up an U12 elite squad as implied in the agm notes.

However, Paul MacDonald, the current IJD director has had the good sense and foresight to carry out the key part of my strategy. He has organised for the best of my pupils to receive on line coaching from one of the coaches on the short list I prepared for him.
#13
Phil Thomas Wrote:Andrew does the method below always give the right answer ??

(1) Go to grading section
(2) Find Ian McDonald
(3) Go to season 2006/7
(4) Click on games
(5) Click on any of Ian's opponents
(6) I find that that player played Ian McDonald J10 998 (pub)

Yep, it should be. Big Grin
#14
Phil answered

Quote:Angus Ian is I recall 10 months older than Daniel with a January Birthday, hence went into S1 a year earlier than Daniel.

It was ofcourse a 5 year plan you were talking about and you mentioned December 2006. At this time Ian was still in primary. His live grade would have been over 1000 and Daniel's might have been and I think Jonny's was.

Unless ofcourse part of the strategy was to do the 5 year plan in 4 years!

Have to agree though the talent at the younger age groups is fantastic. Also from ages 15 to 25 there are
possibly about 20 players who could/should become titled players. Time will tell and if they do a lot of the credit will go to the players themselves imho.
#15
Angus McDonald Wrote:Phil answered

Quote:Angus Ian is I recall 10 months older than Daniel with a January Birthday, hence went into S1 a year earlier than Daniel.

It was ofcourse a 5 year plan you were talking about and you mentioned December 2006. At this time Ian was still in primary. His live grade would have been over 1000 and Daniel's might have been and I think Jonny's was.

Unless ofcourse part of the strategy was to do the 5 year plan in 4 years!

Have to agree though the talent at the younger age groups is fantastic. Also from ages 15 to 25 there are
possibly about 20 players who could/should become titled players. Time will tell and if they do a lot of the credit will go to the players themselves imho.

My error, now corrected at the top of this thread, was to recall that Daniel's P7 year was 2006 and not the actual answer of 2007. I have yet to make the classical mistake (made by a surprising number of fathers) of getting my child's date of birth wrong - I hope so but the combined research ability of the notice board readers might find an exception.

However, with Dec 2007 being 1 year through a five year plan that does not change the points I was trying to get across within that posting.

You are absolutely correct when you say that there are a large number of youngsters in the age group 15 to 25 capable of becoming titled players.

In the middle part of that age range I sent representatives to World U21 in Poland (I recall 2010) but I was unable to get Clement to India in 2011. As you know organising to play in different continent is much harder than a budget flight from a UK airport to the continent.

There could be 20 players capable of getting a title but not all will have the motivation to do the work to get there. IM's on average require something like 10,000 to 12,000 hours of study to become that strong. Even if 3/4 of that work has been done it can be a logical lifestyle decision to concentrate on University/Work/Family and we can't demand titles from all 20 in the next few years.

One way to make future titles more likely is to start using coaches in the top half of the age range you quote. This can be a win win situation but it was always my policy to only use coaches with a track record of succesful junior coaching. A high grade alone is not sufficient. At this point I must state that there are some excellent coaches out there who deserved more coaching opportunities than I gave them. This is akin to the perennial question for large businesses. To concentrate on core activities or to diversify.


Time here to name check the two of those most underused (by me) and most talented coaches. Neil Berry and Graeme Kafka. I hope they have a future role in the development of our elite juniors, preferably in an official capacity.
#16
Phil mentioned.

Quote:In the middle part of that age range I sent representatives to World U21 in Poland (I recall 2010) but I was unable to get Clement to India in 2011. As you know organising to play in different continent is much harder than a budget flight from a UK airport to the continent.

I think these events are U20
It was good to see Andrew and Clement play in Poland and allthough I don't know the venue for next year it would be nice to see Scotland represented again.

Your comment though prompts me to do a reflection on The World Youth in Brazil which I'd intended to do previously. Lost one post as if you take a long time typing you get logged out I think and when you log back in the post is lost??

So will try to do this quickly.

As you mention Phil the logistics of arranging Scotland's participation at a distant continent is more complex especially when there are internal flights involved on arrival and if you are trying to do things economically.
Without fantastic support from Judy Milton and Derek Howie things would not have worked. So I can thank them and luck that it worked rather than good planning.
I was very fortunate that these families committed to paying for a parent to travel with their child to the World Youth. I'm delighted that both Anna and Colin did fantastically well for 11 year olds playing in the under 12 section. Both can play again in same age group and I'm sure that both will have gained from their experience in Brazil.
From my own experience I consider the World Youth and Euro Youth event as massive World Class events.
I believe the children who attend these events gain things which will help their confidence for many years to come and the knowledge that they can compete against the best of the World at a very complex intellectual game prepares them for challenges ahead. It appears that Britain is quickly losing it's last remnants of it's former quite privileged position on the world stage and the future for our children is going to be very competitive in my opinion. Those who represent Scotland at Chess are being equipped for challenges ahead in my opinion and have first hand knowledge of what that entails. I consider what my wife and I have spent on Chess over the last few years as an investment and that our children will get the benefit of it for many years to come. I think our children and we should think about Scotland's heritage where many talented Scots were at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and inventions which emancipated much of the Western World and beyond from lives of drudgery. We along with the rest of Britain have a heritage to be proud of.
If parents can afford it and their children are talented enough then I think they should send their children to at least one of these events even if they are 2nd, 3rd or even 4th choices. Apologise to Paul MacDonald and his team if this comment is misplaced but, often it's difficult for selectors to make the 1st choice and sometimes this takes time. Then after that there might be other talented players who miss out at certain age groups because there isn't enough time left to do a 2nd selection and do the arrangements for the tournament at the same time. There are deadlines to meet etc. This means sometimes that obvious 1st choices get most of the selections and that 2nd and 3rd choices rarely go to these events. My suggestion to parents who know their child has the ability to do well but is unlikely to be a 1st choice is to be pro-active and state early to Paul and Robin that you are happy to pay for them to go to the event. This would give time to plan and arrange everything and create a positive atmosphere where many children are preparing for next years Euro Youth and World Youth in advance. This would help Scottish Chess as a whole and hopefully be good for the Congress scene also. i.e if 40 go to World Youth and Euro Youth on continental Europe next year (say 20 to each) then that would be 40 children preparing for these World Class Events. Having seen what Judy and Derek can do I'm certain that getting as many children and parents involved early will create a very positive vibe for the whole of Chess in Scotland. Apologies to Paul and Robin for this but it's something I've wanted to mention for quite a while and I think you are able to deal with it. I'd be happy to help if you go for this kind of approach.
I.E last year I said to Phil, That I was going to the World Youth in Brazil with Maryann and Ian. My wife is Brazilian and I speak Portuguese reasonably well. ( Apologies to Judy and Derek about the gender thing :-) though that's another story) Instead of telling me to shut up he tried to help me make that happen.
As it is 9 children eventually went and represented their country.
We had some problems which I'm going to mention because I think it might be useful for the future. For the first 4 nights the party were split into 2 hotels. The girls and the 2 under 12s and their parents in one hotel and myself and the 4 older boys in another more distant appartment like hotel. This would have been worse if Judy hadn't managed to get the organiser running us around in his car the night we arrived to battle to get 3 rooms in the original hotel we were booked for. This was ofcourse the fault of the Brazilian organisers. I do think it impacted slightly on the results for the older boys allthough Hamish still managed an outstanding result overall. I think for the future that 2 assurances that you are safely booked into a certain hotel a month before you go isn't enough. Because we are a small federation we get bumped if a larger federation increase the size of their party late on! If I'd phoned more often right up to the last week and been on top of them then it's likely they would have bumped someone else. Just taking their word for it wasn't enough and someone perhaps can be delegated to keep a check on accomodation arrangements in the future? It is funny now but at the time it was infuriating to arrive at the right hotel to be told you weren't booked in. In hindsight with 9 players going it would have been good to have a coach travel with us but it was only quite late that I knew that as many as 9 were going and also the expense of doing this was unclear.
I'd arranged some online coaching from Calum Macqueen prior to the event which Calum was able to make work. Success of this down to Calum, and online support from Calum whilst in Brazil. This didn't work so well because the internet connection was far more patchy than I had expected. There were though a couple of notable victories where Calum's preparation was very helpful.

I must thank Phil for entrusting me with trying to head a delegation to represent Scotland, Paul MacDonald for his many words of encouragement and support and support to arrange online coaching,
Chess Scotland for giving some support to the trip and online coaching and the parents for supporting the event and their childrens participation.

Finally I want to thank all the players. It was a joy to see your dedication and commitment and how you kept yourself up for every round of the tournament through all the ups and downs of results etc. They really kept themselves going through quite an intense schedule like athletes! I sincerely hope that they all gained from
the experience and wish them well in their Chess for the future.
#17
Angus,
I stand corrected again. The age limit for the world youth is indeed U20


A couple of other things worth mentioning
I too have suffered from the pain of losing all of a long part written posting. The best way to avoid this seems to be to write the words inside a word document and to copy the whole text across just before posting. There seems to be a time limit of some sort set.

In my experience, at these events the hotels with wifi state that there will be no problem with internet access - presumably because it can handle the demands of a few rooms on line at one time. Then the chess players arrive and the system is faced with hundreds of simultaneous demands - and I'm yet to see a hotel system cope with such a demand.
#18
As promised earlier today - when I edited the original posting on this thread. Here are comparisons between July 2006 and July 2011.

Done in two different ways.

Firstly comparing 10th grade at J8 downswards, J9 downwards and so on up to J15 downwards.
To Avoid too many lines these are presented as

Jn/2006 data/ 2011 data/ difference

J8/ 190/250 Plus 60
J9/ 440/449 Plus 9
J10/ 578/569/Minus 9
J11/ 798/765/Minus 33
J12 /972/882/Minus 90
J13/ 1005/1065/Plus 60
J14/1261/1217/Minus 44
J15/ 1485/1310/Minus 175

Secondly using the measurements suggested by Andrew McHarg. The average of the top ten grades

J8/ 304/367/ Plus 63
J9/ 504/573/Plus 69
J10/ 751/733/ Minus 18
J11/ 973/ 1003/ Plus 31
J12/ 1206/ 1109/ Minus 97
J13/ 1249/1201/Minus 48
J14/ 1527/1337/ Minus 190
J15/ 1633/ 1526/ Minus 107

Much to ponder and to debate here.
I have requested data to fill in the gaps to summarise status at start of seasons 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

Looking to stars of the future there are 5 individuals in number 1 position on the July 2011 list who are higher than their equivalents in 2006.

At J15 Ian McDonald is 245 points above the number 1 in 2006.
At J12 Murad Abdulla is 159 points ahead
At J11 Kai Pannwitz ahead by 120 points
At J10 Liam Richmond ahead by 284 points
At J9 Vagif Ramazanov ahead by 187 points

Cherry picking the data – if you like - but to me it confirms that looks like CS have found and supported one extremely good and very young junior each season.

BY way of a post script those 5 players named above have between them gained 674 grading pints since July - (mean of 134 points each in less than half a season).
#19
Number received from Dougie and crunched. My Interpretations follow the numbers.

Comments anyone ?


Using the measurement proposed by Andrew McHarg here are trend data for Junior grades between July 2006 and July 2011.
The numbers reported below are the average grade of the top 10 players in each age group category. First number July 2006 last number July 2011. J15 includes all age f groups &c &c
The two numbers in bold are for the start and end of my time as IJD. I assume that the readers will not be upset by this egostatistical approach.

U8
304/355/427/321/453/367
U9
504/517/509/598/566/573
U10
751/660/651/689/762/733
U11
973/940/816/772/877/1003
U12
1206/1165/1050/996/939/1109
U13
1249/1427/1324/1218/1138/1201
U14
1527/1447/1536/1480/1385/1337
U15
1633/1733/1554/1657/1678/1526

So what do I conclude from the above?
(1) While I was chair of SJC and not in post at CS I had little influence upon grades of elite players. This is not surprising since SJC deals with the grass roots of the game and CS deals with elite players.
(2) At J13 to J15 grades of elite players (measured as average of top 10 players) have declined. Conclusion applies over 3 years or over 5 years. This I find disappointing but not altogether surprising, most of my efforts went into developing primary school players.

(3) For age groups J9 and J12 there were sizeable increases in junior grades between 2008 and 2011 with on the whole a falling trend up to 2008.

(4) J8 Is the youngest of the categories. I don’t see a trend. I suggest because these are very young players who are essentially uncoached.
#20
Quote:Comments anyone ?

It's Christmas.

So I won't say how bananas I think this whole EGO statistical approach is! :-)

Phil ,do you see any other potential factors at play other than your influence? on all juniors in Scotland?

Where i.e. would you rank 'the juniors' own efforts at getting good at the game?
How important would you see good parental support? or the support of a mentor at club level? being.
Do you think people love the game enough to want to get good at it because of you? Do you think when a
junior studies a chess book it's a reflection on you?

It may be helpful for you to know that I for one don't hold you accountable for any improvements or decline in overall junior performance at any age group. Our success as a Chess Community will be determined by how many good coaches and supporters (parents and mentors from the Chess playing community) we can
encourage to get involved. It will then be important to appreciate and recognise everybody's effort and not highlight your own contribution. With most praise being reserved to the actual juniors who progress themselves.

I do though think that the idea that you seem to have that this all centres on you is unhealthy and a bit demoralising to others who have been putting in a lot of effort.

The future of Chess has to be about all the committed volunteers throughout Scotland. i.e. in Aberdeen it will be about the longstanding adult Chess players, many of whom coach junior chess players locally, About the talented juniors in the North East of Scotland. 3 out of 5 in your highest risers list with one in Inverness and one in Oban. About NEJCA where volunteers give their services without thought of personal gain.

There are many chess players, parents and coaches giving fantastic support to junior chess players throughout Scotland. You are one of those and emphasising your influence above all else is in my opinion unhelpful.


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