06-05-2014, 05:26 PM
Derek Howie Wrote: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.
Well, I'd word it rather differently, but I don't really see the problem with this. I'd see this as less 'coughing up' and more as a collaborative thing. Here's a hypothetical scenario. Players A and B are in the same age group and have achieved CS's 'A' qualifying standard, or whatever (say we're talking about two under-14s rated in the 1900 ballpark). Only one funded place is available for the section. Player C is Scotland's strongest player in the under-16 age group, and has a rating of around 1750. I don't see the problem with a course of action which gives at least some of Player C's funding towards ensuring that both players A and B can participate. Obviously this would depend on everyone being able to agree, but I'd like to hope that should be possible. As long as the selection guidelines are clear and transparent to everyone well in advance, I don't see what the problem would be here.
Incidentally, I'd bet a decent amount of money that FIDE don't give a toss about what happens to the money, as long as they get more people playing in their competitions, which this would achieve. (Has anyone actually read the rules about this or are we all just guessing? I freely admit I am, so if everyone else is working from more knowledge than me, I do apologise.)