Irish Senior teams for 2016?

Tim Harding

Players born 1966 or earlier, please read:

http://www.icu.ie/articles/519

Players interested in competing on Irish senior 50+ teams next year should contact the ICU Secretary (volunteers to help coordinate are needed!). Players eligible for 65+ teams who haven't already made their availability (or otherwise) known can either contact me direct or the ICU Secretary if they prefer.

I can also provide information about the individual World Seniors next year but not about the European Individuals (Armenia, 25 May-5 June) as there is as yet posted nothing online and the Armenians have not yet responded to personal enquiries.

Can the players whose age groups/birth years are incorrect or missing on the ICU ratings and FIDE rating websites please inform the ICU Secretary. A previous secretary appears to have stated 1950 as a default birth year for some players who tell me they are actually much younger.

Of course there is no obligation to reveal your age but you cannot be considered for a senior tournament if you don't.

Tim Harding

In another thread, earlier today, Sinbad 68 wrote:

As far as I know inactive players just like active players still have to handover subscription fees if they want their names to stay in the ICU January rating list, if ICU gets cash for keeping their names in the rating list while they rest on their laurels, that is fine, but as I said before it would be good to have a little box on rating site which you can tick, allowing you to see active players only.

I agree with that; it might be a simpler option for the webmaster than my suggestion to include a column showing the number of recent rated games had been played. Though my suggestion would give more information: a player could be "active" on the basis of one or two league games in a season, while somebody else had played two or three tournaments also in the same period.

Sinbad also said:

There is an annual senior competition in Drogheda , it doesn't have great numbers, the reason it doesn't and why you may have difficulty getting a good team is........ because many senior ICU members don't want to get banded together in what they may view as a group of geriatric players.

I don't think older active people see themselves as geriatric? The oldest player in the Worlds recently celebrated his 89th birthday there.

On the Irish Veterans Championship in Drogheda, as I said in the other thread, the biggest issue seems to be that except on the Drogheda club website year after year it gets no real publicity and to find out stuff and enter you have to telephone the organiser. With respect to Andrew Thomson who does all the work, this event (which is 60+ by the way, and I've no problem with that) should probably be coordinated better with the ICU to get a bigger entry in future.

On the question of whether older players don't want to play senior events, this has been complicated by FIDE's controversial decision to introduce the 50+ tournaments and I agree that many people in that category don't want to be seen as seniors and often are working full-time so are on limited holidays etc. So it may well be that we cannot organise Irish 50+ teams and personally I won't be involved.
However quite a lot of 50+ players of varying strengths are playing these "junior senior" events and Ireland had one player in this year's 50+ world championship who performed very respectably considering he will be eligible for the older category next year (no names, no pack drill).
For my report on the Seniors championships, see:
http://worldchess.com/2015/12/09/golden-oldies-but-they-still-play-well/

The 65+ age group obviously tend to have more time to go to tournaments and perhaps fewer other commitments.

We already have eight players who have expressed firm interest in going to next year's World Team Championship in the 65+ group which means we should have two teams and can raise three if more people want to go.

I don't think team events are for everyone, but it would be good to show the flag without worrying too much about results.
The venues for the 2016 events are quite attractive and at a good time of year so I hope a few more people will come forward.

With multiple teams of four plus optional reserve allowed, we can accommodate any number of players between 8 and 15 (except 11 which would mean somebody would have to play on a 50+ team if there is one).

sinbad68

Tim Harding wrote: »

On the Irish Veterans Championship in Drogheda, as I said in the other thread, the biggest issue seems to be that except on the Drogheda club website year after year it gets no real publicity

This year, veteran championship was advertised very late and effected numbers, but in general turn out is poor and for the past few years has been in single digits .The biggest issue is Not lack of publicity, (publicity would help), it is lack of top players in the competition & prestige attached to the tournament, similar problem to women championship, be my guest get ICU to blow horns advertising it, I'll be shocked if you get to 20 mark.

Tim Harding wrote: »

On the question of whether older players don't want to play senior events, this has been complicated by FIDE's controversial decision to introduce the 50+ tournaments and I agree that many people in that category don't want to be seen as seniors and often are working full-time so are on limited holidays etc.

Fide loves money,They have created fide arena recently and That's why they have low k-factor , so people kill themselves playing, to get their rating somewhere noticeable and keep coughing up fide fees. for the same reason they created over 50's section , more tournaments----> more money.They could have gone for a more novel idea instead. In Tennis you play Singles or Doubles, They could do the same in chess, two players in one team play against opposing team on a single board, for ex ( parent & child tournament ) taking turns playing moves . Parent A makes first move , child B responds then child A plays followed by parent B. Players have to try to figure out not only what opponent is planning but what their teammate is thinking, obviously no communication allowed between teammates during the game.