Glorney 2013

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Alan,

That is what I read in Andy's post as well. He was not having a dig at the kids but the sugar coated posts.

Playing over the games you can see some players were lacking in experience and the losses
are quite instructive. There is things to pick up on.

The lass Lauren Bond had a knack for leaving pieces unprocted thus getting herself in trouble.
Against jessica Wen this appeared.

[pos]r1bqkb1r/p4ppp/1pn1pn2/2p5/2PP4/2N1BN2/PP2BPPP/R2Q1RK1 b kq - 0 9[/pos]












Here as Black she played 9...Ba6 and after 10.Qa4 the double hit on a6 and c6 cost a piece
as White ganged up on the pinned c6 Knight.
(I know what you a re looking at, I've looked, 10...Bc8 11.Qxc6+ Bd7 does not trap the Queen.)

Later when Lauren was White v the same opponent.

[pgn][FEN "r4rk1/1bp2ppp/pp1qpn2/3p4/2PP4/2NBP3/PP3PPP/R2QR1K1 w - - 0 13"]

13. a3 {Now 1...dxc4 2.Bxc4 Qc6 hitting g2 and c4 does not win a piece due to 3.Bf1} 13... Rac8 {A cunning move. White sees the coming c5 as a threat so...} 14. b4 {And now with the Knight on c3 unprotected this works} 14... dxc4 {Lauren spotted the Bxc4 and Qc6 trick (she's learning) and played...} 15. Bc2 {Play continued....} 15... Rfd8 16. b5 e5 {And again the unprotected piece got caught her out.} 17. dxe5 {OOPS!} 17... Qxe5 {The c3 Knight is gone and so was the game. Things to work on wee slack moves that alert players punish. Watch those unprotected pieces} *[/pgn]

Also I understand the squad was lacking some of the more experienced players....
(Strewth you have to pick your words very carefuly when talking about juniors, every word is analysed.)

The good news is when the Scots got lost positions their opponents did not despatch them in
the shortest sharpest manner. They muffled and ruffled about taking technical wins when a quicker kill
was there.

So the other teams are not that far ahead and if their coaches are curbing their squads wee bright
imaginations to take technical 'play safe' wins then we will soon catch up.
(I hope the Welsh coaches leave that Tom Thorpe alone and don't interfere or pass him onto someone
who nows what they are doing and don't coach that spirit out of him.)

[David Deary]

We have been hyping players up for years and what good has come of it? I haven't been following the results but the players should go and work very, very hard and come back and try again next year.

A tad harsh Alan. (Although I appreciate you are just stirring debate!)
I'm sure the players (especially the first timers) will work harder on their chess than they did before playing the event. Whether that change in attitude and application is sustained is less clear. Ultimately, I feel we need to encourage juniors to motivate them to work harder and saying you 'finished last try harder next time' would not be the approach to take.

[Alan Tate]

This could take some time...

Its not some much what Andy says but the way he says it. Most people realise that Andy actually means well and in some ways he is just stirring up a debate.

It's not what you do it's the way that you do it? Oh how I fondly remember singing this in primary school. We would need 10 Andy Muirs to compensate for the sugar coating as Geoff calls it.

It was Andy who brought it on himself - "Moderated myth by Scottish delusionists: Scotland won the Glorney and Gilbert tournaments comfortably as usual"

Irony?

I cant see the post or what prompted Andy to say that - perhaps if I could, his comments might be justified. This was on top of Andy wrongly saying players from his own club were boycotting the tourney.

It seems to me that this moderation that is going on simply promotes conflict and confusion rather than sparing our poor eyes from the truth.

We cant afford to play with so many of our best and key players missing- for me that's were we went wrong.

So how do you explain the last x years since Scotland won the Glorney?

[Alan Tate]

Hi David D, My view is this: If that is harsh then we need to order in a few tonnes of cotton wool and 20 X-boxes to make sure everyone is ok. In my experience nothing makes you work harder than losing. If losing doesn't motivate you to work then there is always draughts, or perhaps Playstation, Iphone or Facebook.

Admittedly the key to helping they younger ones is to help them to enjoy it (I hear). With the older kids however, say 13/14 upwards, in the last 5 or so years of coaching internationals I have seen approximately one player that had the work ethic required to get to a decent level (in my opinion). Time and again players arrive at an event without having put the work in beforehand. I appreciate there are other things in life and chess may not be the most important, but if you are representing your country then it should be taken seriously or not at all.

:-)

[Alex Gillies]

" I cant see the post or what prompted Andy to say that - perhaps if I could, his comments might be justified."
Alex, the post which prompted me to say this was removed by the moderator

The moderators need to leave an audit trail - I know others have already questioned this.

"This was on top of Andy wrongly saying players from his own club were boycotting the tourney."
Alex, Hamilton's top junior DID boycott the tourney, the reason for this was removed by the moderator.

You did say Hamilton players plural boycotted and Michael H and others did respond and unless it too was deleted I have not saw anything that supports your claim that player or players boycotted. If that is the case then we should know more of the facts.


Perhaps much more notice could have be given to potential players : I suspect holidays and other arrangements clashed and it running Saturday to Wednesday did not help. It was also expensive being in South Wales and many of the parents/grand parents like to travel with the kids.

Politics or no politics we need to remove the barriers we can to allow all of our top juniors to play.

[Donald Wilson]

Scotland came very close to winning the Glorney in 2008 and 2010.

I'm tempted to explain why we didn't win it in 2008, but that might just be read as criticism of someone whose initials are AT, so I'll say nothing.

And, of course, our girls have won the Faber/Gilbert three times in seven years.

With a small population, Scotland will never have strength in depth, so if virtually all of our top players are unavailable (for whatever reason) we are simply not going to be in contention for prizes. But that is no reason whatsoever to be dismissive about the players who represented us.

[amuir]

Alex/others :
I am afraid I can't answer all your questions about this because of moderation so let's leave it there. I am not the Junior ID.

[WBuchanan]

Average rating of Scotland Glorney team:1518.8 (guestimating unrated as 1200))
Avergage rating of opponents: 1882.0
Average rating difference: 363.2
Expected score from rating table: 0.106
Expected score from 30 games: 3.18
Actual score: 6

Double the score expected from ratings?
Well done them players !! They deserve =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) 's all round

Coaches must have done well too.

PS If unrated is counted as 1400 the expected score is till 0.15, ie only 4.5 pts
The Gilbert players were all unrated so I didn't try to estimate them

[Alan Tate]

Yes Donald, as the 2 day coach of the Glorney in 2008 I accept full responsibility for not winning it.

And regarding the "we're Scottish and proud, we can't take criticism" routine, I am not being dismissive, merely pointing out areas of improvement. I consider the all to common over-protection of these children/young adults detrimental to their progress. They are a lot stronger than everyone seems to think.

Seriously, how is telling someone to work harder criticising anyway?

[robin moore]

Folks,

This is one of the better recent debates on the noticeboard. Parents, players, coaches, organisers from past and present are all contributing and good to see.

Ok,

As recently as the Glorney event 2012 in Daventry we came agonisingly close to winning both the U14 and Faber/Gilbert events. Our U12 team also beat Wales and Ireland twice. Our U18 Glorney team performed great but were up against seriously tough opposition.

Donald is spot on here. If we have our full squad out in all sections we will go close. If we don't have them available, we need to take the opportunity to give less experienced players a chance and build on it.