Chess Scotland Noticeboard

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Under 12 team for Liverpool Quadrangular Dec 12 to 14
10 Boards

October selections (current grade in brackets)
Daniel Thomas (1306)
Kiron Roy (1063)
Peter Sanders (1051)
Ben He (964)

November Selections (Increase in grade in brackets)

Max Allison (124)
Aaron Lewis (69)
Gordon Clark (42)
Stefan Robertson (12)

I will be contacting all these players directly over the next few days with further details.

Please note that the junior board has selected a further 4 players and that 8 players have now been nominated for a 10 board team. Yesterday at CFK Edinburgh 7 suitable candidates played in the P7 section. We have selected the joint winners (6.5/7) 3rd place was 2.5 points back at 4/7.

Selection for the final two places is complex. I will publish the final places in the next few days.

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Update:

I will publish the last two invitations for the U12 team on Sunday 23rd.

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Here are the final selections.

The final 2 selections were always going to be very difficult decisions.
I followed normal protocol, declared a conflict of interests, and did not chair the meeting and did not cast a vote. The meeting was chaired instead by the Home Chess Director (Junior). Here are the 10 players who are invited to represent Scotland in the Liverpool Quadrangular from December 12 to 14. As for the U14 team I present the selections in order of grading rise since July. Final board order will be defined much later.

Rise Since July
Allison Max 186
Sant Neelay 150
Thomas Daniel R 141
Roy Kiron 138
Pannwitz Kai 119
Robertson Stefan 92
Sanders Peter 81
Lewis Aaron 69
He Ben 60
Clark Gordon 42

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Comments on under U12 selection process

Following e mail discussions with a number of parents I have decided to comment upon the selection process as it has been applied to the under12 side this year.

Since the long established Chess Scotland rules for international junior state the importance of
(a) Current grade
(b) Rate of increase.

It seems logical to add these two important numbers together.
For the 10 selections for the under 12 team here are the totals for the players.

Daniel Thomas 1449
Kiron Roy 1204
Peter Sanders 1132
Max Allison 1129
Ben He 1064
Aaron Lewis 1041
Gordon Clark 977
Neelay Sant 959
Kai Pannwitz 875
Stefan Robertson 861

The discussions surrounding the selections have obviously clearly not been as simple as this (this summation actually post dates the selections) but the numbers listed below are a good guide to the committee’s mindset.

We have on this occasion only selected players who have increased their main list grade by at least 40 points. By definition this group also fit the criterion of being active players.

There are a few J11 players who score more highly on this analysis. These came very close to selection as did a number of players with current grades above 700

And the answer to the question “ how can my child get into the team next year” If the overall standard changes very little I would estimate that he/she will need to meet at least 2 of the following 3 criteria.
(a) A grade above 700 in November 2009.
(b) An increase in grade of more than 50 points between July and November
(c) the sum of (a) and (b) of at least 950.

Jeremy Hughes · Rook Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 47

I was very surprised to learn at the the Edinburgh Allegro event last night that Fergus Skillen was not invited to play in the U12 team. He is a J9 with a current grade of 765 that is significantly higher than others in the U12 team. He has an excellent chess pedigree and scored 4 out of 6 in the 2008 Primary Individual tournament (a residential weekend with some similarity to Liverpool). He has played in the Edinburgh League and the SNCL this season and is thus used to a longer time control. I can see that he has not had a massive jump in grade so far this season but I do not think that there is any logic at all in 'adding the current grade and the rate of increase' as the current grade does take the increase in grade into account. The reason I say this is that it has resulted in much younger players leap-frogging over (in my opinion) more experienced and able players.

Jeremy

Andy McCulloch · King Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 280

Jeremy, what is the point of this post at this time? The teams are already in Liverpool, so your post will achieve nothing but sow discord.

The selection process this year has been more transparent than I am aware of in any previous year. In fact the International Director Junior first indicated the selection criteria as long ago as October the 9th.

It is very disappointing that a public attempt should be made to champion an individual, especially at such a very late time. As you are a past Junior Director, who had his own problems over procedures, I find this very surprising.

Jeremy Hughes · Rook Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 47

Hi Andy,

I completely appreciate your point and I am sure that you know that I am genuinely wish all the players success and a really good time in Liverpool. I am also grateful for those who get up and organise such events because I know how much work is involved. However, I looked at this thread regarding the U12 selection and I just did not get the logic of adding current grade to rate of increase - where did that come from? I am not championing one player as other juniors are affected - just look at the grading list. Current grade is the only 'hard' number to use and you have to have an extremely good reason to overlook any experienced young player for international representation who has a higher current grade than others. If this is incorrect please tell me why. I have no doubt that the use of various combinations of main grade, the rise in main grade and the bizarre adding of these 2 numbers is a recipe for confusion and errors. My personal view is that the main grade is key but that selectors should also take into account playing games with a longer time control (congress, SNCL, adult leagues) and the allegro grade as young primary players are playing in secondary events that are graded on the allegro list). It is eminently possible to select players with a lower main grade but there needs to be a very good reason such as those listed above.

Selection is always difficult and I am sure that a lot of thought and consideration has gone into it. Selection of top players is pretty straightforward and the most difficult selection is to decide which of 2 players will be the last remaining member of the team because 1 player is in and 1 player is out! The committee have made their decisions and that is that but I think that they should carefully consider whether they got it absolutely right in this case.

Jeremy

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Jeremy,

I understand your comments but in the final analysis you have to leave difficult decisions to those entrusted by the agm. Almost by definition the selection for bottom board will debatable.

If you look at the bottom boards this weekend they scored as follows.

David Gillespie 1/2
Lisa Flaherty 2.5/3
Neelay Sant 2/3

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

HughBrechin · Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:11 am Post subject:

Taken from the CS Junior International Selection Policy page.

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Hugh,

It is my understanding that it is in the remit of the IJD "to manage the selection process"

That I have done.

The rules you quote would require me to consider several numerical criteria: these were all considered by the junior board.

If you had used a longer quote then we could discuss these words.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
• Chess Scotland membership
In order to represent Chess Scotland at an international event, individuals must be members of Chess Scotland. (updated 7/05/2007)
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

This I did not do.
Deliberately and intentionally.

I was unwilling to omit 3 players on the basis of a rule that they and their parents had (probably) never read.

Again this was me managing the process as I saw fit.

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

Has this rule now been highlighted to the non-members?

As international events usually receive some level of subsidy from CS it does seem reasonable that anyone who wishes to take part should be a member, if not before at least subsequently.

By the way what is the basis of the formula 'current grade+rise',i.e. why might a player scoring highly with it be thought more deserving selection? and exactly how important a factor was it?

This formula gives an advantage to players of lower grade over players who have played at a higher level for a longer period. So for example a player that has a grading jump the previous season will be disadvantaged compared to the player who has the same (or even a smaller) jump in the current season.

As a large rise in grade is often a mix of a player's actual increase in playing strength plus the grading system catching up having undergraded the player the previous season (e.g. they may just have failed to get to 200up ).

I completely agree that the IJD & board should have the freedom to manager selections and should be trusted to make their decisions as they see fit but that there it should be clear what the criteria are; so that players can find out why they were not selected, and what they need to do to get selected.

HughBrechin · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:24 am Post subject:

I agree that it would be very unfair to prevent young children from playing on the grounds of a rule which, as Phil says, they and their families will likely have known nothing about. I'd imagine some people will have known very little about Chess Scotland at all before getting the phone call. That said, I'm sure they'll now have been asked to join - that seems the common-sense view. It certainly isn't expensive for juniors, especially if you don't want the magazine.

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Hugh,

I take your point. For selections higher priority was given to current grade rather than to the published grade from July.

For me it is intuitively correct to use the most recent data available yet in those guidelines the wording is such that older data appears to be given higher value.

Trevor Davies · Queen Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 131

I heard ( as expected) that the organizers, helpers etc all did a great job at Liverpool and the teams' attitude and performance were exemplary. Well done!
Team selection is extra-ordinarily difficult at the margins; clearly not everyone would make identical choices (for a whole host of reasons) and inevitably some will feel hard done by. I do feel sorry for the team selectors who have to make these decisions (I would hate to be in that position myself).

Personally, I would duck the decsion by requiring all those on the margins of selection to take part in an all-play-all competition and base the decision on that alone. Just a thought.