Chess IV's and The 2013 Irish Chess Championships

reunion · 20-02-2013 3:29pm #1

They are to be hosted in the University of Limerick.

The intervarsity will be on March the 9th; details can be found here: http://ulchess.com/?page_id=727

The Irish Chess Championships will be on the 6th to the 14th of July; details can be found here: http://ulchess.com/?page_id=734

You can also check out http://icu.ie/ for more information.

Contact ulchessclub@gmail.com for more information about either event.

Since there wasn't any discussion in this forum about either topic, I said I would post it here!

reunion · 07-06-2013 9:34am

The college IV's are over - congradulations to UCC for winning it.

But I would like to remind people about the Irish Chess Championships on in July! Deadline to pay (before the €10 late fee kicks in) is Tomorrow!

LiamMc · 07-06-2013 10:43am

The 5-day am and pm tournaments look interesting.

EnPassant · 07-06-2013 11:06pm

LiamMc wrote: »

The 5-day am and pm tournaments look interesting.

I think that the Irish Championship in Galway in 1978 had a tournament in the evenings that you could play in as well as playing in the championship itself.

I've just entered for the main tournament but not the AM event. My plan would be to use the mornings to prepare for my next game.

reunion · 08-06-2013 7:12pm

EnPassant wrote: »

I think that the Irish Championship in Galway in 1978 had a tournament in the evenings that you could play in as well as playing in the championship itself.

I've just entered for the main tournament but not the AM event. My plan would be to use the mornings to prepare for my next game.

The Irish Championships are taking a similar format to the British Chess Championships. Not all players will take the opportunity to play the AM and the main event; however some players may wish to try out openings against opponents and prepare the night before.

Sparks · 13-06-2013 12:46am

From the ICU website:

Any player rated above 2240 entered to play in the Irish Championships (in the June FIDE rating list) are being offered a €100 cash incentive to play in the centenary Irish Championships taking place in Limerick from July 6th - 14th.

Additionally to mark the centenary; all previous winners of the Irish Championships are invited to play in the event free of charge (please email ulchessclub@gmail.com to enter).

The deadline to register for the Irish Championships is the 28th of June. The late fee deadline has been extended until the 28th of June.

After this date a late fee will be applied to the AM/PM and Weekender tournaments and you will not be allowed to register to play in the Irish Championships.

Free entry for those over 2100 or winners of previous years, paid to enter for those over 2240 and a €3k prize fund. But only 16 entries so far? Is there that little interest (or ability to take a week off work to play) in the championships? (16 out of a possible 156 people seems... small somehow).

And there seems to be a bit of contention over who can enter as well.

Ciaran · 13-06-2013 11:19am

Sparks wrote: »

Free entry for those over 2100 or winners of previous years, paid to enter for those over 2240 and a €3k prize fund. But only 16 entries so far? Is there that little interest (or ability to take a week off work to play) in the championships? (16 out of a possible 156 people seems... small somehow).

There's another two weeks before the entry deadline, I'd expect the usual last-minute rush we get for most events in Irish chess. Only 16 played last year so there should be an increase on that at least.

Free entry for over-2100s seems excessive to me. If the competition can be run without needing entry fees from that many players (half of last year's field), maybe too much ICU money is being spent on it. I can't find the entry fees for last year (the site seems to have disappeared) but I think only titled players got free entry. Presumably UL is a cheaper (and probably nicer) venue than the Red Cow so they can get away with charging less but I'd be happier if the savings went to the ICU than players.

And there seems to be a bit of contention over who can enter as well.

That's what was voted on at the last AGM, it's a bit late to complain about it now. I have sympathy for players who have been playing in Ireland for years but it was a bit silly a few years back when the Irish champion was the fifth place finisher or something because they were the top Irish player.

reunion · 13-06-2013 12:38pm

Ciaran wrote: »

There's another two weeks before the entry deadline, I'd expect the usual last-minute rush we get for most events in Irish chess. Only 16 played last year so there should be an increase on that at least.

Free entry for over-2100s seems excessive to me. If the competition can be run without needing entry fees from that many players (half of last year's field), maybe too much ICU money is being spent on it. I can't find the entry fees for last year (the site seems to have disappeared) but I think only titled players got free entry. Presumably UL is a cheaper (and probably nicer) venue than the Red Cow so they can get away with charging less but I'd be happier if the savings went to the ICU than players.

There was 16 last year with some foreign players. The number of Irish only entries was less. The UL venue (hopefully) should be at least on par.

Ciaran wrote: »

That's what was voted on at the last AGM, it's a bit late to complain about it now. I have sympathy for players who have been playing in Ireland for years but it was a bit silly a few years back when the Irish champion was the fifth place finisher or something because they were the top Irish player.

I think the motion was a little short sighted. I think a clause allowing discretion or approval by the ICU would have made sense.

I'd be of the view that I'd rather the ICU used it's budget to get people norms at the Irish chess championship and used it as a method for our younger players to play harder players and improve.

Sparks · 13-06-2013 1:42pm

It does seem odd that paperwork isn't holding back one player but is holding back another; personally, I'd think that the better option would be to use the kind of eligibility criteria that the Olympic sports tend to use, which is that you can compete for the Irish championships if you are eligible to hold an Irish passport. That way we keep the "Irishness" (for whatever it's worth) but offload the controversy of what defines "being Irish" onto the Government. Keeps it all nice and neat - especially because you only have to be eligible, you don't have to actually get the passport, which includes all the athletes in Northern Ireland without stepping on anyones toes, and sidesteps any delays in the passport office or similar paperwork issues.

brilliantboy · 20-06-2013 3:20pm

It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.
I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.

Also given that the event takes place on the weekend of the 5th-7th, and it's not realistic to expect many people to give up two consecutive weekends to travel to Limerick and play chess,
(Nick Scallan had as much to say in the comments on the event page: http://ulchess.com/?page_id=760 )
I'm afraid many of our woman players might find it a more attractive proposition to play in the weekender or am/pm tournaments where there are better prizes on offer, stronger opposition to play, and the social buzz around the UL campus may be greater (I believe there's also an comic-book/anime convention on in UL that weekend)

If the aim is to get away from the usual routine of having womens prizes in the main event and giving the title to the highest placed, then I don't think the championship is being given a fair chance in it's infancy.
One of the ideas behind having women only events in the first place is to increase participation, but I fear we might be hampering it in this case.
Of course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot

Sparks · 20-06-2013 4:20pm

brilliantboy wrote: »

It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.

But expected, surely? FIDE lists 157 active players over the required entry rating on the IRL list, and there are a total of 17 entrants so far, despite a few thousand in the prize fund and anyone over 2240 getting an appearance fee and it being an anniversary year and all that. So the entry percentages are low (11% or so) to start with.

Then factor in the point that the same FIDE list for women only shows four active players; so it's fair to say that Irish chess at the competitive level is a bit of a sausagefest.

Add those two factors together, and throw in the point that entry means either being unemployed or being able to take a week off work in an economic recession; and it's probably a fairly safe bet that few women are going to show up for the championships (and if they don't show up for the championships, they're probably not going to enter the women's championships). You might yet get some local juniors or lower-ranked players I suppose, but it doesn't seem like a great strategy to get the competitive-level female players on the list to show up.

I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.

Most of the research into motivation would suggest that the actual amount itself isn't relevant - it's the comparison between the "Championships" and the "Women's Championships" that would count - and it's not a great comparison. Far less prize money, no rating requirement or declaration requirement, and you can enter the main championships anyway so the "Womens Championships" doesn't really seem to be terribly valuable by comparison. And if you're hoping to get people to enter it because it's on at the same time as the championships, then you really need for people to be more motivated to go to the championships in the first place.

But then, the main championships itself is set up daftly - the more I look at its entry requirements and the debate around them, the less sense it makes to me. Apparently we're trying to "preserve the integrity" (or "preserve the Irishness" if we're honest) of the championships by only allowing FIDE-registered IRL players to play, but when you look at the highest-rated player on the FIDE IRL list (who's Russian), it rather makes a mockery of the implementation of that idea, even if the idea itself had any merit at all, which bluntly I don't think it does - it's just stupid. I mean, there's a bloody good reason why Irish nationality law is lax by design -- when Irish people get to arguing about what it means to be Irish and who's Irish and who's not, things go pear-shaped and ugly in a great big hurry.

Personally, I'd say screw that nonsense and allow anyone to enter the championships (rating, nationality, declaration, all be damned). Grade the event so you don't wind up with GMs playing 800s (which isn't fair to either side) sure, but focus on making it the biggest event of the year, make it a celebration of the sport in Ireland, don't try to keep out "foreign" GMs but beg them to attend, pay them to attend, and cash in off the publicity on the back end.
And yes, give the national champion title to a national player, but don't be too restrictive there either - say "national player" means anyone who's eligible to be an Irish Citizen (and use the legal definition of that term so that the law takes the rap if there's a disagreement). And no, I don't mean "is an" I mean "is eligible to be an". The difference between the two in law is minuscule by design, and this way you have the more inclusive match and the title means more.

There's a time to restrict who can claim to be an Irish chess player, and it's when that player is representing Ireland abroad; at that point the whole thing about the IRL declaration to FIDE makes sense because it'd confuse things otherwise; but this is a competition within Ireland, so it doesn't make sense, it just wastes a bloody good opportunity to promote Irish Chess.

Of course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot

That's living in hope for you

mikhail · 20-06-2013 5:25pm

Sparks wrote: »

But then, the main championships itself is set up daftly - the more I look at its entry requirements and the debate around them, the less sense it makes to me. Apparently we're trying to "preserve the integrity" (or "preserve the Irishness" if we're honest) of the championships by only allowing FIDE-registered IRL players to play, but when you look at the highest-rated player on the FIDE IRL list (who's Russian), it rather makes a mockery of the implementation of that idea, even if the idea itself had any merit at all, which bluntly I don't think it does - it's just stupid.

He might be Russian-born, but he's lived here for decades and represented Ireland any number of times. He's not exactly the ludicrously non-Irish figure your point seems to indicate.

Personally, I prefer an open championships (that is, no nationality restrictions), but it's a contentious issue. It's been done before - off the top of my head both 2007 and 2008 were open - and it isn't a panacea.

brilliantboy · 20-06-2013 5:37pm

Sparks wrote: »

But expected, surely? FIDE lists 157 active players over the required entry rating on the IRL list, and there are a total of 17 entrants so far, despite a few thousand in the prize fund and anyone over 2240 getting an appearance fee and it being an anniversary year and all that. So the entry percentages are low (11% or so) to start with.

Then factor in the point that the same FIDE list for women only shows four active players; so it's fair to say that Irish chess at the competitive level is a bit of a sausagefest.

Add those two factors together, and throw in the point that entry means either being unemployed or being able to take a week off work in an economic recession; and it's probably a fairly safe bet that few women are going to show up for the championships (and if they don't show up for the championships, they're probably not going to enter the women's championships). You might yet get some local juniors or lower-ranked players I suppose, but it doesn't seem like a great strategy to get the competitive-level female players on the list to show up.

Most of the research into motivation would suggest that the actual amount itself isn't relevant - it's the comparison between the "Championships" and the "Women's Championships" that would count - and it's not a great comparison. Far less prize money, no rating requirement or declaration requirement, and you can enter the main championships anyway so the "Womens Championships" doesn't really seem to be terribly valuable by comparison. And if you're hoping to get people to enter it because it's on at the same time as the championships, then you really need for people to be more motivated to go to the championships in the first place.

http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/irishwomenschampionship2012/
Last years championship in Kilkenny had 12 players, and I'm sure it was hoped they could at least assemble a similar field for this years event.
It's interesting to note that even last year a few players decided to enter the Congress instead.

Sparks wrote: »

But then, the main championships itself is set up daftly - the more I look at its entry requirements and the debate around them, the less sense it makes to me. Apparently we're trying to "preserve the integrity" (or "preserve the Irishness" if we're honest) of the championships by only allowing FIDE-registered IRL players to play, but when you look at the highest-rated player on the FIDE IRL list (who's Russian), it rather makes a mockery of the implementation of that idea, even if the idea itself had any merit at all, which bluntly I don't think it does - it's just stupid. I mean, there's a bloody good reason why Irish nationality law is lax by design -- when Irish people get to arguing about what it means to be Irish and who's Irish and who's not, things go pear-shaped and ugly in a great big hurry.

Personally, I'd say screw that nonsense and allow anyone to enter the championships (rating, nationality, declaration, all be damned). Grade the event so you don't wind up with GMs playing 800s (which isn't fair to either side) sure, but focus on making it the biggest event of the year, make it a celebration of the sport in Ireland, don't try to keep out "foreign" GMs but beg them to attend, pay them to attend, and cash in off the publicity on the back end.
And yes, give the national champion title to a national player, but don't be too restrictive there either - say "national player" means anyone who's eligible to be an Irish Citizen (and use the legal definition of that term so that the law takes the rap if there's a disagreement). And no, I don't mean "is an" I mean "is eligible to be an". The difference between the two in law is minuscule by design, and this way you have the more inclusive match and the title means more.

There's a time to restrict who can claim to be an Irish chess player, and it's when that player is representing Ireland abroad; at that point the whole thing about the IRL declaration to FIDE makes sense because it'd confuse things otherwise; but this is a competition within Ireland, so it doesn't make sense, it just wastes a bloody good opportunity to promote Irish Chess.

One of the biggest problems with a more open championship is that you could get a situation where the Irish champion finishes near the bottom of the field yet still becomes Irish Champion, and if you're pumping up the prize fund and offering incentives to foreign players, it's not at all inconceivable that it could happen. So in a situation where you should be crowning a champion, you're just crowning also-rans.

That being said, it's a bit of a ridiculous situation when players who live in the state, work in the state, pay taxes to the state, and always do their utmost to support Irish chess, are not allowed to play in what should be a celebration of Irish chess (not Irishness), while some of the stronger Irish players simply can't be arsed to play despite a healthy prize fund and generous conditions.

Sparks · 20-06-2013 5:50pm

mikhail wrote: »

He might be Russian-born, but he's lived here for decades and represented Ireland any number of times. He's not exactly the ludicrously non-Irish figure your point seems to indicate.

I'm not suggesting he should be excluded or thought of as less Irish, I'm suggesting the direct opposite, I'm arguing we should be far more inclusive -- I'm just pointing out that he's a darn good example of why the whole idea of trying to "preserve the integrity of the Irish Championships" is utterly daft and ignores the reality of the situation.

Google the current Irish Championships and read the links from the first page of results and you'll find two seperate arguments about the inclusion or exclusion of players based on their absence from the FIDE IRL list. The fact that those arguments are what come up and not links from the Irish Times covering the upcoming Irish Chess Extravaganza! is the real problem, not what rule we use to exclude people from the championships.

Personally, I prefer an open championships (that is, no nationality restrictions), but it's a contentious issue. It's been done before - off the top of my head both 2007 and 2008 were open - and it isn't a panacea.

No such thing as perfect ways to do things in life, but that doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do things

I mean, some of the comments I've read online from people who really should know better are just horribly myopic, like celebrating the loss of significant commercial sponsorship from the championships. You'd get the feeling that things had been a bit too insular for a bit too long when people are cheering the loss of money and interest in a match instead of remembering that the bigger and more inclusive the match, the more it gets noticed, the more the title is remembered, and the more the sport can be developed.

Consider this; if you had a really large chess tournament, with hundreds of players from all levels, in Dublin (sorry lads, but it's the Minister for Sport's constituency and the major population center - a few years ago, you'd have used Killarney or Valentia for this), and several famous (to non-chess players) GMs in attendance and the Irish Champion was to be decided on at that tournament, then getting the Championship award handed over by the Minister for Sport and getting that on the news and in the papers would be a fairly easy thing to arrange because it's a pretty nice PR gig; and when that's happening, it's a lot easier to go to the ISC and ask for official recognition as a sport because if they refuse, that's another easy story to get on the news and in the papers (ISC snubs Minister for Sport is a nice headline...).

Sparks · 20-06-2013 6:01pm

brilliantboy wrote: »

One of the biggest problems with a more open championship is that you could get a situation where the Irish champion finishes near the bottom of the field yet still becomes Irish Champion, and if you're pumping up the prize fund and offering incentives to foreign players, it's not at all inconceivable that it could happen. So in a situation where you should be crowning a champion, you're just crowning also-rans.

And?

Seriously, look at the FIDE lists. The Irish Champion, even in a highly restrictive Championships, is still an also-ran because they're going to be hundreds of points below the world championships level. Our highest rated player is rated 2520 -- and don't get me wrong, that's damn impressive -- but it doesn't get him into the top six hundred players internationally. It only barely gets him into the top five hundred in Europe.

I think people would have to be in serious denial to worry about the Irish Champion looking less impressive for not winning an Open Championships!

However -- if you just accepted that that's the current situation, threw out the worry and went down the road of making it a huge celebration of chess; wouldn't that draw in more people, get more people playing, help get more funding, help set up more clubs, and help drive up the standard of chess as we get more coaching and more tournaments to cope with the new people? And wouldn't that mean that in ten years time, we could say the Irish Champion was in the top two hundred players in Europe instead of the top five hundred? And mightn't that continue to improve over time?

Big fish, small pond syndrome. It's surprising how often you see this pattern in Irish sports :pac:

That being said, it's a bit of a ridiculous situation when players who live in the state, work in the state, pay taxes to the state, and always do their utmost to support Irish chess, are not allowed to play in what should be a celebration of Irish chess (not Irishness)

Agreed.

while some of the stronger Irish players simply can't be arsed to play despite a healthy prize fund and generous conditions.

I dunno if that's accurate though - we're in an economic recession, are you sure all those stronger players can afford to take a week off work to play? Or do they even think enough of the current arrangement to want to play?
Has anyone asked them?

mikhail · 20-06-2013 6:24pm

brilliantboy wrote: »

One of the biggest problems with a more open championship is that you could get a situation where the Irish champion finishes near the bottom of the field yet still becomes Irish Champion, and if you're pumping up the prize fund and offering incentives to foreign players, it's not at all inconceivable that it could happen. So in a situation where you should be crowning a champion, you're just crowning also-rans.

Yes, because practice indicates that exactly that would happen.
http://icu.ie/tournaments/display.php?id=511 (Ir-Ch 2008, A. Baburin 1st/Champion)
http://icu.ie/tournaments/display.php?id=468 (Ir-Ch 2007, B. Kelly/S. Brady =3rd/Champions).
Way adrift of the lead, all of them.

Sparks wrote: »

...then getting the Championship award handed over by the Minister for Sport and getting that on the news and in the papers would be a fairly easy thing to arrange because it's a pretty nice PR gig...

I understand the Leinster Chess Union is stuck for a new PRO. Any interest?!!

brilliantboy · 20-06-2013 6:46pm

Sparks wrote: »

However -- if you just accepted that that's the current situation, threw out the worry and went down the road of making it a huge celebration of chess; wouldn't that draw in more people, get more people playing, help get more funding, help set up more clubs, and help drive up the standard of chess as we get more coaching and more tournaments to cope with the new people? And wouldn't that mean that in ten years time, we could say the Irish Champion was in the top two hundred players in Europe instead of the top five hundred? And mightn't that continue to improve over time?

How do you do such a thing without having a good deal of funding in place already? If you could attract Carlsen and his pals to play in an open then of course the publicity and interest from sponsors would be immense, but that's not exactly realistic. And all due respect to them but a slew of middling Eastern-European GMs wouldn't have the same effect on public interest. There's also the case that the more higher profile the players you attract, the further the Irish contingent are likely to slip down the standings.

mikhail wrote: »

Yes, because practice indicates that exactly that would happen.
http://icu.ie/tournaments/display.php?id=511 (Ir-Ch 2008, A. Baburin 1st/Champion)
http://icu.ie/tournaments/display.php?id=468 (Ir-Ch 2007, B. Kelly/S. Brady =3rd/Champions).
Way adrift of the lead, all of them.

Baburin was the 2nd seed, Kelly the 5th, and Brady the 6th. You haven't exactly dealt a killing blow to my point.

If we continued to have an open championships, as the profile of the event increases you would see a far greater number of strong foreign players entering, which is absolutely something we want to see, but why in the guise of a national championships?

Sparks · 20-06-2013 7:10pm

mikhail wrote: »

Way adrift of the lead, all of them.

Well, yes - they're all still several hundred points below the top level.
But look at it another way - which Irish Champion title is worth more, the one where you beat eleven other people from a restricted field to win it or the one where you beat 51 (or 43 if you only count the IRL-registered) other people from an open field to win it?

I can tell you which one the media would find more impressive...

I understand the Leinster Chess Union is stuck for a new PRO. Any interest?!!

No thanks, I've served my decade in sports admin so I've earned a few years outside of the 2% -- and besides, I already have a full-time job that involves crying and poop :pac:

Sparks · 20-06-2013 7:26pm

brilliantboy wrote: »

How do you do such a thing without having a good deal of funding in place already?

In steps; you can't make a change that big overnight (unless you win the lotto). There's enough money around now to get some names that the media remembers at least (the Nigel Short simul for example). Start there. Build on it. And I'll grant you, if you got Carlsen to play (and it would have to be him) then that'd be huge; but failing that, you would prefer a slew of random GMs to one name that was larger in chess circles.

Or to be more clear, unless it was Carlsen, then getting forty "random" east-european GMs that nobody has heard of outside of chess would be better than getting (say) Nakamura to play because as far as the media knows, there's Carlsen (because he's ready-made media content being both a world champion contender and a bit of a clotheshorse to boot), and there's "Grandmasters" (because that's easy for non-chess readers -- ie. the vast majority of readers -- to understand), and that's about it really. Ask your average person who Capablanca was and they won't know. Ask them for famous chess names and you'll get Fischer, Kasparov, maybe Short in the UK and Ireland (primarily because of the world championships bid and the televised rapid matches, even if they now look like a genesis video gone horribly wrong), and possibly Spassky (but that'll be because of Fischer). Hell, Deep Blue will get more recognition than Tal or Karpov. So if you can't get the one name they know, just get as many GMs as you can.

There's also the case that the more higher profile the players you attract, the further the Irish contingent are likely to slip down the standings.

Again, And?
That's just reality. Just because you see it doesn't mean it's only now just shown up

but why in the guise of a national championships?

Because that way the national championships shares in the media attention, gains prominence in the media and that aids the sport in the long run.

checknraise · 20-06-2013 8:52pm

I completely disagree with a few of the points raised above.

The Irish Chess championship used to attract the best players in Ireland year after year until maybe 15 years ago!? Winning the tournament used to be a significant achievement and the main goal of any chess player in Ireland. It should still be viewed as a significant achievement and I would hope winning the title would look very favorable to any potential employer or university. I find the current situation where the best young players main aim not being to win the tournament worrying and the I dont believe the Irish championships will improve until that changes. Is winning a international title more prestigious to a non chess compared to winning your national title - I dont think so.

What you are suggesting sparks to bring "40 random grandmasters from Eastern Europe" would cost around €100,000 after prize money, accommodation, flights and expenses are paid. Have you got a spare €100,000 at the moment as I am a little short... Dont get me wrong I would love to have an international open tournament in Ireland of that standard but there is no reason we cannot have both.

Irish chess has been steadily in a decline for the last decade but I am optimistic for the future but that is only to do with the amount of junior players who have started playing recently particularly in Leinster and I really am not sure the ICU have had any influence over that. I just hope it continues to improve.

The top players in Ireland are role models to the junior players and with all the top players playing in tournaments they would get a chance to see them play regularly either at a tournament or their local club. You never know what would happen then they could get to analyse there games with master or get to play a blitz game or 2 - They might even end up winning a game! I believe if the above happens attendances in club/tournaments will grow rapidly. I know its not realistic due to work and family commitments but I think you would be surprised what could happen if a bit more effort was made.

Sparks · 20-06-2013 9:12pm

checknraise wrote: »

I find the current situation were the best young players main aim not being to win the tournament worrying and the I dont believe the Irish championships will improve until that changes. Is winning a international title more prestigious to a non chess compared to winning your national title - I dont think so.

Honestly, if you were to put it on your CV, the GM title would win. Everyone's heard of that, but not many have heard of the national championships or have any idea what their competitive level is.

What you are suggesting sparks to bring "40 random grandmasters from Eastern Europe"

Actually, I was trying to make the point that with the exception of a very few names, it's just a numbers game and "any GM will do", if you'll pardon the daftness of the oversimplification (and really, any player at all will do if you get enough of them -- you get 1000 complete patzers in a blitz tournament in Dublin and you'll see some truly awful chess; but you'll see it in the news and the papers and it'll bring in more people than ten high-ranked players in a closed tournament playing "real" chess).

Honestly, if you stay so focused on having high performances, you ignore the participation levels (and when you look up from the local pond, the high performances just aren't that high).

The top players in Ireland are role models

Now there's an important lesson

I believe if the above happens attendances in club/tournaments will grow rapidly. I know its not realistic due to work and family commitments but I think you would be surprised what could happen if a bit more effort was made.

But it'd happen faster if you had larger events. An Irish championships with less than twenty people is not going to inspire juniors. An open tournament with two or three hundred people might (think Heart of Finland)...

checknraise · 20-06-2013 9:25pm

I dont know how to use quotes so forgive me

Every employer would automatically assume that if you had Irish Chess champion on your CV that you were the best player in Ireland at the time same way if you put down bridge, boxing or tiddlywinks. I am not sure they would understand the difficulty in winning a international title.

They majority certainly wouldnt be a role model on any level except chess.

I think everybody would love to see a massive open tournament organised in Ireland every year but it would cost a significant amount of money to organise an event like that. E2E4 have ran a tournament for the last few years with a handful of GM's playing.

http://e2e4.org.uk/dublin/Apr2013/masters.htm

Sparks · 20-06-2013 10:18pm

checknraise wrote: »

Every employer would automatically assume that if you had Irish Chess champion on your CV that you were the best player in Ireland at the time same way if you put down bridge, boxing or tiddlywinks. I am not sure they would understand the difficulty in winning a international title.

The first question you'd get would be "So you're a grandmaster then?" because that's the only title non-chess players have heard of - remember, outside of those who take an interest in chess, you're talking about people who've heard of Fischer from the movies, Kasparov from the Deep Blue match, and of course Peter Sanderson and Arkady Balagan

If it's correct understanding of chess titles that you want, the general public aren't really where you want to seek it, which is equally true for most other "minority" sports in Ireland

(Hell, we've won world championships medals twice in Olympic target shooting, but because it's not an Olympic medal nobody outside the sport paid attention -- even though within the sport we know the world championships are the bigger deal).

They majority certainly wouldnt be a role model on any level except chess.

Sad state of affairs

E2E4 have ran a tournament for the last few years with a handful of GM's playing.

But that's still the 20-40 players range. It's the 200-400 range you need, at least. And making it the nationals makes that easier to do (not easy, just easier :pac: ).

brilliantboy · 20-06-2013 10:47pm

Sparks wrote: »

But that's still the 20-40 players range. It's the 200-400 range you need, at least. And making it the nationals makes that easier to do (not easy, just easier :pac: ).

Where do you get the 200-400 players? Where do you put them? And how do you pay for it all?
Even then, you really need to throw a few Super GMs in to get any notice whatsoever.
Look at Bunratty, there was over 300 players this year spread across the 4 sections, yet outside the chess world it was almost completely ignored. I live minutes from Bunratty and I can tell you that there are people even living in the place who have no idea the biggest chess tournament in Ireland takes place there every year

I agree there is much much more that can be done to promote Irish chess and we are all failing, the membership and the executive, in that regard.

Sparks · 20-06-2013 11:04pm

brilliantboy wrote: »

Where do you get the 200-400 players?

There are 900-odd members in the ICU, aren't there? Doesn't matter if they're patzer or prodigy, its a numbers game if you want to get media attention.

Look at Bunratty

Not to knock it because for playing it looks fantastic and all who play there agree, but as a location it has a single drawback...

...specifically the large distance between B (Bunratty) and A (the constituency of the Minister for Sport).
I mean, it's not even that it's outside Dublin, its that it's too far from TDs looking to look good. Stick it in the Castleknock hotel ten minutes drive from the Minister for Sport's clinic, get him to open it or give out prizes and you make getting PR a lot easier...

reunion · 21-06-2013 10:55am

brilliantboy wrote: »

It's interesting to note that there's still not a single entrant listed for the Irish Womens Championship.
I don't think the prize fund of 'only' €150 helps matters. That's nothing more than a token sum and frankly I would almost feel insulted.

Would it be better if there was no listed minimum prize fund? 1800 was the highest rated Irish player at the event 8 months ago. The entrants were a little unbalanced and I gather the life blood of the event (players rated below 1200 (minor section players) or 9 out of 12 players) don't want to come back to a one-side event (top player was nearly double the highest under 1200 player).

brilliantboy wrote: »

http://www.icu.ie/misc/games/sm/irishwomenschampionship2012/
Last years championship in Kilkenny had 12 players, and I'm sure it was hoped they could at least assemble a similar field for this years event.
It's interesting to note that even last year a few players decided to enter the Congress instead.

That wasn't last years event; that was this years event (2012/2013). This is a second women's championship held in the same playing year.

There are a number of factors (not prize money) that would contribute to low entry.
1. location from dublin (some Irish players won't leave dublin)
2. It clashes with the Main event or with the trainer courses.
3. The first wasn't that great (in comparison to the kilkenny event).
4. The difference between the women's and every other event can be felt in the advertising. The poster for the women's is different entirely to advertising for the rest. It is even a seperate event on the ICU website.
5. People have to choose between the 1st weekend or the 2nd (that would tell me how much they don't care about the event that it's worth less than a different tournament)
6. Reason listed above - standard too extreme
7. Second women's championship in this year; reduces the impact of gaining such a title

Prize money would NOT be on that list. This is an event with a minimum prize fund of €150 (pretty generous when there are 0 entries) and only started in the last 8 months. Women make up; lets say 5% of total players. 1000 players in the ICU that's 50 women that could possibly play. Not all 50 can make it. Something needs to be done to get that 5% up higher.

brilliantboy wrote: »

If the aim is to get away from the usual routine of having womens prizes in the main event and giving the title to the highest placed, then I don't think the championship is being given a fair chance in it's infancy.

That isn't the reason. The reason is to develop women's chess in Ireland. more needs to be done getting more female players involved rather than simply holding a tournament.

brilliantboy wrote: »

One of the ideas behind having women only events in the first place is to increase participation, but I fear we might be hampering it in this case.
Of course, there is still a week or so until the deadline so maybe there will be a flood of entries before then and I'll look like an idiot

The entries close the day of the event (but I gather if no one is entered who would come down to it). The late fee comes into effect after the 28th of June.

brilliantboy wrote: »

I'm afraid many of our woman players might find it a more attractive proposition to play in the weekender or am/pm tournaments where there are better prizes on offer, stronger opposition to play, and the social buzz around the UL campus may be greater (I believe there's also an comic-book/anime convention on in UL that weekend)

On that note: Every entry to any event during the Irish Championship gets free entry to that Anime and gaming convention called brocon (see here)

brilliantboy wrote: »

One of the biggest problems with a more open championship is that you could get a situation where the Irish champion finishes near the bottom of the field yet still becomes Irish Champion, and if you're pumping up the prize fund and offering incentives to foreign players, it's not at all inconceivable that it could happen. So in a situation where you should be crowning a champion, you're just crowning also-rans.

It depends on what the purpose of the Irish Chess Championship is. Once you know why the Irish Chess Championships exist; it's easier to decide on the criteria to enter.

For example: Is it to find the best player in Ireland (no rating restrictions should be in place)? Is it to promote chess in Ireland (more GMs and ICU PRO publicisies it more)? Is it meant to be the best tournament in Ireland (more GM's etc)?

Personally; if you limit it to IRL with FIDE only (or no nationallity with FIDE); you have to scrap the rating requirment. otherwise the competition becomes is just for the top 20 in Ireland that can take the week off work.

Sparks wrote: »

...specifically the large distance between B (Bunratty) and A (the constituency of the Minister for Sport).
I mean, it's not even that it's outside Dublin, its that it's too far from TDs looking to look good. Stick it in the Castleknock hotel ten minutes drive from the Minister for Sport's clinic, get him to open it or give out prizes and you make getting PR a lot easier...

What is your obsession with the Minister for Sport? Surely a munster rugby player/president of ul or something similar would also generate PR aswell. This just depends on a good PRO from both the event organisors and the ICU.

[QUOTE=Sparks;85174591Consider this; if you had a really large chess tournament, with hundreds of players from all levels, in Dublin and several famous (to non-chess players) GMs in attendance and the Irish Champion was to be decided on at that tournament, then getting the Championship award handed over by the Minister for Sport and getting that on the news and in the papers would be a fairly easy thing to arrange because it's a pretty nice PR gig; and when that's happening, it's a lot easier to go to the ISC and ask for official recognition as a sport because if they refuse, that's another easy story to get on the news and in the papers (ISC snubs Minister for Sport is a nice headline...).[/QUOTE]

The ISC would laugh at your face for thinking that because the Minister for Sport is at an award ceremony that you are a sport. Chess players don't think logically when it comes to real life. No national organisation will suddenly go "ah sure, we had it wrong all those years and we are changing it today". There was a push in 2003 (I think) to get chess as a sport. This had 10,000 signatures during the boom years. When that doesn't work; you know that the government won't issue legislation or abuse their powers to do what you want. What we should do (as I keep saying on boards) is apply for the ICU to be the national governing body for chess and be recognised by the ISC. You'd be surprised at how something that small can make a huge difference.

reunion · 21-06-2013 11:00am

I'm not sure what the last bit was in bold.. Anyway different post as the last one was quite long!

Anyway Next years championship (if they are going to have the rating requirement) should allow people to qualify for it irrespective of rating (I say qualify; they don't get free entry). This could generate interest in more tournaments around Ireland and when you qualify for a place; you are kinda less likely to give it up...

Top X under 18 players automatically qualify
Winners/runners-up of the Under-18/16 sections qualify
Women's champion qualifies
Winners of sections rated above 1600 around Ireland.
Players that have a rating performance with the ICU of 1800/1900 or more (and played all the rounds in an event).

Sparks · 21-06-2013 12:08pm

reunion wrote: »

What is your obsession with the Minister for Sport?

It's that he controls the pursestrings for the ISC (the problem with the ISC is that they're all about the C part and all its politicing and not so much about the S part, so you pretty much need to have the Minister either on-side, or at least in a position where he'd feel embarrassed if the ISC told you to go jump).

The ISC would laugh at your face for thinking that because the Minister for Sport is at an award ceremony that you are a sport.

Indeed. If you walked in there and said "Leo gave out our trophy so now you have to give us money", that is. If, on the other hand, you took the current case for recognition (which is pretty strong if all you looked at was logical argument) and added in the point that you have publicly recognised ministerial support and the ISC's refusal wasn't going to be quietly accepted but would make the newspapers in the Minister's constituency, then your case gets a bit stronger.

This had 10,000 signatures during the boom years.

Means far less than it should I'm afraid.
10,000 votes, maybe - shooting had success getting McDowell to row back on a proposed policy when that many shooters showed up in TD's clinics across the country to tell them that they wouldn't be getting a vote in the upcoming election or any future election because of that policy - but petitions just don't change things on their own (they're needed because their absence can be noted, but they don't win any arguments on their own).

What we should do (as I keep saying on boards) is apply for the ICU to be the national governing body for chess and be recognised by the ISC

And the Minister controls the ISC budget and he's who they ultimately answer to. Give him some decent PR (which the government is a bit desperate for right now. To be in the media seen opening or closing a tournament in a sport whose primary public perception is one of deep thinking, high intelligence and long-term strategy? You'd be selling ice in the desert...), get a mention into the coverage of the recognition problem, and it helps your case.
It's cheap, underhanded, sneaky and utterly not rocket science

Sparks · 24-06-2013 3:14pm

bigtoe7 wrote: »

sam collins has decided to play in e2-e4 five round open competition in sunnigdale in UK rather to play in irish championship in same weekend. explanation ?

Two GMs there, higher average ratings, 60-odd entrants, none of the drama above and you don't have to take a week off work because it's a weekend event?

Much lower prize fund too -- money's not always the answer to the motivation problem.

reunion · 24-06-2013 4:51pm

Sparks wrote: »

Two GMs there, higher average ratings, 60-odd entrants, none of the drama above and you don't have to take a week off work because it's a weekend event?

Other factors: Entrance fee is alot lower. Larger pool of players available (players can travel from around the UK); it's not capped with a rating.

Sparks wrote: »

Much lower prize fund too -- money's not always the answer to the motivation problem.

SOOO true. High rated players have this belief that larger prize money = better players. It's true (as you attract foreign players) but when you are limited to irish only AND rated above a certain level; numbers won't increase (drastically) with prize money.

The e2e4 event (the open) has the same number of entrants as the main event of the Irish Championships. The other sections have more players than the weekender of the Irish Championships (10 more players).

Sam could play in both events; he could get a half point bye in rounds 1 and 2 and play rounds 3 - 9 (original post). Hopefully he will at least play in the weekender or make an appearance!

Killian Delaney wrote:

It does look like it will be shaping up to be a good tournament but I will be taking travelling byes for the first two rounds and I hope it doesnt affect people too much.

Sparks · 24-06-2013 8:32pm

reunion wrote: »

The e2e4 event (the open) has the same number of entrants as the main event of the Irish Championships.

Yeah, but the overall event is larger (60-something people) so there should be more fun outside of the playing area, and inside the playing area, well, look at the ratings histograms:

Irish Championships:

Average rating: 2095

e2e4 Sunningdale:

Average rating: 2157

I guess it makes more sense to spend less money and have a better shot at increasing your rating!

Chess IV's and The 2013 Irish Chess Championships

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