2014 Junior International Events

[Tommy Lennox]

I agree with Mike that Hamish makes a lot of interesting and relevant points in his post.

' Not really sure if I'd have been too chuffed if I'd been asked to go and pay much more purely so that someone else can get a funded place mind!'

As a parent of a child who has worked hard to become the top player in their age group I would be non to chuffed to find that funding allocated to the age group for my child has been used for another player from another age group, albeit with a higher chess grade than my child. Juniors put a lot of hard work into their chess and parents give up a lot of their time and finances to support them. Many juniors strive to achieve the number one spot in their age group and to achieve that precious funded place to play for Scotland.

Where does the funding come from? If it is from Chess Scotland then surely it is down to them to apportion as see fit.

If my reading is correct and this is the places allocated by the tournament, I would question the legality of doing so. It would leave Chess Scotland open to the parent of any child who was due to get such a place and would have to pay a premium for their child to attend. Utterly disgraceful. Any parent who was like minded could surely take this to the Ethics Committee at FIDE and Chess Scotland would have the book thrown at them. Very ill thought out indeed!

Maybe someone would be as kind as to come on and confirm this to us all. Either way I think we should be voicing our displeasure if this is the case and contacting the relevant directors.

[Hugh Brechin]

As a parent of a child who has worked hard to become the top player in their age group I would be non to chuffed to find that funding allocated to the age group for my child has been used for another player from another age group, albeit with a higher chess grade than my child. Juniors put a lot of hard work into their chess and parents give up a lot of their time and finances to support them. Many juniors strive to achieve the number one spot in their age group and to achieve that precious funded place to play for Scotland.

I can see the argument here, and once upon a time I'd have agreed with it - in my young days, I was very proud of being the strongest Scottish player in my age band. The issue I have with this, though, is that it makes selection a function of the strength of a player's peer group, rather than of the strength of that player. Scotland's chess-playing population is small enough to make that a potentially serious issue. I was the strongest player in my particular age category not because I was a rare talent or because I worked colossally hard, but because, as it happened, there wasn't really anyone else very good in the same age category as me. That didn't make me any more worthy of selection than someone like David Oswald, who spent most of our junior years slightly younger than me (well, alright, he spent all of them slightly younger than me), a bit higher-rated than me and not as highly rated as Chris MacDonald, with whom he had the misfortune to share an age bracket.

(That said, the fact that the age categories are two years wide meant that I didn't get picked; Colin Hall and Steven Tweedie were out of sight above me as well. Which was fair enough, I wasn't very good.)

A lot of players work very hard at their chess, and have parents who support them generously and tirelessly - I know I fell into the second category at least, and I'm very thankful for it. Some have stronger peer groups than others; to my mind, a selection policy which is at least in part based on absolute rather than relative strength is fairer, as well as more likely to bring the maximum benefit. I also agree with Hamish that going to these tournaments (especially the European Championships) can be very tough, and there might be better ways to develop some youngsters.

All of that said, I've actually got no idea what the legal position with regards to the funded places is. I suspect that the money goes to the organisation to use as it sees fit, but only if those places are taken up. (So you can give one and a half funded places to under-14s if that's a strong age group, but only if someone is willing to give up half their funding for an under-12 place, or something analogous to that, which obviously they're within their rights to refuse to do; with the organisation then being within their rights to offer the half-funded place to the next guy or girl down.) If anyone more knowledgeable than me can clarify that, or tell me I'm talking total nonsense, it'd be very welcome.

[Derek Howie]

If my reading is correct and this is the places allocated by the tournament, I would question the legality of doing so. It would leave Chess Scotland open to the parent of any child who was due to get such a place and would have to pay a premium for their child to attend. Utterly disgraceful. Any parent who was like minded could surely take this to the Ethics Committee at FIDE and Chess Scotland would have the book thrown at them. Very ill thought out indeed!

Maybe someone would be as kind as to come on and confirm this to us all. Either way I think we should be voicing our displeasure if this is the case and contacting the relevant directors.

Sean has already confirmed that this is not happening.

Does this mean that you are implementing the previously mooted are taking funded places from one age group and are giving them to another?

No.

FIDE are quite clear in that they offer one free place per age group for boys and girls. I'm sure FIDE would look upon this unfavourably if Scotland took these funded places and started giving them to other age groups.

The only way that you could do it is by getting one child and charging them and effectively giving that cash to another parent. The first parent would need to have this fact fully explained to them or otherwise there would be deception.

[Derek Howie]

Of course, funding is the issue, as always, so why doesn't Chess Scotland put a group together to focus on chess in schools and to look at sourcing funding for this? There are a number of funding possibilities out there. Or maybe this has already been put in place?

Agreed. I would much rather CS raising funds for chess development than to finance the Glorney accommodation and transport costs which is not helping the development of chess to any great extent.

[seanmilton]

Hugh Brechin has eloquently expressed the issue with age based awards. The selection committee are committed to selecting our strongest players and rewarding players for chess ability and endeavor.
To further emphasis the point about age based awards:
If we were conducting selections and had Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlson as our two contenders for an U12 place and an U18 with a grading of 100, who seldom plays matches and does not see the point in coaching as he is the only U18 contender and therefore an automatic pick. Using the old selection method we would have taken Magnus Calson and the U18 player and left Bobby Fischer at home. The new method invites more players of the correct standard and rewards players who have worked harder, and demonstrated their playing strength over a sustained period.
The method used has been well thought through having been deliberated by the selection committee for over a year. The impact of the change on FIDE, the tournament organiser, the players and the parents have all been considered.

[Phil Thomas]

Hugh Brechin has eloquently expressed the issue with age based awards. The selection committee are committed to selecting our strongest players and rewarding players for chess ability and endeavor.
To further emphasis the point about age based awards:
If we were conducting selections and had Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlson as our two contenders for an U12 place and an U18 with a grading of 100, who seldom plays matches and does not see the point in coaching as he is the only U18 contender and therefore an automatic pick. Using the old selection method we would have taken Magnus Calson and the U18 player and left Bobby Fischer at home. The new method invites more players of the correct standard and rewards players who have worked harder, and demonstrated their playing strength over a sustained period.
The method used has been well thought through having been deliberated by the selection committee for over a year. The impact of the change on FIDE, the tournament organiser, the players and the parents have all been considered.

The key questions here are
(a) Has the impact of this change been considered by FIDE ?
(b) Has the impact of this change been considered by any tournament organiser ?
© Has the impact of this change been considered by the players affected ?
(d) Has the impact of this change been considered by the disadvantaged parents ?
(e) Why has there been no policy statement made by the elected IJD ?

The legality of this approach has been questioned by multiple posters.

As in so many cases it is necessary for one to follow the law rather than debate what one would like the law to be.

[Tommy Lennox]

If my reading is correct and this is the places allocated by the tournament, I would question the legality of doing so. It would leave Chess Scotland open to the parent of any child who was due to get such a place and would have to pay a premium for their child to attend. Utterly disgraceful. Any parent who was like minded could surely take this to the Ethics Committee at FIDE and Chess Scotland would have the book thrown at them. Very ill thought out indeed!

Maybe someone would be as kind as to come on and confirm this to us all. Either way I think we should be voicing our displeasure if this is the case and contacting the relevant directors.

Sean has already confirmed that this is not happening.

Does this mean that you are implementing the previously mooted are taking funded places from one age group and are giving them to another?

No.

FIDE are quite clear in that they offer one free place per age group for boys and girls. I'm sure FIDE would look upon this unfavourably if Scotland took these funded places and started giving them to other age groups.

The only way that you could do it is by getting one child and charging them and effectively giving that cash to another parent. The first parent would need to have this fact fully explained to them or otherwise there would be deception.

Alas I fear that if this happens we are going to see a Montenegro-esque investigation taking place in Scotland. This is deception both to the players, organizers and FIDE themselves. I would go as far to say that anyone involved with this is complicit with committing fraud.

Utterly shameful and it either has to be stopped or a motion has to be brought to the AGM to stop this abomination continuing.

The only thing that Sean said that made any sense was a player U18 graded 100 was the top player then they should not be going, probably the only sensible thing I have seen out of this idea.

Are we going to get any official statement from Chess Scotland on this or is it going to be through the grapevine on this board? I want to know what they are doing or are they happy with being complicit in deception as well??

[Derek Howie]

Hugh Brechin has eloquently expressed the issue with age based awards. The selection committee are committed to selecting our strongest players and rewarding players for chess ability and endeavor.
To further emphasis the point about age based awards:
If we were conducting selections and had Bobby Fischer and Magnus Carlson as our two contenders for an U12 place and an U18 with a grading of 100, who seldom plays matches and does not see the point in coaching as he is the only U18 contender and therefore an automatic pick. Using the old selection method we would have taken Magnus Calson and the U18 player and left Bobby Fischer at home. The new method invites more players of the correct standard and rewards players who have worked harder, and demonstrated their playing strength over a sustained period.
The method used has been well thought through having been deliberated by the selection committee for over a year. The impact of the change on FIDE, the tournament organiser, the players and the parents have all been considered.

So when you said "no" to my earlier question about taking funded places from one age group and giving them to another, you actually meant "yes"?

FIDE don't award places based on ability, they award places based on age. If FIDE had wanted the CS selectors to pick based on ability they would turn round and give 18 free places, but they don't. They give one a boy and one for a girl for each age group.

Like Phil, I would like to know what FIDE's policy on this is.

Was it clearly explained to each parent who was getting their free place taken away from them that their money was being used to give a free place to a child in another age group?

Do you end up just inviting kids along who will pay their way so that their free place can be given to someone else as that's how it will appear? The free place can only be given if you can get someone else to cough up for it.

As for your Fischer and Carlsen example, the only way that they could both get a free place is if you managed to find a parent from another age group willing to fund it, and presumably if it was hidden from FIDE. Nobody is saying that you have to pick the under 18 graded 100, but if they are the only 3 people mentioned in your example, you would need to pick the under 18 anyway and hope that they go and agree to pay up or else you can't give both under 12s a free place.

This policy was on the CS website last year briefly and it was then removed in December when I questioned the IJD about it. It appears that the policy has remained and it's disappointing that it's been hidden from CS members in this way.

[seanmilton]

I share your frustration of you and others not having a clear understanding of the selection method. My main aim has always been to move to a more fair and transparent selection process. I believe a fair selection model has been created but the transparency element is proving harder to meet. I can assure you that I am progressing one step at a time, seeking all relevant engagement and with the utmost due diligence. Unfortunately by ensuring, all parties fully understand and full consensus is achieved, there has been numerous revisiting of previously agreed elements of the selection criteria. Once full understanding and consensus has been achieved at committee level I will be happy to roll it out to parents and players. In the mean time I would ask that everyone shows a little patience and wait for the facts before debating on perceived selection methods.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Alas I fear that if this happens we are going to see a Montenegro-esque investigation taking place in Scotland. This is deception both to the players, organizers and FIDE themselves. I would go as far to say that anyone involved with this is complicit with committing fraud.

Lol. Hardly committing fraud.

In 2012, Clément and myself split the free place for the World Junior Championship in Athens. I don't see a problem with a policy of reallocating free places internally IF it is completely transparent.

Derek raises an important point: when does it become a moral hazard to begin inviting juniors, who are relatively weaker for their age, to provide funding for others?