Chess Scotland Noticeboard

admin · Site Admin Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 1386

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Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

Chris / Cathy
I think I won the bet!
Twisted Evil

Jacqui Thomas · King Joined: 01 May 2007 Posts: 340

Report of Inter county now on website homepage. I mentioned Alexander Bond getting 100% because he got a prize as did the top scorers from Ayrshire & South Lanarkshire B. However I must point out that Adam Wadler of the Lothians team also scored 100%.

Some great performances by all & a big well done to Lothians for retaining the title of Inter County Champions.

Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

Is it possible to confirm, for future reference, exactly the definition of a region ?

We noted that S. Lanarkshire for example included players from East Renfrewshire while the Lothians team itself is taken to be made up by players from a region that consists of a number of counties.

I ask this with the thought that if larger regions were pre-defined like for example North East, South East (to include Lothians, Fife & Borders) Central Scotland (N&S Lanarkshire, East Renfrew) and West Scotland - it might be easier for team organiser to put teams together and get more of the junior players from across scotland involved?

If this was done at the start of the season then it would be possible for organisers to integrate into their leagues & events the carrot for players of being selected at the end of the season for this event.

admin · Site Admin Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 1386

Mike,

Players have to be born, resident or bona fide members of a club in that county. The East Ren players are all members of East Kilbride Chess Club and have played for our Lan and Glasgow teams over the last 2 seasons

Cheers

Andy

Donald Wilson · Queen Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 143

What, then, is a "county"?

"Lothians" is not and never has been a county - in the good old days before 1974 when there were real counties (33 of them in Scotland, if I remember correctly) there was East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian. Similarly, South Lanarkshire has never been a county - the county was Lanarkshire. Ayrshire was a county, but as far as local government is concerned it ceased to exist in the 1970s and has never been revived, though of course it will always live on in the hearts and minds of Ayrshire folk.

So the competition last week involved an extinct County, a scrapped Region and a "District" (I'm not sure what the official term for the present-day local-authority units is - "Unitary Authority Areas", perhaps?) with little grounding in history.

Am I complaining? Nope - any excuse to bring youngsters from different parts of Scotland together for a chess match is fine. But having a clearer definition of the areas the teams represent might help to bring other areas in and increase the size and prestige of the event.

Jacqui Thomas · King Joined: 01 May 2007 Posts: 340

I was very disappointed with the amount of teams this year considering its been 9 recently & we used to have a Secondary section too but dropped that because (a) teams of 6 were proving too hard to find (b) Law Society came in which is more prestigious as gets sponsorship (only 3 players required per school which also is a struggle for some - namely my boys school as we couldnt get a 3rd player this year) .

Anyway, I was thinking of proposing that if we continue to run this Primary event that the teams only need 6 players. Hopefully this will encourage more areas to take part & those that do have more players can always enter more than one team. At least then East Ren players can revert back to their county & try & retain the shield they won in 2008.

Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

I agree with Donald - I wasn't complaining about the presence of the players, after all this is a vehicle for getting more players playing and when I thought about it the only issue was the lack of a clear definition in advance of the event of the rules for defining elgibility for a team. In different places it is refered to an inter-region and as an inter-county.

I think dropping the number of players per team would be a good idea as it would still allow the areas with more active players to send 10 or 12 players by sending two or more teams. The only issue with that is you may need to think of having more than one league so that you do not get mismatches between the A and B teams?

Any comment on formally defining potentially larger regions?

I think this might also help attract teams if it is clear that the defined area has sufficient numbers of players. If at the moment the local orgaisers assume that their region is only the legally defined county, rather than a larger virtual county (like Lothians is) then they think they do not have sufficient players to make it worth entering.