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Chess IV's and The 2013 Irish Chess Championships
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20-02-2013 2:29pm#1
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It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.
I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.
Also given that the event takes place on the weekend of the 5th-7th, and it's not realistic to expect many people to give up two consecutive weekends to travel to Limerick and play chess,
(Nick Scallan had as much to say in the comments on the event page: http://ulchess.com/?page_id=760 )
I'm afraid many of our woman players might find it a more attractive proposition to play in the weekender or am/pm tournaments where there are better prizes on offer, stronger opposition to play, and the social buzz around the UL campus may be greater (I believe there's also an comic-book/anime convention on in UL that weekend)
If the aim is to get away from the usual routine of having womens prizes in the main event and giving the title to the highest placed, then I don't think the championship is being given a fair chance in it's infancy.
One of the ideas behind having women only events in the first place is to increase participation, but I fear we might be hampering it in this case.
Of course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot
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But expected, surely? FIDE lists 157 active players over the required entry rating on the IRL list, and there are a total of 17 entrants so far, despite a few thousand in the prize fund and anyone over 2240 getting an appearance fee and it being an anniversary year and all that. So the entry percentages are low (11% or so) to start with.brilliantboy wrote: »It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.
Then factor in the point that the same FIDE list for women only shows four active players; so it's fair to say that Irish chess at the competitive level is a bit of a sausagefest.
Add those two factors together, and throw in the point that entry means either being unemployed or being able to take a week off work in an economic recession; and it's probably a fairly safe bet that few women are going to show up for the championships (and if they don't show up for the championships, they're probably not going to enter the women's championships). You might yet get some local juniors or lower-ranked players I suppose, but it doesn't seem like a great strategy to get the competitive-level female players on the list to show up.
Most of the research into motivation would suggest that the actual amount itself isn't relevant - it's the comparison between the "Championships" and the "Women's Championships" that would count - and it's not a great comparison. Far less prize money, no rating requirement or declaration requirement, and you can enter the main championships anyway so the "Womens Championships" doesn't really seem to be terribly valuable by comparison. And if you're hoping to get people to enter it because it's on at the same time as the championships, then you really need for people to be more motivated to go to the championships in the first place.I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.
But then, the main championships itself is set up daftly - the more I look at its entry requirements and the debate around them, the less sense it makes to me. Apparently we're trying to "preserve the integrity" (or "preserve the Irishness" if we're honest) of the championships by only allowing FIDE-registered IRL players to play, but when you look at the highest-rated player on the FIDE IRL list (who's Russian), it rather makes a mockery of the implementation of that idea, even if the idea itself had any merit at all, which bluntly I don't think it does - it's just stupid. I mean, there's a bloody good reason why Irish nationality law is lax by design -- when Irish people get to arguing about what it means to be Irish and who's Irish and who's not, things go pear-shaped and ugly in a great big hurry.
Personally, I'd say screw that nonsense and allow anyone to enter the championships (rating, nationality, declaration, all be damned). Grade the event so you don't wind up with GMs playing 800s (which isn't fair to either side) sure, but focus on making it the biggest event of the year, make it a celebration of the sport in Ireland, don't try to keep out "foreign" GMs but beg them to attend, pay them to attend, and cash in off the publicity on the back end.
And yes, give the national champion title to a national player, but don't be too restrictive there either - say "national player" means anyone who's eligible to be an Irish Citizen (and use the legal definition of that term so that the law takes the rap if there's a disagreement). And no, I don't mean "is an" I mean "is eligible to be an". The difference between the two in law is minuscule by design, and this way you have the more inclusive match and the title means more.
There's a time to restrict who can claim to be an Irish chess player, and it's when that player is representing Ireland abroad; at that point the whole thing about the IRL declaration to FIDE makes sense because it'd confuse things otherwise; but this is a competition within Ireland, so it doesn't make sense, it just wastes a bloody good opportunity to promote Irish Chess.
That's living in hope for youOf course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot
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I'm not suggesting he should be excluded or thought of as less Irish, I'm suggesting the direct opposite, I'm arguing we should be far more inclusive -- I'm just pointing out that he's a darn good example of why the whole idea of trying to "preserve the integrity of the Irish Championships" is utterly daft and ignores the reality of the situation.He might be Russian-born, but he's lived here for decades and represented Ireland any number of times. He's not exactly the ludicrously non-Irish figure your point seems to indicate.
Google the current Irish Championships and read the links from the first page of results and you'll find two seperate arguments about the inclusion or exclusion of players based on their absence from the FIDE IRL list. The fact that those arguments are what come up and not links from the Irish Times covering the upcoming Irish Chess Extravaganza! is the real problem, not what rule we use to exclude people from the championships.
No such thing as perfect ways to do things in life, but that doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do thingsPersonally, I prefer an open championships (that is, no nationality restrictions), but it's a contentious issue. It's been done before - off the top of my head both 2007 and 2008 were open - and it isn't a panacea.
I mean, some of the comments I've read online from people who really should know better are just horribly myopic, like celebrating the loss of significant commercial sponsorship from the championships. You'd get the feeling that things had been a bit too insular for a bit too long when people are cheering the loss of money and interest in a match instead of remembering that the bigger and more inclusive the match, the more it gets noticed, the more the title is remembered, and the more the sport can be developed.
Consider this; if you had a really large chess tournament, with hundreds of players from all levels, in Dublin (sorry lads, but it's the Minister for Sport's constituency and the major population center - a few years ago, you'd have used Killarney or Valentia for this), and several famous (to non-chess players) GMs in attendance and the Irish Champion was to be decided on at that tournament, then getting the Championship award handed over by the Minister for Sport and getting that on the news and in the papers would be a fairly easy thing to arrange because it's a pretty nice PR gig; and when that's happening, it's a lot easier to go to the ISC and ask for official recognition as a sport because if they refuse, that's another easy story to get on the news and in the papers (ISC snubs Minister for Sport is a nice headline...).0 -
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In steps; you can't make a change that big overnight (unless you win the lotto). There's enough money around now to get some names that the media remembers at least (the Nigel Short simul for example). Start there. Build on it. And I'll grant you, if you got Carlsen to play (and it would have to be him) then that'd be huge; but failing that, you would prefer a slew of random GMs to one name that was larger in chess circles.brilliantboy wrote: »How do you do such a thing without having a good deal of funding in place already?
Or to be more clear, unless it was Carlsen, then getting forty "random" east-european GMs that nobody has heard of outside of chess would be better than getting (say) Nakamura to play because as far as the media knows, there's Carlsen (because he's ready-made media content being both a world champion contender and a bit of a clotheshorse to boot), and there's "Grandmasters" (because that's easy for non-chess readers -- ie. the vast majority of readers -- to understand), and that's about it really. Ask your average person who Capablanca was and they won't know. Ask them for famous chess names and you'll get Fischer, Kasparov, maybe Short in the UK and Ireland (primarily because of the world championships bid and the televised rapid matches, even if they now look like a genesis video gone horribly wrong), and possibly Spassky (but that'll be because of Fischer). Hell, Deep Blue will get more recognition than Tal or Karpov. So if you can't get the one name they know, just get as many GMs as you can.
Again, And?There's also the case that the more higher profile the players you attract, the further the Irish contingent are likely to slip down the standings.
That's just reality. Just because you see it doesn't mean it's only now just shown up
Because that way the national championships shares in the media attention, gains prominence in the media and that aids the sport in the long run.but why in the guise of a national championships?0 -
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Honestly, if you were to put it on your CV, the GM title would win. Everyone's heard of that, but not many have heard of the national championships or have any idea what their competitive level is.checknraise wrote: »I find the current situation were the best young players main aim not being to win the tournament worrying and the I dont believe the Irish championships will improve until that changes. Is winning a international title more prestigious to a non chess compared to winning your national title - I dont think so.
Actually, I was trying to make the point that with the exception of a very few names, it's just a numbers game and "any GM will do", if you'll pardon the daftness of the oversimplification (and really, any player at all will do if you get enough of them -- you get 1000 complete patzers in a blitz tournament in Dublin and you'll see some truly awful chess; but you'll see it in the news and the papers and it'll bring in more people than ten high-ranked players in a closed tournament playing "real" chess).What you are suggesting sparks to bring "40 random grandmasters from Eastern Europe"
Honestly, if you stay so focused on having high performances, you ignore the participation levels (and when you look up from the local pond, the high performances just aren't that high).
Now there's an important lessonThe top players in Ireland are role models
But it'd happen faster if you had larger events. An Irish championships with less than twenty people is not going to inspire juniors. An open tournament with two or three hundred people might (think Heart of Finland)...I believe if the above happens attendances in club/tournaments will grow rapidly. I know its not realistic due to work and family commitments but I think you would be surprised what could happen if a bit more effort was made.0 -
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I dont know how to use quotes so forgive me
Every employer would automatically assume that if you had Irish Chess champion on your CV that you were the best player in Ireland at the time same way if you put down bridge, boxing or tiddlywinks. I am not sure they would understand the difficulty in winning a international title.
They majority certainly wouldnt be a role model on any level except chess.
I think everybody would love to see a massive open tournament organised in Ireland every year but it would cost a significant amount of money to organise an event like that. E2E4 have ran a tournament for the last few years with a handful of GM's playing.
http://e2e4.org.uk/dublin/Apr2013/masters.htm0 -
The first question you'd get would be "So you're a grandmaster then?" because that's the only title non-chess players have heard of - remember, outside of those who take an interest in chess, you're talking about people who've heard of Fischer from the movies, Kasparov from the Deep Blue match, and of course Peter Sanderson and Arkady Balaganchecknraise wrote: »Every employer would automatically assume that if you had Irish Chess champion on your CV that you were the best player in Ireland at the time same way if you put down bridge, boxing or tiddlywinks. I am not sure they would understand the difficulty in winning a international title. If it's correct understanding of chess titles that you want, the general public aren't really where you want to seek it, which is equally true for most other "minority" sports in Ireland 
(Hell, we've won world championships medals twice in Olympic target shooting, but because it's not an Olympic medal nobody outside the sport paid attention -- even though within the sport we know the world championships are the bigger deal).
Sad state of affairsThey majority certainly wouldnt be a role model on any level except chess.
But that's still the 20-40 players range. It's the 200-400 range you need, at least. And making it the nationals makes that easier to do (not easy, just easier :pac: ).E2E4 have ran a tournament for the last few years with a handful of GM's playing.0 -
But that's still the 20-40 players range. It's the 200-400 range you need, at least. And making it the nationals makes that easier to do (not easy, just easier :pac: ).
Where do you get the 200-400 players? Where do you put them? And how do you pay for it all?
Even then, you really need to throw a few Super GMs in to get any notice whatsoever.
Look at Bunratty, there was over 300 players this year spread across the 4 sections, yet outside the chess world it was almost completely ignored. I live minutes from Bunratty and I can tell you that there are people even living in the place who have no idea the biggest chess tournament in Ireland takes place there every year
I agree there is much much more that can be done to promote Irish chess and we are all failing, the membership and the executive, in that regard.0 -
There are 900-odd members in the ICU, aren't there? Doesn't matter if they're patzer or prodigy, its a numbers game if you want to get media attention.brilliantboy wrote: »Where do you get the 200-400 players?
Not to knock it because for playing it looks fantastic and all who play there agree, but as a location it has a single drawback...Look at Bunratty
...specifically the large distance between B (Bunratty) and A (the constituency of the Minister for Sport).
I mean, it's not even that it's outside Dublin, its that it's too far from TDs looking to look good. Stick it in the Castleknock hotel ten minutes drive from the Minister for Sport's clinic, get him to open it or give out prizes and you make getting PR a lot easier...0 -
brilliantboy wrote: »It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.
I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.
Would it be better if there was no listed minimum prize fund? 1800 was the highest rated Irish player at the event 8 months ago. The entrants were a little unbalanced and I gather the life blood of the event (players rated below 1200 (minor section players) or 9 out of 12 players) don't want to come back to a one-side event (top player was nearly double the highest under 1200 player).brilliantboy wrote: »http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/irishwomenschampionship2012/
Last years championship in Kilkenny had 12 players, and I'm sure it was hoped they could at least assemble a similar field for this years event.
It's interesting to note that even last year a few players decided to enter the Congress instead.
That wasn't last years event; that was this years event (2012/2013). This is a second women's championship held in the same playing year.
There are a number of factors (not prize money) that would contribute to low entry.
1. location from dublin (some Irish players won't leave dublin)
2. It clashes with the Main event or with the trainer courses.
3. The first wasn't that great (in comparison to the kilkenny event).
4. The difference between the women's and every other event can be felt in the advertising. The poster for the women's is different entirely to advertising for the rest. It is even a seperate event on the ICU website.
5. People have to choose between the 1st weekend or the 2nd (that would tell me how much they don't care about the event that it's worth less than a different tournament)
6. Reason listed above - standard too extreme
7. Second women's championship in this year; reduces the impact of gaining such a title
Prize money would NOT be on that list. This is an event with a minimum prize fund of €150 (pretty generous when there are 0 entries) and only started in the last 8 months. Women make up; lets say 5% of total players. 1000 players in the ICU that's 50 women that could possibly play. Not all 50 can make it. Something needs to be done to get that 5% up higher.brilliantboy wrote: »If the aim is to get away from the usual routine of having womens prizes in the main event and giving the title to the highest placed, then I don't think the championship is being given a fair chance in it's infancy.
That isn't the reason. The reason is to develop women's chess in Ireland. more needs to be done getting more female players involved rather than simply holding a tournament.brilliantboy wrote: »One of the ideas behind having women only events in the first place is to increase participation, but I fear we might be hampering it in this case.
Of course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot
The entries close the day of the event (but I gather if no one is entered who would come down to it). The late fee comes into effect after the 28th of June.brilliantboy wrote: »I'm afraid many of our woman players might find it a more attractive proposition to play in the weekender or am/pm tournaments where there are better prizes on offer, stronger opposition to play, and the social buzz around the UL campus may be greater (I believe there's also an comic-book/anime convention on in UL that weekend)
On that note: Every entry to any event during the Irish Championship gets free entry to that Anime and gaming convention called brocon (see here)brilliantboy wrote: »One of the biggest problems with a more open championship is that you could get a situation where the Irish champion finishes near the bottom of the field yet still becomes Irish Champion, and if you're pumping up the prize fund and offering incentives to foreign players, it's not at all inconceivable that it could happen. So in a situation where you should be crowning a champion, you're just crowning also-rans.
It depends on what the purpose of the Irish Chess Championship is. Once you know why the Irish Chess Championships exist; it's easier to decide on the criteria to enter.
For example: Is it to find the best player in Ireland (no rating restrictions should be in place)? Is it to promote chess in Ireland (more GMs and ICU PRO publicisies it more)? Is it meant to be the best tournament in Ireland (more GM's etc)?
Personally; if you limit it to IRL with FIDE only (or no nationallity with FIDE); you have to scrap the rating requirment. otherwise the competition becomes is just for the top 20 in Ireland that can take the week off work....specifically the large distance between B (Bunratty) and A (the constituency of the Minister for Sport).
I mean, it's not even that it's outside Dublin, its that it's too far from TDs looking to look good. Stick it in the Castleknock hotel ten minutes drive from the Minister for Sport's clinic, get him to open it or give out prizes and you make getting PR a lot easier...
What is your obsession with the Minister for Sport? Surely a munster rugby player/president of ul or something similar would also generate PR aswell. This just depends on a good PRO from both the event organisors and the ICU.
[QUOTE=Sparks;85174591Consider this; if you had a really large chess tournament, with hundreds of players from all levels, in Dublin and several famous (to non-chess players) GMs in attendance and the Irish Champion was to be decided on at that tournament, then getting the Championship award handed over by the Minister for Sport and getting that on the news and in the papers would be a fairly easy thing to arrange because it's a pretty nice PR gig; and when that's happening, it's a lot easier to go to the ISC and ask for official recognition as a sport because if they refuse, that's another easy story to get on the news and in the papers (ISC snubs Minister for Sport is a nice headline...).[/QUOTE]
The ISC would laugh at your face for thinking that because the Minister for Sport is at an award ceremony that you are a sport. Chess players don't think logically when it comes to real life. No national organisation will suddenly go "ah sure, we had it wrong all those years and we are changing it today". There was a push in 2003 (I think) to get chess as a sport. This had 10,000 signatures during the boom years. When that doesn't work; you know that the government won't issue legislation or abuse their powers to do what you want. What we should do (as I keep saying on boards) is apply for the ICU to be the national governing body for chess and be recognised by the ISC. You'd be surprised at how something that small can make a huge difference.0 -
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It's that he controls the pursestrings for the ISC (the problem with the ISC is that they're all about the C part and all its politicing and not so much about the S part, so you pretty much need to have the Minister either on-side, or at least in a position where he'd feel embarrassed if the ISC told you to go jump).What is your obsession with the Minister for Sport?
Indeed. If you walked in there and said "Leo gave out our trophy so now you have to give us money", that is. If, on the other hand, you took the current case for recognition (which is pretty strong if all you looked at was logical argument) and added in the point that you have publicly recognised ministerial support and the ISC's refusal wasn't going to be quietly accepted but would make the newspapers in the Minister's constituency, then your case gets a bit stronger.The ISC would laugh at your face for thinking that because the Minister for Sport is at an award ceremony that you are a sport.
Means far less than it should I'm afraid.This had 10,000 signatures during the boom years.
10,000 votes, maybe - shooting had success getting McDowell to row back on a proposed policy when that many shooters showed up in TD's clinics across the country to tell them that they wouldn't be getting a vote in the upcoming election or any future election because of that policy - but petitions just don't change things on their own (they're needed because their absence can be noted, but they don't win any arguments on their own).
And the Minister controls the ISC budget and he's who they ultimately answer to. Give him some decent PR (which the government is a bit desperate for right now. To be in the media seen opening or closing a tournament in a sport whose primary public perception is one of deep thinking, high intelligence and long-term strategy? You'd be selling ice in the desert...), get a mention into the coverage of the recognition problem, and it helps your case.What we should do (as I keep saying on boards) is apply for the ICU to be the national governing body for chess and be recognised by the ISC
It's cheap, underhanded, sneaky and utterly not rocket science 0 -
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Yeah, but the overall event is larger (60-something people) so there should be more fun outside of the playing area, and inside the playing area, well, look at the ratings histograms:The e2e4 event (the open) has the same number of entrants as the main event of the Irish Championships.
Irish Championships:
Average rating: 2095
e2e4 Sunningdale:
Average rating: 2157
I guess it makes more sense to spend less money and have a better shot at increasing your rating!0 -
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Yeah, that's fair enough allright.I know but the way you presented it seems a little misleading. You should be comparing the weekend of the weekenders (open/intermediate/juniors and the Irish Championships) to the e2e4 event when you are mentioning craic outside the match itself.
Yes, but I think that that's a fair comparison since there was discussion over whether a closed or an open tournament was "better".While if we take purely the Irish champs and the e2e4 open; you are comparing an open versus a closed event.
Nobody really seems to have definitively nailed down what "better" means in this case, but here we get a comparison on both performance level and participation levels (and the open tournament wins out).
Well, it's a similar average rating allright, in the sense that they both start with the same number and have the same number of digits...The fact that the Irish Championships can attract a similar number with a similar average rating for 9 days is quite interesting.
C'mon, you know a hundred points isn't a small difference! And just look at that histogram, it's a comparison between a gaussian and a poisson distribution!
I was wondering about the norm, but can he get a GM norm at e2e4? I thought there were requirements on the size and ratings level of the tournament?Sam could be going to try to get a GM norm; maybe he couldn't take 9 days off work?
Like I said, I don't think anyone's defined "better" yet (or what the championships are for or any of the other fundamental questions). And I don't see much in the way of meaningful debate about it. There's plenty of loudly held if poorly reflected-upon opinion out there from several... can we be polite and say "characters"? But their views alone are really a bad way to try to define the point of the championships.I don't think that's the lesson to be learnt. It comes back to what you see the event being. Otherwise we are going to have this cycle of Irish only - everyone - Irish only. Like how do you even measure the success of an Irish Championship? The average rating? The attendence? The prize fund? The media coverage?
There are about a thousand people in the ICU, and probably quite a few more than that playing chess in Ireland - to say that four or five high-ranked players are the only ones who can have an opinion on what the goals of the championships should be is... well, again, we need a euphemism to remain polite Let's just say it's not a great approach. It doesn't include 99% of the people who pay their ICU dues, let alone those who play.
So unless the goal of the championships is to see who wins a tournament out of the small select few who can take a week off work and go play in the middle of a recession, well, perhaps a better approach is needed. Personally I think the attendance level, especially amongst the strongest players, says that there's definitely something wrong.
And maybe there's a discussion to have there on the fundamentals of what it is the championships should be for and how we judge if they've been a success, before we ever get to the discussion of how we go about running them...0 -
Yes, but I think that that's a fair comparison since there was discussion over whether a closed or an open tournament was "better".
Nobody really seems to have definitively nailed down what "better" means in this case, but here we get a comparison on both performance level and participation levels (and the open tournament wins out).
I think comparison to a previous open Irish Championships would be more appropriate (a closed event in the UK has a higher pool of average ratings to draw from and a lot more players). However, I think a comparison of a closed event and an open event does provide general influences (but not neccesarily large factors).Well, it's a similar average rating allright, in the sense that they both start with the same number and have the same number of digits...
C'mon, you know a hundred points isn't a small difference! And just look at that histogram, it's a comparison between a gaussian and a poisson distribution!
it's an average rating difference of 62 points (or having 2 GMs at the event). When England has 34 more GMs and a higher average rating of nearly 230 points; an average rating of 62 points lower isn't that bad. Ideally the Irish Championships would trump most other tournaments, but we are small chess playing nation. Having such a high average rating with such a player base is quite impressive given the size of our chess union.I was wondering about the norm, but can he get a GM norm at e2e4? I thought there were requirements on the size and ratings level of the tournament?
If another GM plays I think so. There are standards and scoring results required.Like I said, I don't think anyone's defined "better" yet (or what the championships are for or any of the other fundamental questions). And I don't see much in the way of meaningful debate about it. There's plenty of loudly held if poorly reflected-upon opinion out there from several... can we be polite and say "characters"? But their views alone are really a bad way to try to define the point of the championships.
I agree. I think the championships was more inherited by the ICU from the hibernian chess Association who inherited it from another group. I feel the championships is going in circles in organisations with split views of Irish Open, titled tournament, etc.There are about a thousand people in the ICU, and probably quite a few more than that playing chess in Ireland - to say that four or five high-ranked players are the only ones who can have an opinion on what the goals of the championships should be is... well, again, we need a euphemism to remain polite Let's just say it's not a great approach. It doesn't include 99% of the people who pay their ICU dues, let alone those who play.
Every member of the ICU is informed of motions as AGMs. Membership numbers could be 1000 but in fairness maybe 900 don't care about ICU policies or decisions and really just want to play in weekenders and that's it.So unless the goal of the championships is to see who wins a tournament out of the small select few who can take a week off work and go play in the middle of a recession, well, perhaps a better approach is needed. Personally I think the attendance level, especially amongst the strongest players, says that there's definitely something wrong.
Again, I'm not sure. We should really compare scales here. The British Championships attracts X players from Y membership that can play. Do we attract a similar percentage?
I would be in favour of a qualification system (similar to the British Championships). I do particularly like the lowered rating entry for younger players.And maybe there's a discussion to have there on the fundamentals of what it is the championships should be for and how we judge if they've been a success, before we ever get to the discussion of how we go about running them...
I agree but the conversation shouldn't center around open or closed but rather what the Irish Championships is. That should be put in place for a period of 4 years and then changed if appropriate. A once off change doesn't really show any correlation0 -
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It'd definitely provide a different look at the data, but don't forget this started as a "compare what's on that week" look, it wasn't meant to be anything extensive!I think comparison to a previous open Irish Championships would be more appropriate
But the e2e4 event's open (hence Sam being able to go) so what England has or doesn't have is less of a factor... and besides, England's not a good comparison point if you're going to do any sort of real analysis. We have a better standard comparison country for sports, see below...When England has...
No, not so much, it's a pattern in sport in Ireland, particularly in the "minority" sports (ugh. I hate that term). We don't have many ISSF shooters in Ireland for example, but we compete at a very high level. The problem is that there's no strength in depth, so we plateau too easily and if someone drops out of the sport, it can have a disproportionate effect on the overall performance of the sport as a whole. That's a characteristic of small player bases from what I can tell -- you can get high performers, but they aren't there because of anything specific that you're doing, it's just the luck of the draw (and there's the point that they probably sought you out so you're getting a motivation filter on the player base).Ideally the Irish Championships would trump most other tournaments, but we are small chess playing nation. Having such a high average rating with such a player base is quite impressive given the size of our chess union.
On a minor tangent, a comparison of player bases themselves might be of more use if you want to look at the sport as a whole - and pick Finland for an example instead of the UK. Finland's often used for comparing Ireland to in terms of sport because we have very similar populations (to within a million or so) and about the same amount of money (almost exactly the same GDP per capita even now; we used to have more than them). Their active FIDE-rated player base is 501 players ranging from 1420 to 2599; ours is 191 players ranging from 1356 to 2520, and the histograms show that their average is higher than ours and not because of one or two outliers either, it's just a solidly healthier player base:
(Ireland in green, Finland in blue)
Which probably explains their national championships histogram
And it's not like it's down to a stronger junior program or anything, their age profiles are younger than ours on average, yes, but not excessively so. Though if you look carefully, there's a plateau in the 18-40 age demographic in Ireland that you don't see in Finland (and that's interesting because that's the core of your working life, when you have the least amount of free time - how do the Finns hang on to their players and even increase them during that age bracket while we don't?):
BTW, they charge more for their equivalent of ICU membership fees (€75 -v- €35) and that doesn't include their version of the ICJ, which is an extra €45.
Ah, here. Motions in AGMs aren't a means of communicating with the membershipEvery member of the ICU is informed of motions as AGMs. If an organisation starts saying that it's the membership's fault for not going to the AGM, then something's broken somewhere and it's not broken in the membership!
Then shouldn't someone be at least asking if the Irish championships should be in a weekender format?Membership numbers could be 1000 but in fairness maybe 900 don't care about ICU policies or decisions and really just want to play in weekenders and that's it.
And saying that people don't care about ICU policies isn't really accurate - it's more that people have mortgages to pay and jobs to hold down and families to raise, and getting into a four-hour peeing match in an AGM over some mundane triviality isn't high on their priority list. Policies can be of interest; petty politics not so much. People have too much to do to get involved in that; they kindof expect that the organisation will find out what they need and use their membership dues to provide as much of it as is possible. When all they get in return is politics and noise, going to the AGM to fix it isn't the option most chose; ignoring it and going to go play online chess (or even something else entirely) on the other hand...
If you're going to lock it in like that (and that's not saying it's a bad idea), you really want to lock in what the metric for success is and how it will be reviewed as well...I agree but the conversation shouldn't center around open or closed but rather what the Irish Championships is. That should be put in place for a period of 4 years and then changed if appropriate. A once off change doesn't really show any correlation0 -
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BTW, they charge more for their equivalent of ICU membership fees (€75 -v- €35) and that doesn't include their version of the ICJ, which is an extra €45.
I don't know what the y-axis means on that graph...It is an interesting question : how do you measure the success of an Irish Championship?
Criteria might be:
A. Percentage of the top 20 active players participating
B. Percentage of eligible players taking part
C. Number of provinces represented
D. Number of new players participating
E. Number of people who travel to the tournament
I am sure there are other criteria also ...
It's a conversation I'd like to see. Because criteria A and C are completely different (the best players are typically from Leinster with maybe 1 or 2 from munster). I'm not certain what criteria I'd apply for a championship to be successful; I suppose uptake and interest from non-playing individuals (spectaters online/offline).0 -
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Which raises two questions:Oh ok. Well with Finland having 5x more players I'd expect to see 5x more on that graph in every location.- Why do Finland have five times as many players given that they have about the same population and the same budget nationally?
- Why do we see a drop-off in our figures for the 18-40 age range when Finland doesn't? (Compare those two lines in the graph - we flatten out for that age range, they don't).
Possibly, but I can't find a source anywhere for the total playing pool for either nation ("total playing pool" not being the same as "total number of members of the national chess federation"). I don't think the number is available to anyone for either nation.If you could plot that as a % of the total playing pool instead of number of players, I'd say Ireland and Finland match up fairly well.
True, they're not precise, but they are still measurable...See some of those points are vague
Very trueLike the Cork congress would meet criteria 1 and would be a success. I wouldn't want that happening at the Irish Chess Championships!
Again, true if you're looking for conclusive proof, but we can track the numbers of new people coming in and at least look for correlations between the timings of events and media coverage and increases in the numbers. It may not be perfect, but it's better than no data at all.It's hard to determine how many new players play as a result of 1 tournament. There are too many factors.
Agreed, but to use Finland again, would you rather see the championships as they are with a small closed entry, or as something like the Heart of Finland event?It's a tough one to determine as the Irish Chess Championships mean different things to different people.
It certainly should be the ICU's highlighted tournament of the year.
http://www.chessdom.com/heart-of-finland-2012/0 -
Which raises two questions:
- Why do Finland have five times as many players given that they have about the same population and the same budget nationally?
- Why do we see a drop-off in our figures for the 18-40 age range when Finland doesn't? (Compare those two lines in the graph - we flatten out for that age range, they don't).
They have 25% more population wise. Also chess is considered a sport in Finland (I think - my finnish is a bit rusty) which could have an impact.Possibly, but I can't find a source anywhere for the total playing pool for either nation ("total playing pool" not being the same as "total number of members of the national chess federation"). I don't think the number is available to anyone for either nation.
If you do a search of players and just modify things in excel you can take the data and plot it against total playing population.
As you can see from the graph below the numbers don't trail off from 18-35. Our peak tends to be at 55 but for finland at 50. The average total age is 44.45 and 1968 for Ireland while Finland has an average age of 45.9 and rating of 1967.
Again, true if you're looking for conclusive proof, but we can track the numbers of new people coming in and at least look for correlations between the timings of events and media coverage and increases in the numbers. It may not be perfect, but it's better than no data at all.
Numbers would increase at a club level (players showing up to random clubs) but not a national level (and even less so at international level). Tracking players at a club level is impossible.Agreed, but to use Finland again, would you rather see the championships as they are with a small closed entry, or as something like the Heart of Finland event?
http://www.chessdom.com/heart-of-finland-2012/
This kinda removes colms point about national championships earlier (could have been on a different site). He used Spain as an example but now Finland is a counter. I'd rather see events around Ireland having higher rated players rather than July which is full of other national tournaments (like Finland). When our top players are higher rated it brings up the players below them too. When England got their first home grown GM; suddenly more started appearing.0 -
That hardly scales to give them almost four times as many FIDE-rated players though.They have 25% more population wise.
Where do you get the total playing population number from?If you do a search of players and just modify things in excel you can take the data and plot it against total playing population.
Actually when plotted as a percentage of the population pool, the plateau is even more pronounced:As you can see from the graph below the numbers don't trail off from 18-35. Our peak tends to be at 55 but for finland at 50. The average total age is 44.45 and 1968 for Ireland while Finland has an average age of 45.9 and rating of 1967.
(Dark blue is Finnish players -v- age; light blue is % of Finnish players -v- age; dark green is Irish players -v- age; light green is % of Irish players -v- age; and the axis on the left is for the number of players while the right axis is for % of players)
To be fair, you've actually misread my (not clear enough) post - the Heart of Finland event isn't the Finnish championships, that's a closed event as well, but they get even fewer than we do, despite the larger available population and the success of the Heart of Finland event.This kinda removes colms point about national championships earlier (could have been on a different site). He used Spain as an example but now Finland is a counter.
Well, so long as they embrace that role, yes; but it does tend to depend on the personality of the person involved...When our top players are higher rated it brings up the players below them too.0 -
That hardly scales to give them almost four times as many FIDE-rated players though.
Well if you factor in chess also being a sport there it could. There are more factors at play than just population. Ireland has 1 GM per 1 million people but Iceland has 12 per 319,000 people. It really isn't down to just population.Where do you get the total playing population number from?
If you go to ratings.fide.com you can do an advanced search and find all players from whichever country you prefer. Copy and paste into excel and you can do what you'd like with the information. You can also go and download the entire FIDE rating database located here. This was prepared with active players only.
The graph below is a 5 year moving average (stupidly done as 5 5-year moving averages)
Below that graph is % of total added. So if we have 1% aged <5 and 2% aged 5-10 we have 3% aged <10. The reason this graph doesn't get to 100% is DOB are missing for some players.
It would seem to me between 40-55 is when players stop playing.
To be fair, you've actually misread my (not clear enough) post - the Heart of Finland event isn't the Finnish championships, that's a closed event as well, but they get even fewer than we do, despite the larger available population and the success of the Heart of Finland event.
I wouldn't compare heart of finland to the Irish Championships; I'd compare it to Bunratty.Well, so long as they embrace that role, yes; but it does tend to depend on the personality of the person involved...
Kinda but an ahole is enough to encourage someone to beat them just as much as a nice guy is encouraging enough to improve the standard. I don't think I've ever heard of standard increasing and it being worse for any chess nation.0 -
But that's my point - a 25% hike in population shouldn't give you a nearly 400% hike in participation in a sport, so there are other factors at work and it'd be really useful to know what they are.Well if you factor in chess also being a sport there it could. There are more factors at play than just population. Ireland has 1 GM per 1 million people but Iceland has 12 per 319,000 people. It really isn't down to just population.
Yes, but that's where I got my data from.If you go to ratings.fide.com you can do an advanced search and find all players from whichever country you prefer.
I'm not understanding how we're graphing the same data and not getting the same graphThe graph below is a 5 year moving average (stupidly done as 5 5-year moving averages)
I was trying to say "do we want an open or a closed championships" and point to Heart of Finland as an example of an open match; Bunratty or Kilkenny could serve the same comparison purpose.I wouldn't compare heart of finland to the Irish Championships; I'd compare it to Bunratty.
Honestly, I don't buy that as a general principle. It's definitely fair to say that that will work for some people, but for others, people who are .... not living up to the best example of being a role model :pac: will just push people out of the clubs.Kinda but an ahole is enough to encourage someone to beat them just as much as a nice guy is encouraging enough to improve the standard.
I mean, this is chess, not the GAA. If there's some git in the local chess club, I can just go online and play chess there at enormously less hassle to myself. Whereas if there's some git in the local GAA club, I have to give up GAA if I want to avoid them.0 -
Well, the entry deadline is passed, and the entry list looks like this according to the ULChess website:Name|Rating
Colm Daly|2339
David Fitzsimons|2331
Philip Short|2260
Mark Orr|2247
Mel O’Cinneide|2225
John Redmond|2217
Jonathan O’Connor|2149
Paul Walsh|2118
Killian Delaney|2117
Rory Quinn|2101
Ciaran Quinn|2098
Anthony Fox|2093
Gerard MacElligott|2050
Gordon Freeman|2047
John Hughes|2046
Raymond O’Rourke|2023
Eamonn Keogh|1994
Martin Crichton|1965
John Cormican|1965
Martin O’Grady|1903
Kevin O’Flaherty|1880
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