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I got my title by (a) getting money (b) playing tournaments © a bit of coaching from Andy Martin.
However I paid all monies myself.
Why not simply ask David Congalton to allocate a norm-chasers budget of (say) £2000 a year and see what he says? If he rejects this then you must seek sponsorship or save up yourself. When you have the money you simply spend on training or tournaments. Simple. All the IMs in the 1980s & 1990s did it. Why not the 2000s and 2010s . Nothing stopping you. You have the same parameters.
Dates IM titles achieved - why the halt in the last 10 years ? come-on lads , let's get this moving again.
Pritchett 1976
McNab 1984
Condie 1984
McKay 1986
Motwani 1987
Muir 1990
Mannion 1993
Arakhamia-Grant 1993
Bryson 1994
Rowson 1995
Shaw 1999
Dearing 2004
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Adam,
Scotland has a number of aspiring players in their 20's around the 2200 mark. They might become IMs and it would be nice if they did. I agree with You that the key is getting them regular games against stronger opposition.
I think Chess Scotland can help in a number of ways and in fact this doesn't need to, and shouldn't, cost a lot of money. Some things which might help
1. Searching out invites and making sure they are passed on
2. Helping with setting up a group (either physical or online) to enable the players to work together
3. I really like Graham's idea about training matches
4. Suggesting foreign events and helping with accommodation - for example there may be Scottish players living abroad who could help
However, in order to radically take the Scottish (Olympiad) team forward we need 2600's and realistically that is very unlikely to come from the current crop of twenty-somethings. The twenty-somethings are important, because they are very keen and they can be the next generation of coaches, officials, organisers, perhaps even sponsors.
However, we want to be focussing our real attention on the twelve, thirteen, fourteen year olds. Select a small group of players perhaps 6, 8 or 10 and get them used to playing 2200+ players at an early stage. Find good tournaments to coincide with School holidays and send a group along with one of the twenty somethings to provide coaching support. This shouldn't cost a lot in comparison to World and European Championships, so it needn't cost Chess Scotland a lot.
The youth group can be developed in lot of ways. For example perhaps they should take it in turns to write a pamphlet for the rest of the group with games they have annotated or studies they've found.
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Lots of interesting ideas being generated.
Matthew basically nails it here. 22 is not young in chess terms and ideally we need to get them playing and training at a much younger age. Someone who knows what they are doing would really need to organise this. On a related note, how many chess academies are there in Scotland - is Aberdeen the only one? If so, is there evidence to suggest that they work in terms of creating more (strong) players?
However, it is certainly possible to continue to improve in your twenties (and beyond) and I still believe that strong investment in this area is needed. Whilst you may not have the tactical sharpness you had at 16, this is compensated for in other areas.
Andy M, can we see a comparison with other titles and norms? There seemed to be a drop of after Rowson - Shaw was something of an anomaly and I suspect Dearing cruised to IM and then got a real job and life.
Closed tournaments in Hungary - It's hard to imagine a less motivating place to play chess. 2200 IMs who have sold their chess soul and the tournaments are not very professionally done in my opinion (maybe I'm fussy). I would expect Czech Republic to be better, though that would not be hard. Strong opens are better value for money.
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Alan:
The GM list is better
McNab 1992
Motwani 1992
Rowson 1999
Shaw 2006
Arakhamia-Grant 2009
I don't have FM stats, I went from CM candidate to IM and bypassed the title.
Free training tip - study endings more. Your round 6 commonwealth loss to Wang was another one due to endings.
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Edit function please.......
I'll take all the tips I can get at this stage! The GM list has more of a consistent pattern to it.
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Andy B - domestic reasons will mean round 5 of the commonwealth could be my last game for a while.
I have a season ticket for Dumbarton FC and watching them getting thrashed 4-0 every week is my duty rather than the FIDE rated Richardson.
I go to local council meetings on thursday where we discuss my daughter's school which is another duty which should put a stop to the expensive 70-mile round trip by car to play for Hamilton in the Glasgow League.
Church on sundays put me off the FIDE rated SNCL.
There dont seem any interesting congresses or allegros coming up.
I will continue to play through the rest of the Commonwealth games from Andy B and Alan which I missed for ideas and look forward to watching the Club Cup and Isle of Man and supporting the Scottish players there.
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Jim , the season ticket was only about £230 , you get 18 games including Hibs, Hearts, Rangers (twice).
I am expecting to see lots of goals, Kris Boyd, Kenny Miller, Ally McCoist etc
