Chess Scotland Adult Selection Criteria

[andyburnett]

'to be considered ... a player must have completed a minimum of 15 (standard length) graded games over the 6 months prior to the selection deadline date'

I do not like the proposed changes, especially the above.

First, the existing selection criteria, which have been extant a very long time and as I recall resulted from a painstaking process that invited views from many parties, have functioned very well - read them. Haven't they actually worked quite well? At any rate I do not recall many serious complaints about selection in the past; in particular who, if any one, has managed to walk into a place without some sort of serious assessment that they are strong and indeed recently active enough? Selectors need to be able to exercise reasonable discretion and it's written in carefully to the existing criteria as they stand.

Hi Craig, I have read them of course. They have worked reasonably well over the years but less and less in recent years. Things change, our top-rated players are playing fewer and fewer games and there have indeed been complaints about the process.

Second, if there is a need to spell out the activity criteria, I agree with others who argue that there should be 'wiggle room'. In other words the abrupt 'must' statement above should be phrased in some more reasonable way, such as 'ordinarily will be expected to but not necessarily required'. I used to be a selector. I wouldn't want to be constrained by something like the headline statement in bold above and might well resign.

'Wiggle room' leaves room for complaint and finding selectors is becoming more difficult, hence removing one aspect which leaves players with a less-than-onerous number of games to reach if they are serious about representing their country and making the selectors task easier should be seen as a positive step. Resigning? Well, if we all reacted like that...

Thirdly, the requirement itself, if something like it really needs to be spelled out in such specific terms (which I doubt), is far too constraining. On this I also agree with many others that the requirement needs at least to be drawn more broadly. Why 6 months and a mere 15 games? When 12 months and 30 rated games actually gives you a properly statistical sample to draw from that at the same time allows prospective selectees, the great majority of whom work full-time, a better chance to decide when to enter the necessary events through the year to qualify.

If we made it 30 games in 12 months there would be one or two players playing simultaneous matches at the Olympiad and Euros. The 6-month, 15 games is, again, easily do-able for anyone serious about their chess (One nine-rounder and a league commitment? Two weekenders and an extra event? 4NCL and two weekenders or a league?) The games are  closer to the event in question and therefore more relevant, and when known in advance should not be a problem.

Fourthly, on an extension of that point, why specify FIDE rating points? If you play against a player with a FIDE rating of say 2300-2400 in an event that isn't FIDE rated but CS rated, why ignore the latter if by its exclusion that player is one game short of the curiously sacrosanct 'FIDE' requirement? By the way, the existing draft selection criteria cover this very point already in a most sensible way.

Why don't we simply count any game played against anyone anywhere? Because FIDE-rated events tend to be taken more seriously, so a certain amount of them makes sense and also makes the player's FIDE-rating more accurate.

Fifthly, why shouldn't rated rapid games count? Increasingly some of the most competitive chess out there resides in some of these events (e.g. more than a few Scots are heading to the extremely strong English Rapidplay championships, Liverpool 23-24 September). For the aspiring player who truly seeks to improve his or her game, these provide not just excellent competition but also allow many more games to be played in a short period and at lower cost than always having to play in Opens.

If you are serious about this, why not include blitz games? Rapid-play events are useful as you say, but until the Olympiad or Euros are set at that rate of play I don't see the relevance. No prep time, 5 or 6 times faster play, it's simply not the same thing at all. As someone who has played both on a very, very regular basis for the past 3 years (and generally for 30 years before that) I think I can trust my own judgement on this - other views welcome of course, but to be perfectly honest I don't consider this a serious point.

I could go on and I agree with many other points made about the difficulties and potential contradictions involved in writing selection criteria in ways that do not allow selectors sufficient discretion to do their job well. In my experience, the CS selectors are usually not just well-qualified to exercise the discretion that goes with that job but have on the whole done that job well ... there may occasionally be problems at the margin (and I always found filling a final place in a Scottish team difficult when there were more than one player, who all had frankly excellent claims to that place) but tough decisions do indeed sometimes have to be made.

I'm sure there are a hundred exceptions to everything Craig, but I'm also sure the vast majority of them do not address the problem that players are simply not playing enough games to justify what amounts to automatic selection for major international team competitions. What Scotland hopes to achieve in such competitions is not being addressed by the current criteria and I do not believe that they best serve the interests of Scottish international team chess for the future. The selectors do a difficult job - this change makes it easier.

Finally is this a fait accompli? I hope not.

As I wrote previously, there is room and time for tweaks but you'll have to convince me of their merits - so far I'm not swayed.

Kind regards,
Andy

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The clock is ticking. The next Olympiad is in September 2018. Selections should then be made in April 2018. The 6 month playing period is then October 2017 - March 2018. But it is already too late to enter some events e.g. Isle of Man, Gibraltar are booked up months in advance, where are the 8 FIDE games going to come from ? The Scottish is ruled out. Poor Colin McNab might miss his first Olympiad in a generation.

There are umpteen FIDE-rated tournaments which players can play in Andy. Colin will, I'm sure, play the necessary amount of games to 'qualify', is highly likely to make the team based on his playing strength and will be warmly welcomed as he always is as one of our most-decorated and experienced players. I should reiterate, however, that nobody will be automatically walking into the team regardless of their previous!