Irish Championship 2022

Yes there is simply no excuse or justification for this choice and executive decison. None! 9 days of events that could have seen the player participate in many events. Allowing her (or inviting as I suspect) was wrong and bonkers. As bad is the way ot was done and the players were presented with a fait accomplii only at the very last moments before the event started. Nothing to do with the young woman herself. It is the gate keepers who are at fault and this should not happen again, we got lucky in that it was not any huge effect on proceedings, but if it had bean a 2700 GM , well.....Point is it should not matter who, Only that they be IRL

We do know as a fact that a player was allowed to play in an event that strictly forbids this player and somebody gave this the ok. As to who and the mechanism yes we don't know yet and maybe never will. Ur right that it should be made known what are the facts, so as to avoid further speculation. For me it is clear this was wrong and no "excuse" would change the fact of it being wrong. Just be useful to know and understand it was allowed to happen.

Surely you don’t mean the team that lost 4-0 to Poland the last time B Kelly played for Ireland in round 1 of the Dresden Olympiad?

Actually yes he should be Bd 1, but not for the reasons (spurious and wrong in respect of overall perfromance- delcining faster every Olympiad in recent years it seems).

The reason why he should be Bd1 in my view is as follows:. Bd1 player can only play on one board ever for the duration of the event.. He is the most experienced by far and at his best can play against strongest players with more competency than any Irish player when playing well. Draws with Karajakin and MVL in 2018 and 2016 for example, but has to be considered alongside lack lustre results too.

The key issue is that he should be used for the team selectively and in a clever way. Rested far more than any other player unless there is a player performing espeicaly badly. I would have him play no more than 7-8, max nine games to give the other players more chances to grown in what willbe the first Olympiad for 3 of the 5 man team.

The risk of players not doing well at their first Olympiad is very real. The three upcoming players should be played and helped in a particular way (sadly the current team cap is clueless and not suited to any such role, which is fine as it is just a social event about networking and politics. He can't be blamed for being "selected" for no good reasons ahead of far more capable people better suited to the role) with a view to gettting the best out of them and encourage them to be focused and determined to bring their best game and enjoy themselves.

The place of position 5 in the team is easy and obviously M Heidenfeld who wom his place on the team with his excellent Irish ch win last year. Anybody who wins an Irish is fully deserving of a place on the Olynpiad team, likewise Tom O Gorman deserved his automatic place on the teamd despite actually improving and earning a place by rating anyway since his Irish ch win.

It is a toss up between Tom and Connor Murphy as to who should be in position 4 and 3. Tom is the highest rated of the whole team and just came Jt third in another very strong Irish ch and has been having good results in recent months (year). I would give him the nod for place 3 and have Conor on place 4 just because his excellent purple patch has passed and his recent results have been much less impressive and inconsistent within the last year and a half or thereabouts. Still a great prospect, but we have little to see of recent months by way of the sort of form that otherwise would see him ahead of Tom or and even Tarun. Given that Tom played in the Irish and was competting to win it going into the last few eounds I think he deserves the nod as the likely results/performance of Conor or Tom are hard to be sure of either way.

Tarun having just won the Irish ch with a great score and clearly on form he is an excellent position 2 player who can be played in place of Alex in all sort of clever ways. If he gets off to a good dtart and doing well then play him as much as possible and when need be or clever, have him on Bd1. Always should depend on how players are doing to decide the team list for each round and Tarun could be a flexible option for Bd1 and Bd2 alternating and depening on variuous considerations like norm posiblities too.

Sadly interest in this Olympiad is boubnd to eb consiserably less for all sorts of reasons and the notion suggets that this team is the strongest is just absurd. Far from it. Any Irish team at the moment that does not have Sam Collins and Alex Lopez playing for Ireland can't be the strongest. They are still clearly our two strongest players so if we consider that two places were gone for the Olympiad (correctly) in the persons of Tom and Mark with just three places left, had A Lopez and S Collins been playing then the choice would have been between Alex Baburin anbd Conor Murphy and in that case it would surely have gone (at the time of selection) to Conor so the team would have been. S Collins,A Lopez,Tom O, Conor Murphy and Mark Heidenfeld. No less strong than what we have.

Tarun has now secured his place on the next Olympiad with the 2022 Irish ch win. As winning the Irish ch is so hard to do that even in advance of an Olympiad a player of a certain calibre will be good enough to be on an Olympiad and the form aspect is only about determining the position of the team in any give year along with other considerations.

Ironically the rotten and to say the least supect choices made of the so called selection committe and process have been of course overlooked in the lull of Covid chess world since 2020. In particular the choice of Tarun over David Fitzsimons was among the most foul I can recall in a while. Same as he was not selected in 2014 arguably.

Based on the facts and reasons given for the selections made earlier this year. In the case of the last choice between Tarun and David I don't trust or agree wiuth the so called selctions made at that time in many areas, and I would never, for example, apply for any position for an Olympiad with this crowd in. They have made awful choices and shown so much incompetence and weird petty personal bias which they are supposed to rise above. However on account of the fact that hardly anybody cares anymore about such things and we have so many good players it hardly matters who goes and is "selected" while the other non playing positions too are just a junket for buddies and networking.

Simply not a big deal and of no import really. Only worth mentioning when people ignorantly try not merely getting their own way,but then also try ram it down peoples throat that it was done correctly or well, when it is cealr that is often, orat least sometimes not ther case at all. I mean I don't want to be so critical of any individual and apologize in adavce for that, but the idea that the same team captain would be given the position again is rather silly. If only because there were simply better candidates who applied. I hasten to add I did not apply for any position myself for the 2022 Olympiad in India, and just as it happens you could niot pay me to go to that Olymiad in any capacity. That is just a personal perspective and I admire and respect all, including the current team captains going to this Olympiad. Wish them the very best along with the layers and hope it goes well for all.

Anyway back to the specifics of the 2022 selections. Sure if we were selecting a team today Tarun would be given the place with little or no arguments. Instead the awful choice to shaft David stinks as usual with politics, personality issues and petty spite to my mind. Open to correction of course.

Again, this is to judge by the choice made which was reported on the ICU website at the time. They openly admit that David had the higher rating average for selection purposes, but they decided to overrule this fact and instead give the place to Tarun (the lowerrated) because in their words

"After careful consideration, Tarun Kanyamarala (2319) was selected ahead of David Fitzsimons (2342), mainly due to the former's recent excellent results"

The dishonest part is that you can't have it every way. At the time Taurn had great results it is true, but he also had huge reversals, bad results, whereas with David there was little change one way or the other. Considering the sheer activity of Tarun and astounding number of games he has played in recent years and during even covid times, the approach would surely be that like a gambling wheel, at whatever poiint they stop and select this will mean either great gains or great losses potentially. In other words at the time they selcted Tarun he was on the lower side and

So why did they select the lower rated player? I have my suspicions and think they stink but in the overall schem of things nobody really cares and another player gets shafted by petty minded selection committte personality politics and preferences. To be fair they do also do a lot of work and put in time to serve chess also.So don't to overlook the posotives either.

I don't trust this committe or the last one as a whole myself but it could be much worse and the bad choices made are not of such signifigance other than to those affected. In other words, David losing his Olympiad place as one example, is the price to be paid by him alone.

On balance either one of them are great additions to the team, the issue is that once again non objective and bias motives or reasons crept in and rendered some of the choices made sour and wrong.

Again bearing in mind when the selection was made and the circumstances that pertained.

By their own admission David was ahead at the time, which is oronic because then Tarun race aaheead and then fell back again. The swings that seen him lose or gain plus 50 plus 89 or minus 50 or minus 95 given here, all only confirm that at the time they made their choiuce they only considered the positives for Tarun at the expense of David who at the time the selction was made was ahead and he had played so many less games compared with Tarun. If they were the same rating its agruable either way, but he was behind David and it was more correct to give David the nod. They didn't and I could have predicted they wouldn't for reasons that have nothing to do with good selections being made in good faith. Thst my view and nope cant prove it beyond the arguments and evidence I have offered here.

If by chance David had played in the Irish ch and done well or won it? Or Tarun had done badly we would have had still relative silence I suspect. The point is that regardless of how deserving and brilliant Taruns Irish ch win is, he should not (curiously enough) have been selected ahead of David on a point or issue of fairness and correct process.

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