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Ian you say “I have no need or desire to substantiate it. Walter I suggest you reread pages 1 and 2 on this thread whixh mentions Jim Webster's and Alan Tate#s comment which should clarify opinions about the tournament.”

Not really following your line here...Alan Tate expressed support for rapidplay events, and Jim reiterated the ManComm decision to FIDE rate the Richardson and Spens. Neither pertain to my point about the unknown attitude of players to tournaments in general being FIDE rated.

You claimed to reflect the ‘vast majority’ when a ‘huge percentage’, in your words, had no opinion. So why would they care more about FIDE rapidplay ratings!? Why go to the bother of FIDE rating them if there is nothing to indicate demand?

Jim, why is it a bad thing to obtain feedback from non-CS members as well as members – they play in the tournaments as well. Surely any sample is better than a hazy recollection or blindly following percieved ‘trends’. Are views of Man Comm and officials more likely to be representative of members and players? Appreciate at least that you acknowledge the merit of obtaining representative views of members though. Cheers

The more domestic Fide tournaments the better as far as I'm concerned. It costs a lot of time and money to play abroad so it makes sense to me that ambitious players should have the chance to play for international rating without the expense. Ultimately though you have to go abroad to make serious gains, as Hamish said.
I'm not buying that a significant number of players are in favour of less. Edinburgh has been Fide rated for years and is consistently the strongest weekender in Scotland.
There is the two game a day argument which is a valid one, but this is really the only argument against and is a necessary evil. If you want to play a risky tournament how about Cappelle? I must have donated 100+ points there over the years. But really though, people need to lighten up about ratings - chess is not about rating.

On a personal level a Fide rapid rating is something that interests me as the European/World rapid and blitz events sometimes look quite tempting.

Incidentally, how many games do you have to play to get a rapid rating?

Ian

I don't have a problem with Fide Rated Quickplay....chess is fun, this rating does not matter.

Alan

As you are more of a chess professional than me, then yes you are fine with Fide Rated weekend tournaments as you will be much fresher for the demands it takes to perform.
Edinburgh used to be a lot stronger before Fide Rating was introduced.

Largs Congress

I share the same view as everyone else, this has been a very welcome addition over the last few years. As current Largs open champion I am very disappointed they have followed the trend of now making it Fide Rated, despite earlier entry forms stating that it was not Fide Rated.
Friday nights round starts at 6pm. I work to after 4pm and would then have nearly an hour travel to the event, meaning there is no way I would be fresh for that game. Fide games are more important than CS graded games, is this the way we should be treating Fide Rated games...tired players, no time to prepare, no time to eat beforehand.

I'm confused Steve. You say you are Mr. Consistent at the weekenders so surely it should be good for you to have them Fide rated?

No idea what the professional comment is about but given that my natural sleeping time is 5am I don't think I've ever felt fresh playing a weekend congress and occasionally even withdraw due to not having slept at all.

Let me ask you this: Does it benefit Scottish chess as a whole to have Fide rated weekend events?

Presumably as an IM your fear of losing Fide rating is based on selections and not appearance fees. Floating an idea out there, how about adding x points per game played on the Scottish circuit onto all players who are in with a shout of selection?

By "Mr Consistent" he means he's the only IM who plays almost every congress, which is true (Andrew Greet is doing a lot too but that's recent). I do think the idea of there being some sort of selection incentive for Scottish titled players to actually play in Scotland is pretty interesting.

Hamish - absolutely, anything that encourages the titled players along has to be good. Non elite players get drawn in by the big guns too. Some just like to watch them do their thing, and others play in the Open for a chance to play them. Is good all round. This particular issue along with the Scottish game being doomed should be the priorities for CS.

Alan - With the FIDE Edinburgh, the organisers were saying it was down in entrants again by approx. 30-40 (I forget the exact number and it was posted on here I am sure). Being a rare and quality East event, one has to also consider that the prize money was very generous yet the event is still struggling, at least relative to other Scottish weekend events. It also cut costs by abolishing the Challengers event. With the recent news the Lothians (Westerhailes) Weekend event is now kapoot, it is surely just a question now of how many years the Edinburgh FIDE has left. I'd estimate about 5-10yrs life expectancy. Best we enjoy playing in it while it is still there.

Jonathan Livingstone Wrote:This particular issue along with the Scottish game being doomed should be the priorities for CS.

don't forget as home director I can only influence CS events. However I must applaud Gary in his forward thinking not only with the FIDE issue but with the other initiatives and ideas he has come up with in the last few years.

As with non CS events it is entirely up to them how they run their tournaments. Of course they know they can have CS support at any time and anything I or my fellow directors can do to help, we will surely oblige if asked.

Chess Scotland on the whole are developing strategies which we hope will reinvigorate the game in Scotland. The directors reports will be published soon and together with the AGM, hopefully any criticisms will be answered. It is a slow and deliberate process but it will produce results. the Man Comm (sorry Jim) reports also detail the discussions regarding this progression. The Scottish game is not doomed, it is being reinvigorated.

Jonathan,

I don't agree with you that the Scottish game is doomed. Speaking from an Ayrshire perspective we have...

Ayr congress
Largs congress
Irvine Spring congress
Marymass congress
Stewarton allegro
Prestwick allegro
Ayrshire Masters
Irvine Open

The Ayrshire Chess Association also run the very successful Ayrshire individual Championships, three leagues plus many smaller adult and junior events. Apologies if I have missed any out.

Now, if you feel there is a lack of events in your neck of the woods then you have to tackle that as individuals and local associations and I am certain that ChessScotland will help in any way possible.

One of the problems with the Fide Rating System for me in weekend events is that the most Elo points I may gain with a super performance over a weekend is about 5 Elo. On a bad day I could lose 15 points. There does not seem to be a fairness to this. Many players on the weekend scene are very well prepared meaning it is difficult to win e.g Steven Brown on form is most difficult to beat, one draw against him means I need to beat him four times after that just to break even. It is possible to lose to lots of other players if they prepare well against you, Hamish Olsen is a perfect example, he has played the perfect game in quite a few of our clashes where despite my huge efforts have not won and have been lucky to avoid defeat.

Alan

You ask would Fide Rated Weekenders not benefit Scotland. For me I would need convinced, what are the benefits? Does it matter to a club player if he is Fide Rated 1900 or 1950. What is it that I don't see which makes it so important to Fide Rate weekenders? We already have Chess Scotland ratings to help make the pairings.

Fide Rated Weekenders

As I have already stated, to me they take the fun out of the event. If I was to play in one, say Edinburgh, I would seriously need to consider staying there rather than travel the 1.5 hours each way as if I was not to do well then I would be asking myself, what went wrong?....was it the travel?...was it the tiredness?....should I have taken Friday off on holiday to give me the extra energy to play the best I could? (which means I would have less holiday time to do all the other things I want to do, I work in a Hospital so getting Fridays off is not always an option).
If it is not Fide Rated, then ok if I didn't play as well as I hoped, no great problem get myself ready for the next one.

Ian

As Home Director I am surprised you said the following in an earlier posting "if you don't like it don't play in it, its your choice"......I love the game, love the challenge, it is great to meet people. We should be doing everything to encourage people to play, not the approach like it or lump it. As a compromise I tried to say, ok the event is Fide Rated but players should have the choice to have their games Fide Rated or not. I don't lose any Fide Rating to unrated players, fine rate them to help their new rating, but with the high rating risks against others e.g Steven Brown where I need to beat him 9 times out of 10 to break even, No I don't want them rated.

The following applies only to Standard play FIDE ratings. I have yet to meet a player who takes their Rapid or Blitz rating with anything like the same degree of seriousness and that includes some of the world’s top players.

I have HUGE sympathy for Steve and the other players who have little to gain and much to lose in a FIDE rated weekender. As only games against FIDE rated opponents will count these players will find that a significant number of their wins do not gain them any rating points. Even conceding a draw is therefore likely to cost them a significant number of rating points. A score of 4½/5 will maintain their CS grade and would probably also keep their FIDE rating near its level. Unfortunately the 4½ might translate to 2½ out of 3 for FIDE games and possibly even 1½/2.

However, as always there is the other side of the coin. If all their wins were to count then Scotland needs more FIDE rated players and preferably at a reasonably high rating. The easiest way to get a FIDE rating for most players is to play in a couple of FIDE rated weekenders. Without getting too technical, juniors have a high k factor. This means that they can improve their rating at quite a fast level IF they play rated games regularly. A large number of juniors with high ratings would improve everyone’s ratings eventually provided the conveyor belt continued. To achieve this you would be asking high rated players to sacrifice rating points in the hope that at some point in the future the congress scene would be so dynamic that these points might be regained. I’m not sure that would be realistic.

Currently the only one round a day event is the Scottish. In the past we have had a variety of others popping up from time to time. Staging 9 round events is costly and there is limited room on the calendar.

At the moment we have a number of young juniors coming on to the FIDE system at middle to low rating levels. These players improve rapidly but because they are not playing FIDE rated games their international rating is significantly lower than their ‘real’ ability. This causes deflation and players like Steve are the ones who suffer.

We are in a Catch 22 situation. Ideally the youngsters could keep their FIDE ratings up to date by playing in FIDE rated Majors. But this would require these Major players to have FIDE ratings in the first place. Such ratings would be very difficult to achieve by playing in Majors.

In Scotland 10 player all play alls were relatively common and were used to produce rated players (4 rated players produced an additional 6 after 2 weekends of play). However the effectiveness of these is less now and FIDE charge €100 minimum for rating these as opposed to the normal €1 per player.

Is there a solution for bringing on the younger players without penalising the ‘old guard’? I’d love to hear suggestions.