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updated 1.5.99
COMMENT


THE CROYDON GIRLS AFFAIR
1.5.99
I had more or less decided to keep quiet about this, but a recent development has changed my mind. I said a while ago (see BCF page) that I had no idea why the headmistress would not sanction a school entry in the Times. I know now. You can find details elsewhere, but in brief - very brief - the story is something like this.
     Last season, ill feeling arose about the school team's board order. Parents became involved, and the situation became unpleasant. Very unpleasant, if accounts are true. The headmistress responded by withdrawing the team from competition. Reasonably enough, you might think.
     This season, Mike Basman entered an "unofficial" school team in the Times. The entry was accepted "in full knowledge of the team's status" (Basman's words). How full is full? Don't know, but when the headmistress wrote to the Chief Conductor the team was disqualified by the BCF Junior Director. You already know that Basman enlisted the help of the Times's chess correspondent to get the decision overturned. With no justification whatever, since the rules of the competition give final say to the Junior Director. But there you are. Keene supported him. I don't know whether it made any difference. The girls may or may not have played their much-delayed next match. I suspect they didn't, given the time-schedules imposed by the wrangling. Their opponents won the Zone at all events, and it's a knockout competition. I wasn't involved but if I had been I'd have objected to the unnecessary expenditure of time in a knockout competition.
     Basman had also entered a team in the Briant Poulter (Surrey Schools) League, and it too was subsequently disqualified.
     I've given few details in all conscience, and I wasn't actually going to say anything at all. So why have I? Because of a recent circular (dated April 1999) from Basman. I don't know who it was sent to, it doesn't say, but it has a "UK Chess Challenge" heading. It says, reasonably enough, that since Croydon Girls aren't allowed to enter the Chess Challenge under their school name their players will be accepted under the (Surrey-based) "St Marks School of Chess" established by Basman himself. I have absolutely no problem with this, and I'm sure he'll act similarly with any other "irregular" entries that may crop up next year.
     But unfortunately the last three-quarters of the circular, quite gratuitously it seems to me, resuscitates the Croydon Girls issue and invites continued controversy. Without giving any details it criticises the headmistress for "unaccountably" withdrawing the team. I'm surprised he can't account for it. If you were to ask me I'd lay the blame fairly and squarely on the people who caused the unpleasantness in the first place. Certainly not on the headmistress.
     Basman also seems unaware of what a Schools competition is. He compares the Times unfavourably with the UK Chess Challenge on the ground that it prevents juniors from playing in it. Of course it does, some juniors. It's a competition for school teams. Its rules say so. A team can't represent a school if the head teacher says it doesn't. I daresay the Briant Poulter's the same. To complain that the Times won't accept non-school teams is about as sensible as complaining that the Kent Schools Chess League won't accept teams from Middlesex.
rjh


A HOLE IN THE BCF MINOR COUNTIES RULES
16.3.99
Never noticed this, until someone pointed it out the other day. The BCF rules say:
     "Any team competing in the National stages of the championships of the Minor Counties must field a team whose average BCF grading or ELO equivalent is less than 180. Any players who do not have a published grading will be deemed to have the same grading as the average of those possessing such a grading."
     So what's the penalty for exceeding the limit? The rules don't say. Obvious answer is, you're not allowed to exceed the limit. If you turn up with a team that exceeds the limit, you just have to take out high-graded players until it doesn't exceed the limit, and default as necessary at the bottom end, and tough. Only thing is, who's going to guarantee that excess grades will be spotted before the match starts? Indeed they can't be, if the reason you're over the limit is that your board 16 turned up 75 minutes late and couldn't play.
     Believe that when this was mentioned to Cyril Johnson he said, "We'll dock 'em one game point penalty for every 5 points (or part thereof) over the limit." (How many points over "less than 180" is 185?)
     I don't know whether this penalty is to apply only where infringements arise (or are spotted) too late to avoid them, or whether a team that's known to be illegal at the outset will be allowed to play regardless and suffer the penalty. It's rather important to be clear about this point.
     But anyway, a one-point penalty isn't enough for a 5-point excess. It follows from the way grades work that a 5-point excess, over 16 boards, is "worth" an extra 0.8 game points. And your opponents get 0.8 less than they should have done, so your relative gain is 1.6 points (less a 1-point penalty). Moral: turn up 20 points over the limit, it's worth it.
     Don't know how final Cyril's thoughts are on this subject.

Postscript 6.4.99
Cyril has had further thoughts. Unfortunately they seem to be worse than his first ones. His message 6.4.99 to qualifying counties says that the U180 limit will be enforced rigidly, and any transgressors "will be deemed to have fielded an ineligible player. If the transgression is more than 10 points, I will take it as 2 ineligible players."
     Right. Suppose I'm 10 points over. So I'm deemed to have fielded one ineligible player. Penalty (see BCF County Match Rules, Item 14) is that he loses his game and my team is penalised one game point. Him losing his game doesn't mean a lot, since he's imaginary. So I lose a penalty point. Being 10 points over has already given me, in the average case, a relative advantage of 3.2 game points. Think I'll be 10 points over. Better still, I'll be 50 points over, because after 10+ points there's only a double penalty however far I go.
     Sorry, Cyril. The other question is, if I'm over the limit because my bottom board didn't turn up, does that count as an infringement or doesn't it?



QPF CLAIMS
22.1.99
The arbiter's decision, on the making-no-progress claim in Surrey-Middx U100, has taken ten weeks to materialise. I don't know why, and I don't know how promptly the match captains submitted their supporting data. The decision may, indeed, have reached the match captains before it reached me. But surely ten weeks, or anything like it, is unacceptable. The fact that this was an early-season match, and the result was not needed urgently for ranking the teams, does not alter that.
     Sussex and Essex weren't so daft in October when they broke the rules, albeit unknowingly, and appointed a couple of arbiters on the spot. Saves a world of bother. (Well, it should have done, but that's water under the bridge.) Calling the game to an abrupt halt, and asking an arbiter who wasn't even there, ought to be absolutely a last-resort solution. Far better, and quicker, to play the game out with a mutually agreed ad-hoc arbiter, or pair of arbiters, who can see what's going on. If a flag falls and your joint arbiters can't agree, that's the time to send the position up.
     I suspect that clubs do this on the quiet. It will very often be doable in county matches, especially if you grab a couple of strong early-finishers and have them ready to arbit if need be. It's only against the rules, after all. As a matter of fact it isn't obviously against the rules, if you've already appointed them before the claim happens.
     Any views?

Ian Hunnable replies:
26.1.99
Richard,
I am an Essex man, but have no immediate knowledge of the subject game. The views I am about to express do not, in any event, impinge on the original decision reached, which the sub-committee decided to leave in place. I am more concerned with the issues you raise in comment. I write as a chess player who can read the English language.
     I believe that the sub-committee acted wisely in leaving the ad-hoc decision in place, however irregularly it was reached. However, the danger is that of sending out the wrong message. I believe in law and order and therefore competitions should be conducted to the rules established for the purpose. Therein however, lies the problem.
     The FIDE Laws of Chess which came into force on 1st July 1997 provide, under Appendix D, for "Quickplay finishes where no arbiter is present in the venue". One presumes that this is intended to refer to an independent arbiter appointed for the purpose, but it does not say this. (In fact "arbiter" is not defined in the Laws at all and one supposes that anyone could act as an arbiter. The Laws do, however, set down the arbiter's duties which pre-supposes the appropriate qualification.)
     It's a bit like "is there a doctor in the house?". It seems there WAS an arbiter present. Clearly he was not independent, but the Laws do not say that he should be. Therefore, in a literal interpretation of the written word, Appendix D does NOT apply - "Quickplay finishes where no arbiter is present in the venue". (In any event, the final paragraph of Appendix D just says the claim should be "referred to an arbiter whose decision shall be final." No mention of INDEPENDENT arbiter.)
     If Appendix D does not apply, then Article 10 applies. Slight difficulty here: Article 10 talks in terms of "the arbiter" - note the definite article. This implies an arbiter for the purpose of controlling the event in question. Which throws us back to Appendix D, which allows for any old arbiter, "whose decision shall be final".
     Whether all this would hold up in court, I haven't a clue. But that's not the point. The point is that the FIDE Laws in this respect are loose and capable of (mis)interpretation1. By comparison, the provisions that the Laws replace, ie the BCF's previous provisions for QPF's in County matches, are crystal. We have: "Additional rules for rapidplay or quickplay finish events which do not have an arbiter eg Club or County Matches". (Apologies if the capitalisations are wrong, the text I am quoting from gives these words mainly in upper case.) These provisions were largely the same as in FIDE Laws Appendix D except that they added that: "the claim should be discussed by the players, and if not resolved it should be submitted - in the case of a match - to the two captains. If it is still not resolved, the position and relevant information should be referred to an independent Arbiter...". Note the stipulation "independent" and the capital "A" for "Arbiter".
     So, my views are:
(1) that the sub-committee did the best thing;
(2) that the sub-committee's decision should not, however, be seen as encouragement for parties in future matches to act outside the provisions for the competition;
(3) that competitions should be conducted according to the rules;
(4) that all interested parties should acquaint themsleves with the rules.      
HOWEVER, these last three require that the rules should be framed properly and in the case of QPF finishes, it would seem that the introduction of the new FIDE Laws has been a backward step.
1 rjh: - Not that loose, surely? It's clear that Appendix D applied. There were two arbiters, independent in the sense that there was one from each side, but it's stretching things to call them arbiters within the meaning of the act while they hadn't been appointed yet. At the moment of the claim there was no arbiter. Now, if you'd appointed them in advance, half way through the match... Anyway, I think that's one vote against me.


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