Eligibility Votes - March 2022

[andybburnett]

Willy,

Andy Burnett worked very hard on his chess and got up to a high level fighting for a place in the Scottish team.  To echo Andy Muir's repeated point he was only able to do this playing almost exclusively outside of Scotland.

As things stand https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2400855/chart if Andy gets into the Olympiad team it will be because players are unavailable and younger players haven't progressed as they should/could have done.  Is that really what we want for the Scottish team?  I would say no, and I think Andy would agree with me, it actually diminishes the achievements that he made 2010-2104

Yes, as I have said I would love to play for Scotland one day, but that doesn't mean that I want to be an automatic choice for board 1 in 2032.  I hope there is a new generation taking the spots by then.

I don't believe that the vote on my eligibility will change much either way, but those who think that a vote for my eligibility will somehow prevent a new player coming through are frankly deluding themselves.

Hi Matt,

I'll reply to this one first because I have been named and shamed  

I have never expected and (despite a new lease of life) never really do expect to be a serious contender for Olympiad selection. However, you are either completely unaware of how selection works, or deliberately misrepresenting the situation (hopefully not) if you think your eligibility status won't affect selection...

The Chennai Olympiad 2022 teams are being chosen and if you had been available/eligible you would be an easy choice to put in the team based on rating, experience, current form, basically every factor used. What that would do, effectively, is force a choice between our most promising players, or leave out a stronger player  and you would be the least affected by far in almost every scenario.

Just to point out, and as a former ID I know how this works, if you are eligible and want to play, you could only really be left out if you were deemed "not Scottish enough" - which is clearly not a thing if it was decided that you were indeed Scottish" enough. There are no other criteria you would fail on.

Your inclusion would most definitely affect someone, and quite possibly that someone will be a new/relatively new player "coming through", or else someone else otherwise "deserving" of a spot.

Also, your notion that the ID is always scrambling around to fill a team is so far from the truth it needs knocking on the head immediately. There are usually have 8-12 candidates fighting for 5 spots in Olympiad/Euro teams, and usually most or all of them have a more than reasonable case for selection.

If you still think I am deluded, feel free to refute the above.

Andy B