ICU AGM 2023

OissíneM

If you are proposing new motions please feel free to put them here. I have a few that I would like to propose. Any feedback welcome.

Re Olympiad Open Selection:

"Excluding the Olympiad places that are allocated by winning the Irish Championships, and provided that players satisfy the minimum game requirements, players shall be selected for the Irish Olympiad Open team based strictly on their high-tide published fide rating (their peak published rating), beginning from the month after which the previous Olympiad has concluded, and ceasing with the March fide rating list immediately preceding the upcoming Olympiad. In the event that the player's high-tide fide ratings are identical, the following criteria shall be used to determine selection between those players:

1) The high-tide ICU rating from the same period.

2) If the high-tide ICU ratings are identical, then the highest fide rated player, based off of the March rating immediately preceding the Olympiad, shall be selected.

3) If the March fide ratings are identical then the player with the highest March ICU rating shall be selected.

4) In the extremely unlikely event that this criteria fails to produce a clear selection, then the Selection Committee shall exercise their discretion in deciding between the players."

And here is an explanation about why I think this is best:

1) High-tide ratings encourage players to play as much as possible. This is beneficial both for Irish Chess, and the players themselves. It is not desirable for anyone if players limit the number of games they play in order to protect their rating.

2) The fairest system for choosing selection is one that has a strict criteria where everyone knows where they stand. The player's are happy because they know what they need to do in order to be selected, and the Selection Committee is happy because they just need to look up published rating lists.

3) Some of you might ask "Why do fide ratings take precedence over ICU ratings". Firstly, quite a significant amount of games player in Ireland are now FIDE rated. From a quick search on the ICU website here are the tourney's that have been fide rated over the past year: CUS, Cork, Limerick Open, Ulster Masters, Cavan, Gonzaga, Sligo, Mulcahy, Bolger, Ennis, DCU Open, NCC, Drogheda, and the Irish Championships. So plenty of chances for players to play fide rated games. Secondly, the Olympiad is a 1-game a day event. These are quite different from ICU weekenders, so it makes more sense to place more importance on events that are 1-2 games a day (ie fide events). Thirdly, if we merged ICU and fide ratings where it was something like half fide rating half ICU rating (weighted ratings) it would simply get too messy. It's clear that ICU ratings are much lower than fide ratings (fide ratings have a floor of 1000, we have a floor of 0, so this deflates ICU ratings over time). So it wouldn't be comparing like with like. Far too complicated.

I think I will propose a similar selection criteria for the women's team.

I will also propose to change the minimum rating for the Irish Championship from 1900 ICU to 1800 ICU (because of rating deflation).

zeitnot

Re the minimum rating for the Irish championship: ICU ratings seem to be a bit lower than FIDE, but for the just-concluded championship the difference was slight: average 2031 vs. 2012 (taking only the last published rating before the event). 12 of the 32 players had a higher ICU rating than FIDE rating. Though I would not be quite as rigid on the 1900 bar as some people (well, one person anyway), it has worked pretty well over the years. A 100 point lowering seems a bit drastic.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I think I would strongly disagree with motion 1. We want our strongest team - and the high tide over a 2 year period could be a massive drop off.. I could name several examples of players being 2400 or 2300 on day one of a qualifying cycle and 2100-2200 at the end of it. Maybe I’m misreading the motion but I don’t have a problem with the current average between FIDE and ICU at the end of the cycle.

hightide ratings are used for juniors because they were avoiding tournaments to keep high ratings before - but now don’t have they same disincentive. It doesn’t really happen with the Olympiad teams because the players play less anyway and already have a minimum game threshold to meet.

I wouldn’t see this as solving a problem while creating a more complicated process.

I also wouldn’t change the lower bar for entries to the Irish Championship. I don’t see obvious evidence of the ICU ratings being deflated at that level (I suspect there may be some - particularly at the lower end but we have bonus points and other correcting measures built in which FIDE don’t) - while FIDE will be addressing their own ratings before the end of the year most likely - so in time for next year.

checknraise

IMO The ICU should be looking to raise the rating requirement for entry to the Irish. The Irish this year was the weakest we have had in years and I suspect one of the main reasons is that the tournament became less interesting to play with such a big low floor with huge numbers of low rated players. The entry fees might be required to cover the cost of the tournament but it leads to a much worse tournament.

No need to change the selection criteria it's pretty fair and transparent. Most of the highest rated players ratings are pretty stable and it's already the case that the selection committee have some discretion to make selection not purely on rating - e.g. Tarun and David for the last Olympiad. Major downside of the high tide approach is that a junior with K40 gains a huge number of rating over a short period which grossly inflates their rating vs their current strength.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120988081#Comment_120988081

The money probably isn’t too much of a factor - maybe a grand from the bottom 12 seeds. They may play one or both weekenders if they don’t qualify for the Irish Championship too which offsets to a degree. (The Major rating band would expand to 2000 naturally if this rule did pass)

moving from 1900 to 2000 would lower the eligible participants from about 150 to 100 at a guess - down from 120 to 70ish active players. Again, I don’t think this totally kills the idea.

I think the main problem is that some of the top 30 players have gone from being persuadable to maybe less so since Covid. Many factors - some have had kids, some feel they no longer need to win the Irish for Olympiad spots, some live abroad and Irish hotel prices are worse than ever, and then some have gone from active to casual players. I would say that before, the organiser could aim to realistically convince 15 of them to play annually. At very best, I think you’re looking at 8-12 of those playing once every few years now.

however, I’d be very hopeful this is a short term problem with maybe 8-10 players coming through who could join that top 30. Many of them played this year.

OissíneM

Re lowering the Floor for Irish Championships:

When juniors are improving they take rating off of established players, and they might give up chess before allowing other players to take them back. Rating deflation makes is harder to gain points the lower your rating. So the actual playing strength of players is higher than their rating. This can only be shown when players are playing higher rated players, because when people of the same rating are playing each other it is a zero sum game. Anecdotally, to me it is very clear that 1500+ are not what they used to be- a few years ago it used to be the case where they would blunder a piece out of the opening, but now in the information age they can have a world class repertoire for 30e on chessable and can practice it online at their leisure. So they are making fewer mistakes and understand chess better than ever before. So it is harder than ever before for sub 1900s to gain points and actually qualify for the Irish. The 7 players rated 1800-1900 ICU who played this year all did at least fine, with Crowley and Keenan doing exceptional. So I don't think lowering the floor would detract from the tournament. The most important results are left to the final rounds, and if 1800s are playing against the top players on the top boards they deserve it, and if 1800s are playing against each other on the bottom boards then this won't effect the winner of the championship, and will add to its excitement.

Checknraise- It is true that many of Ireland's top player's didn't play this year, but it is hard to imagine that this was because of the numbers of 1800-2000s playing. These players added a lot of excitement to the event. For Ireland's strongest players based outside of Dublin the most plausible explanation re why they didn't participate is that hotel prices have tripled over the past 18 months. No chance you'd get a hotel in Dublin for under 2k for the duration of the tournament right now. The current rating floor has been the same for a decade + and has never been a problem before, so it would make no sense to say this is the reason why some player's decided that this year they would not play.

Re using high-tide ratings:

Loyola- Yes, I definitely overlooked inactive players. If inactive players (7 of the top 10 players on the IRL fide list) play 30 games in order to satisfy the minimum rating requirement, then their high-tide will still be selected, so they could lose all their games and still be selected, which wouldn't be right. This would obviously be the opposite of what I intended and it wouldn't make sense to proceed with this proposal.

zeitnot

The motions are now up. Quite a collection!

For what it's worth, here are my preliminary thoughts on how I'll vote:

1. YES! (Honorary membership for Tom O'Sullivan)
2. Yes (Rated games -> rated classical games)
3. Unsure (residency 4 years -> residency 2 years)
4. Probably yes (games requirement applies to Irish champion also)
5. Unsure (add Olympiad-eligible requirement for entry to Irish championship)
6. Probably no (all rounds in Irish championship must start at same time, no sooner than 2pm)
7. Probably yes (one half-point bye in Irish championship, and only in first five rounds)
8. No (penalties for players who default in the last round of an Irish championship)
9. Unsure, probably no (filler in Irish championship)
10. No (rating threshold lowered to 1800 ICU for Irish championship)
11. Unsure (championship outside Dublin at least once every four years)
12. Unsure (direct encounter as default tie-break for all competitions)

Brief discussion:

(5) Not sure what the motivation is; would like to hear more.

(9) (Filler) Sounds reasonable, but is this different to the current practice? Maybe it's not needed.

(10) 1900 has worked quite well over the years, and the last few years have seen some excellent championships. If things start to decline noticeably, by all means some shaking up might be in order, but let's not change something that is working well.

(11) Worthwhile objective; would like to hear what the long-term plans are. But hardwiring a requirement seems too constraining.

(12) I like the "direct encounter" approach myself, but shouldn't it be up to organisers in the first instance? E.g., Bunratty has had blitz playoffs, and that seems be enjoyed by all.

RooksPawn

The "filler" motion should not be contentious as it is just intended to regularise what has sometimes been the practice in the past.

Given that byes will be allowed if motion 7 passes, the motion would allow the organiser/arbiter to arrange that everyone gets a game - assuming somebody is available and willing to play a few rounds as filler. It needn't be the same person each time, I suppose. There would be an available pool of players from the field of the Weekday Open which is held in the morning.

zeitnot

A temporary "filler" to ensure an even number when some players take discretionary byes is fine. I had assumed this would be separate from the "wildcards" (which might be used to ensure an even number for normal rounds), but if there's any disagreement on that, it might be worth clarifying.

In general, though, for this and many other issues, I'd prefer specifying the bare minimum in an AGM motion, and leaving the rest to bye-laws. As you say, there should be no particular reason why it has to be the same player each time, but if that's the way the motion has been written, the organisers are stuck with it. Does each filler have to be IRL-registered? Entry fees and prizes are normally set by the organisers, but the motion sets constraints on them (as does motion 8).

To me, something much simpler and more flexible is called for. Personally I'd be happy with something that said "The ICU Executive Committee may establish a bye-law permitting a temporary filler whenever there is an uneven number of players in any round of the Irish Championship."

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121038400#Comment_121038400

Does the filler also have to withdraw when someone else does?

I never got this evening up thing as the number of players in the event is not a constant.

zeitnot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121039599#Comment_121039599

Usually, yes. For example, last year Sam Murray played in rounds 5, 6, and 8 only.

Shanemelaugh

Not Sure if it’s too late for motions but I’ve felt for a long time the time controls for the Irish Championship are outrageously long, longer than the time controls used for the World Cup, every time I play the main event feels like there’s no point in having clocks as time pressure can rarely be applied. I would propose lowering it to 90 mins + 30 sec increment then 30 mins after 40 moves aka the World Cup format.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121040850#Comment_121040850

Its too late for the AGM, Shane but you could raise it in the AOB section of the meeting at the end as a discussion point. I don't think that would trigger a change but you'd be able to start the discourse and try to convince some people. The Irish T&Cs don't require an AGM to change its terms but I think there would be some who would defend the traditional time control.

The time control I find most interesting to watch is the World Championship 0 increment first time control (used in the Grand Prix series from time to time too). However, those events have 1 arbiter for every 1-3 boards so they can afford some drama; I wouldn't be plucking for something which wouldn't require notation.

For the Irish, I would probably support 90 minutes + 30 second increment from move 1 + 30 minute after move 40 but I'm not sure it would carry the day at an AGM. I also haven't played the Irish in 17 years now, so would end up abstaning as it wouldn't impact me overly as an organiser.

zeitnot

The 2014 AGM passed a motion about the time control:

"The time limits for the Irish Championship be changed to 1hr 40 mins per player then a further 40 minutes to be added to each player at move 40 plus a 30 sec increment from the start."

(Note that this is not exactly what is now being implemented.)

A change would probably need an AGM motion.

RooksPawn

That was following a poll of players in the 2014 championship where the majority wanted more time than the 90 +30 with 30 sec increment which is pretty much standard for FIDE classical chess nowadays.

Time to go back to that maybe but it would require a motion to next year's agm and couldn't be implemented until 2025.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121041479#Comment_121041479

You'd think I'd remember that.. whoops.

Certainly sounds worthy of debate. From an organisational point of view - a default clock setting always preferred! And Ivan would like to finished 30-45 minutes earlier I'm sure.

RooksPawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042162#Comment_121042162

And maybe there wouldn't be so many late arrivals with the normal FIDE time limit

Joedryan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121040850#Comment_121040850

You've obviously never played a long endgame against Alex Lopez ;)

Needless to say I disagree.

OissíneM

Hello,

Does anyone have any info on which motions were passed? I wasn't able to attend the second half, but the key points for me from the first half were:

1) Because of the health of the ICU finances we should be looking to pay tournament organisers.

2) Due to the ICU's commitments with hosting the European School's Chess Championships in June the executive would be stretched too thin to put the required organisational effort into hosting the Glorney this year.

I think it would be great for Irish chess if organisers were paid something by the ICU- organising tournaments takes months of planning, and generally surplus money is put back into extra prizes. They deserve some type of renumeration.

Re Glorney: the executive made an appeal to anyone who would be interested in hosting the tournament to get in contact with them (by the end of October iirc). It would be a big pity if we didn't host it this year. Hopefully someone volunteers.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121243800#Comment_121243800

wasn't there so didn't hear about the above.

Motions 1-5, 7, 13, 14, 16 passed.

Motions 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 - no seconder.

11 was amended and passed - "shall aspire" rather than "shall".

15 returned to the exec for further consideration.