ICU AGM 2024

zeitnot

The preliminary agenda for the AGM has been posted. There are 17 motions! And there is even a note that the ICU executive may submit more motions by September 7.

Given the long agenda, there will not be much time during the meeting for discussion, and some of these motions have non-obvious motivations. Perhaps we could discuss them here?

I'll start.

Motion 8 calls for changing the rating floor for the Irish Championship from 1900 to 1950. I am puzzled by this, and without more information am inclined to vote against it.

My best guess is that it's motivated by the recent FIDE and ICU rating adjustments. Old FIDE 1900 became new FIDE 1940, so rounding off gives 1950. Is this it?

The problem for me is that the point of the FIDE rating adjustment was to address deflation. I.e., a player continues to play at the same strength, but his rating drifts steadily down. If we believe the FIDE adjustment got it right (a complicated topic in itself, but let's assume it for this motion), then old (i.e., 2023) 1940 was the same as new (i.e., 2024, post-adjustment) 1900, which in turn is (roughly) the same as very old (i.e., 2010 or so) 1900.

If that's the case, then the right threshold to keep consistency with past practice is to keep it at 1900. What am I missing?

zeitnot

… where has the edit button gone? Of course I meant that old (i.e., 2023) 1900 has become new (i.e., 2024, post-adjustment) 1940, which in turn is (roughly) the same as very old (i.e., 2010 or so) 1940.

In other words, deflation of player ratings had caused the threshold to enter to creep up gradually relative to actual player strength. The threshold of 1900 for the 2023 championship corresponded to roughly 1940 for the 2010 championship.

I don't follow why an adjustment is needed. Leaving it as is seems to fit the logic of the FIDE rating adjustment better, apart from the fact that it worked just fine this year.

macelligott

thanks Zeitnot for starting this thread.

I must check which players would not have been able to play the Irish Championship this year had the 1950 rule been applied.

And then try to work out the rationale for barring these players.

There was an excellent entry this year (number wise).

Next year the venue is Ennis and one would expect a smaller entry. This would mean less entry fees. And the entry fees from lower rated players help keep the prizes high?

A 1900 to 1950 change would make the event more expensive to run!

sodacat11

I fully agree with Zeitnot. I don't understand why the rating floor motion is even being proposed when we have just had our biggest entry ever for a 1900+ Irish Championship. I would also point out that next year's entry will be down enough because it is in Ennis without introducing measures that would limit entries further.

I can't help but wonder if the proposer's own rating was 1949 or lower if he would be proposing such a motion?

I am in favour of the motion reducing the time control, the 105 minute thing was only introduced because of Covid.

zeitnot

Motion 7: "To be eligible to claim the Irish Championship title or the Irish Women's Championship Title, the person in question must qualify under items i or ii of the Eligibility Criteria for Adult Events."

I don't understand the motivation for this one either. Regardless of the motivation, I'm inclined to vote against it.

To me, to be Irish champion, you should have to win an Irish Championship. The motion seems to imply that even though it's a closed championship, with all players IRL-registered with FIDE, some players will still not be eligible for the title. We would be back to the Open era, even though it's a closed championship. This is a bit messy and unsatisfactory, to me anyway.

Is the concern that there might be a conflict between the rule giving the Irish champion an automatic Olympiad place and the eligibility rules that would otherwise apply? If so, it seems to me it would be simpler either (1) to make the Irish champion exempt from the other eligibility requirements, or (2) to condition the Olympiad place on being otherwise eligible.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

hi folks,

I don’t have particularly strong feelings about many of my motions - but I’ll explain some of the logic for them.

The easiest one to explain is the 1950 one - this is the one I have least feelings toward but I will argue against some of the points made here. As the event organiser, I get asked why our floor is what it is each year so I think, every so often, there is no harm in seeing it debated in an AGM. If it’s defeated, as organiser, I can point to a recent verdict ratifying the historical floor.

What I would argue against here is 2 notions: that I would make this motion if I was 1949 - I don’t know my rating and haven’t played the Irish since 2006. And 2, it’s better for the ICU coffers - the Irish generally costs about 2-5k - the fact we had a bumper main Irish this year didn’t help the balance as those extra entries would generally have played some of the supporting events and so it more or less offsets.

Playing devils advocate - arguing that a large entry is a reason to keep the current floor, would equally be an argument to make the event an Open.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

correct on the motivation - there is currently a loophole of sorts in the rules whereby someone could qualify to play the Irish championship, but wouldn’t be eligible for the automatic spot if they had a transfer processed by within one year of arriving in Ireland.

The solution could be as you’ve outlined or this one - either or; I’d just prefer it specifically ruled on in an AGM so that it isn’t made off the cuff at some later point.

Or the ICU could have a policy on residency before transfers are allowed - that would require additional admin though which we try to avoid.

zeitnot

Thanks, Retd.LoyolaCpt.

Re motion 7, the loophole (or inconsistency) in the rules should be addressed, but I still argue that this motion is the wrong way to do it.

Re motion 8, I gave one justification for leaving the threshold at 1900 earlier, but another one is that round numbers for rating thresholds are better, other things being equal. Ratings are quite noisy in practice (and even, I argue, in theory), and on general principle I'd prefer thresholds of the form xx00 to xx50. Here there is the extra motivation that 1900 is the original rating bar for Irish championships, and players have gotten used to it.

Retd.LoyolaCpt

I’m fine with motion 7 getting amended on the day as long as that issue is addressed as I don’t want to be put on the spot during an Irish if the front runner is a recent IRL-transferee but not eligible for next Olympiad.

I don’t want to make too many points for one side or the other on the other motion as I don’t have skin in the game - I just think debates like this (there has been commentary here before and it gets raised to me in emails) should be put to bed officially every so often. I think it’s totally valid to keep it at the historical floor (1900) if that’s what the majority want. The recent rating changes from both FIDE and the ICU have meant we’ve amended rating tiers for many (probably most) other events so it makes sense for that debate to happen at this AGM. I suspect the pool of eligible active players who would qualify for the Irish has risen rose from 125ish to over 250 with those changes (103 ICU qualified in 2023, 230 in 2024). For reference- 140 players are currently rated above 1950, with 90 over 2000.

sodacat11

I agree that it is better to have the Irish Championship requirement an 00 number rather than 50. Also I think that the tradition of our premier tournament should be respected i.e 1900.

As an aside I must say that I am disgusted that an Irish chess team which supposedly represents its members should have played a game against Israel yesterday.

RooksPawn

The team was quite justified in playing Israel in my opinion. Ireland is not Iran.

On another matter, why is Elizabeth Shaughnessy nominated to receive ICU honorary membership? She changed her FIDE affiliation to USA.

sodacat11

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122617416#Comment_122617416

Ive seen some stupid comments over the years but yours takes the biscuit. It is the likes of you who are facilitating the murder of thousands of civilians by a tyrant who is completely intent on wiping Palestinians off the face of the Earth and then stealing their land. I wonder how you would have felt if the Brits had invaded us after the Birmingham bombings, destroyed our hospitals , schools and universities, dug up our roads and destroyed all our infrastructure, imprisoned and tortured us without trial, banned foreign journalists from covering the atrocities etc etc?

Irish_chess_fan

Hello everyone, I'm new here. Can we please discuss the great performance of the Irish team at the Olympics? We are currently in the top 100. Is there a thread about the Olympics? Thank you.

Looking forward to playing in Cork. I have heard many great stories about that tournament in the past.

Irish_chess_fan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122617416#Comment_122617416

In fairness she did a lot for Irish chess

RooksPawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622776#Comment_122622776

If you want a discussion about the Irish team at the olympiad you need to start a new thread, preferably by saying something provocative. Being in the top 100 is nothing to be proud of, but we aim to finish higher than initial seeding of 64th. Currently 41st before today's match…

zeitnot

Motion 9 proposes changing the time control for the Irish championship to 90 minutes for the first 40 moves + 30 minutes for the rest of the game + 30 second increment from move 1. (Currently it's the same except that it's 105 minutes instead of 90.)

It seems from general commentary that players (both older and younger) are finding the current time control too long. Seems reasonable; I would vote for this if I attended the AGM, but this year I have a clash.

Some background: Motion 27 from the 2014 AGM was "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" (Proposed by Peter Cafolla). This passed by majority and has never been amended, so in theory is the one the ICU is required to use. However, it hasn't been used in a long time and nobody has noticed.

RooksPawn

So what happened at the agm? Were all the motions passed?

Was anything interesting or controversial said? Any good rows?

L1m1tless

Currently there's 12 chess players in custody and 2 in hospital.

zeitnot

Thanks, L1m1tless! Very informative.

The ICU constitution page, www.icu.ie/documents/41, shows changes based on motions 4 and 10-14.