Irish Championship 2020

sodacat11 · 16-06-2020 10:10am #1

Will it go ahead or not? Whatever about the championship itself I think it would be a great shame and upset a lot of people if we didn't get to have our annual tipping competition!

sodacat11 · 17-06-2020 11:02am

A questionnaire went out yesterday from the ICU asking interested parties for their thoughts on the Irish Championship. This is a positive development showing that the will is there to hold the championship. I thought that all the safety guidelines were very sensible apart from the idea of each player having a separate board, I think that this would be unworkable in time trouble and also it creates too strange a situation compared to a "normal" game.

checknraise · 18-06-2020 11:52am

Rightly or wrongly I am not too concerned about the virus.

If there is significant risk with the number of people playing in at the same time what about round robin formats for the tournaments played in separate rooms?

It may not be financially viable for the main tournament but even a reduction in prize money should still get a healthy entry as everyone has nowhere to go!

sodacat11 · 18-06-2020 12:43pm

checknraise wrote: »

Rightly or wrongly I am not too concerned about the virus.

There is just no accounting for ignorance but hopefully you will have some consideration for the rest of us by not turning up if you have any symptoms and by wearing a mask and sanitizing if you do decide to grace us with your presence.

macelligott · 19-06-2020 9:30am

Get your entries in and put your money where your mouths are :-)
The sooner the organisers know how many entries they are likely to have, the sooner they can start planning.

sodacat11 · 19-06-2020 9:40am

macelligott wrote: »

Get your entries in and put your money where your mouths are :-)
The sooner the organisers know how many entries they are likely to have, the sooner they can start planning.

Probably not all the people who have already entered will play.

RooksPawn · 19-06-2020 10:27am

checknraise wrote:

Rightly or wrongly I am not too concerned about the virus.

sodacat11 wrote: »

There is just no accounting for ignorance but hopefully you will have some consideration for the rest of us by not turning up if you have any symptoms and by wearing a mask and sanitizing if you do decide to grace us with your presence.

Agreed, but what else can you expect from a poker player? They are incurable risk takers and it's people like that we have to fear if/when the pubs reopen, let alone chess tournaments.

RooksPawn · 23-06-2020 9:15pm

Has the rating floor for the Irish Championship been abolished now that the subsidiary events are cancelled?
A player rated 1250 has entered today.

cdeb · 23-06-2020 9:26pm

This has come up regularly before - entries seem to be taken automatically on the ICU site, and then manually moderated.

So it is possible to enter the wrong tournament, but it'll be caught shortly

macelligott · 27-06-2020 11:57am

So there are seven players over 2200 entered so far, including two 2300+.
Any one of those seven is capable of winning. Trisha Kanyamarala (2184) could also play an important part in the event.

sodacat11 · 27-06-2020 1:11pm

macelligott wrote: »

So there are seven players over 2200 entered so far, including two 2300+.
Any one of those seven is capable of winning. Trisha Kanyamarala (2184) could also play an important part in the event.

With Lopez and Murphy and Collins missing it looks wide open!

Anyone who hasn't entered yet should soon and anyone who has entered but isn't going to play should remove their names so that the organisers will know exact numbers and can plan seating and hygiene arrangements accordingly.

zeitnot · 27-06-2020 3:29pm

macelligott wrote: »

So there are seven players over 2200 entered so far, including two 2300+.
Any one of those seven is capable of winning. Trisha Kanyamarala (2184) could also play an important part in the event.

Including five 2300+ going by FIDE, and not one of them has ever won.

(The next two have won occasionally.)

sodacat11 · 27-06-2020 3:47pm

zeitnot wrote: »

Including five 2300+ going by FIDE, and not one of them has ever won.

(The next two have won occasionally.)

Stephen has about eight titles and Colm something like five, a bit more than "occasionally" I would have thought?

zeitnot · 27-06-2020 3:59pm

sodacat11 wrote: »

Stephen has about eight titles and Colm something like five, a bit more than "occasionally" I would have thought?

http://www.irlchess.com/players/irish-champions/

Joedryan · 28-06-2020 7:25am

Is there a two week self quarantine for any Irish players abroad flying in?

cdeb · 28-06-2020 8:12am

There's talk that will be lifted sometime in the next month from certain countries - so probably not by the time August comes round. But at the moment, it is still in place.

RooksPawn · 28-06-2020 10:43am

Joedryan wrote: »

Is there a two week self quarantine for any Irish players abroad flying in?

That will be announced on or by 9 July when the "green" list of countries with which Ireland will have an air bridge is announced. This is being decided on a EU-wide basis and will be reviewed every two weeks.
So Spain and Ireland might be open to each other.
In the worst cases, you could book a flight and then the next review would remove one country or the other if they had a new spike of cases.
So you could buy a ticket and then find you cannot travel if Spain gets a new wave, or you could be here for the tournament and then Ireland got a spike, maybe you would get stuck here.

It's extremely unlikely that GB will be on the green list in the near future.
If GB is red and the defending champion wants to play he would have to fly to Belfast and come down from there, which cannot be stopped but would be antisocial behaviour and in conscience he should quarantine for 14 days before the event.

My advice to any player not currently on the island of Ireland would be to forget about this year's Championship and any other Irish events in 2020.

At the ICU agm this year, there needs to be a motion amending or temporarily suspending the normal qualification rules on eligibility for selection which specify a requirement to play a number of recent tournaments in Ireland.

macelligott · 28-06-2020 11:14am

RooksPawn: “ At the ICU agm this year, there needs to be a motion amending or temporarily suspending the normal qualification rules on eligibility for selection which specify a requirement to play a number of recent tournaments in Ireland.”

The 2020 Olympiad teams have already been chosen - though it is now scheduled for 2021. So there is no issue to be solved in that respect.

sodacat11 · 29-06-2020 11:00pm

RooksPawn wrote: »

Has the rating floor for the Irish Championship been abolished now that the subsidiary events are cancelled?
A player rated 1250 has entered today.

The 1200 player was an error but apparently the rating floor has been changed now. It seems that entries will be accepted from anyone with an ICU rating of 1800 or a FIDE rating of 1700.

macelligott · 29-06-2020 11:30pm

"Competition Terms

1. The latest official ICU and FIDE rating lists shall apply prior to the close of entries.

2. Players rated above 1900 on either of the two lists above are permitted entry. All others must apply for wildcards to the event if they wish to play unless they won a qualifying event or are a past champion. See appendix 1 below.

Appendix 1: Invited players

Players in the Irish Chess Championship may have the rating requirement ignored provided they are nominated by:

a.The ICU Executive (maximum 2 players)

b.The tournament organisers (maximum 1 player)

The Irish Women’s Champion, Irish 50+ and 65+ Champions, and all previous IRL winners of this event are automatically nominated to play in the Irish Championship irrespective of rating.

https://www.icu.ie/articles/670

sodacat11 · 30-06-2020 10:03am

macelligott wrote: »

"Competition Terms

1. The latest official ICU and FIDE rating lists shall apply prior to the close of entries.

2. Players rated above 1900 on either of the two lists above are permitted entry. All others must apply for wildcards to the event if they wish to play unless they won a qualifying event or are a past champion. See appendix 1 below.

Appendix 1: Invited players

Players in the Irish Chess Championship may have the rating requirement ignored provided they are nominated by:

a.The ICU Executive (maximum 2 players)

b.The tournament organisers (maximum 1 player)

The Irish Women’s Champion, Irish 50+ and 65+ Champions, and all previous IRL winners of this event are automatically nominated to play in the Irish Championship irrespective of rating.

https://www.icu.ie/articles/670

I have no objection to past champions or senior champs but allowing the ICU or the organisers to nominate players smacks of nepotism and should not be entertained. Ratings should decide who plays.

cdeb · 30-06-2020 10:09am

I think item (b) makes a bit of sense if it means giving the organisers the flexibility to avoid a bye.

sodacat11 · 30-06-2020 10:12am

cdeb wrote: »

I think item (b) makes a bit of sense if it means giving the organisers the flexibility to avoid a bye.

Fair enough if the person they bring in is close to 1900 but I have seen cases where allowing non qualified players into tournaments has actually caused byes by making an uneven number.

Retd.LoyolaCpt · 30-06-2020 4:52pm

sodacat11 wrote: »

I have no objection to past champions or senior champs but allowing the ICU or the organisers to nominate players smacks of nepotism and should not be entertained. Ratings should decide who plays.

I generally use the tournament organiser's pick to even up numbers if needed. I don't think I've used it that often otherwise but I honestly don't recall. If I was to use it (or when I do), I think I tend to look favourably on players who were 1900+ in that year. The Irish tends to have entries up to 9 months in advance so players can go above and below a few times in that time. (At a normal weekender, I'd just move players to the appropriate section when I scan entries but as we only have one upper tiered section, I'd be refunding entries as opposed to simply moving them.)

I think it works well under the understanding that if you've been over 1900 in the calendar year, you're likely to get a wildcard - but as that's not in writing it probably could be nailed down to "1 player, who does not meet rating criteria, may be permitted entry to even up entries" and "Players rated above 1900 on either of the two lists above during the calendar year of the event are permitted entry."

sodacat11 · 30-06-2020 5:14pm

Retd.LoyolaCpt wrote: »

I think it works well under the understanding that if you've been over 1900 in the calendar year, you're likely to get a wildcard - but as that's not in writing it probably could be nailed down to "1 player, who does not meet rating criteria, may be permitted entry to even up entries" and "Players rated above 1900 on either of the two lists above during the calendar year of the event are permitted entry."

That is fair enough. Any system that stipulates in advance what the rating requirements are and sticks to them is fine by me. Ratings might not be 100% accurate (I'd be 2300 if they were) but at least the system is fair and transparent, leaving individual entries up to the discretion of any committee is not.

macelligott · 30-06-2020 6:48pm

The 1900+ entry requirement should written clearly on the entry page. At the moment that information is in a link. Because there is a listed entry fee for <1900, it is natural that players below 1900 will think they can enter.

macelligott · 30-06-2020 7:33pm

Note. The ratings displayed on the entry list are ICU ratings. FIDE ratings, which will be used for pairing purposes, will be different.

Joedryan · 01-07-2020 1:43am

RooksPawn wrote: »

At the ICU agm this year, there needs to be a motion amending or temporarily suspending the normal qualification rules on eligibility for selection which specify a requirement to play a number of recent tournaments in Ireland.

Excellent idea.

RooksPawn · 03-07-2020 5:34pm

I still think there should be a motion. What cdeb said about the Olympiad team is true, but there could be withdrawals, and anyway that's not the only event potentially affected.

The rules for eligibility for the national club championship might need relaxing for a year or two also.

Joedryan · 03-07-2020 7:51pm

RooksPawn wrote: »

I still think there should be a motion. What cdeb said about the Olympiad team is true, but there could be withdrawals, and anyway that's not the only event potentially affected.

The rules for eligibility for the national club championship might need relaxing for a year or two also.

What did cdeb say? The point is the eligibility rules take into account the last two years before an event, so obviously they will need to be adapted to the current circumstances

cdeb · 03-07-2020 8:04pm

I think he means macelligott, not me

Irish Championship 2020

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