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+--- Thread: Appearance fees for our best players (/thread-155.html)
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Phil Thomas - 22-12-2011
robin moore Wrote:I have got my freshly prepared olive branch here.
Phil,
I felt it was obvious to all I was talking about current "top" players not ones from the past, no matter how recent.
David (and Daniel) Deary do indeed play for the same club as me (Greenwood) but in a different division playing for a different team.
The endgame strategy stuff was never intended to be a replacement in any shape or form for existing coaching. As I have said many times before, I am a limited player but am ok if I simply stick to this stuff. Different players are more comfortable with it than others. Kai Pannwitz took to it quicker than Alan Tate, Kirsty McCusker took to it quicker than Gary Gillespie.
When I came to your house to give an endgame strategy lesson to Matthew and Daniel, you were constantly interrupting and not allowing me to do my training correctly. I politely asked you not to say anything (in front of your boys) as It was them I was trying to give the lesson to.
I now unreservedly apologise if you were offended by me asking this of you.
Now, let's move on.
Robin.
I wasn't going to post again on this thread but Robin's posting quoting above deserves an Olive branch in return.
The route that Robin in taking with increased coaching activity using coaches round the age of 20 is a logical extension of previous IJD activity. The inititiative dererves support from all. However, no IJD will ever have the time to supervise such a scheme personally. Paul is fortunate that he the enthusiasm and available time that Robin can bring to this position.
Brief comment or two on recent posts here and on a recently active thread.
There is a general desire to improve playing standard of Scotland top junior players. In order to know if policies are working or not measurements have to be made with numbers and not with words. Those numbers have to come from the CS grading system.
And now a prediction.
When the July 2012 grades come out, I will compare them with the July 2011 and earlier grades and tell the notice board readers how much good has been done by Robin's efforts. Given the quality of the coaching skills of those recent junior getting involved I predict that the measurable benefit will be substantial. The credit I will attribute to Robin and the new coaches.
Yes I do know many other people put much work in but in the grand scheme of things the sum total of their efforts is near constant year upon year.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Derek Howie - 22-12-2011
Mike Scott Wrote:Derek,
I would not list names simply because that is not fair but I would not exclude Jonny from the list certainly on his first tournie, when he really struggled: which was a mixture of inexperience and not being strong enough to compete.
Mike, I'm sure he learned a lot in respect of prepaing for opponents etc that he may not have got elsewhere. He may have struggled but hopefully it helped him become a better player and more prepared for his next trip and was an important part of his chess development.
Mike Scott Wrote:I simply look at the grading list and do not see where the players are who have benefited from the existing policy. Andy claims there are some players but has produced no evidence.
To be fair, neither side has produced evidence. I've certainly seen improvement in some players in my admittedly limited experience. How much of it would have happened anyway is impossible to say, but I firmly believe that the intensity of being focused on chess over the period must play a major part.
Mike Scott Wrote:I am actually sure that there will be some players who are better players for the experience but that really is not the point.I'd say that it is.
Mike Scott Wrote:Have a look sown the lists of past participants and you will find quite a number for whom it was one of their last events and/or who have not significantly improved in strength since.
That may be the case in some instances, but grade in itself wouldn't prevent that happening. I'd have thought that kind of issue would be dealt with under the current selection procedure, reviewing whether someone shows the necessary activity and enthusiasm.
Mike Scott Wrote:My experience of these events has been that yes a lot of chess is played but the training and practice was somewhat relaxed and ad hoc.
To me its about whether you are serious about it or not. Do you want players to just have an experience, or to be as good as they can be at chess?
In Greece last year, the coaching for the younger kids was fairly structured and intense. It wasn't so structured in Brazil due to the lack of a formal coach, but everyone certainly worked hard at their game.
I'd totally agree with your comment about whether you want to be serious or not about chess. These trips seem to me to be much more about the chess than the experience, although the "experience" is also a postive thing if it helps their development as youths, and can give them an even greater enthusiasm for the game.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Derek Howie - 22-12-2011
Andy Howie Wrote:Angus McDonald Wrote:However you spin it those advocating grade limitations are putting barriers in the way of Scotland's best juniors representing their country. We have to deal with where we are and try to get better. Discouraging people from the start is unhelpful. The Euroyouth and World Youth are fantastic events and children do come back keener and stronger players with a very good idea of where they are and what they need to do to improve.
Angus,
You have totally hit the nail on the head!
Agreed.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Hugh Brechin - 22-12-2011
Quote:With talk of grading limits for Scotland's elite juniors.
Perhaps we should have grading limits for would be coaches for the Scotland elite juniors.!
Well, ideally we would! (Obviously such limits would scale with the age groups...) That said, we're in a situation where the budget for coaching is such that volunteers who give up their time to help out are valuable indeed.
Andy (H), I don't think anybody is disputing that in many cases juniors who go to these events improve significantly - though there is the point that it's quite rare for young juniors who spend a lot of time playing chess not to see a rise in playing strength. Junior addition, which we spent a bit of time talking about a wee while ago, reflects the fact that under-12s are expected to see a rating rise of 120 per season, and that's an average: the more active ones will in general be rising more swiftly than that.
Frankly I'd actually think Dougie's concern about the demoralising effect of repeated losses - while dangerous and real; chess being a game where, barring the weird, there's never anyone to blame but yourself for defeat means that successive losses can be extremely dispiriting - is partially neutered by squad size. It's much easier to lose quite a lot of your games when you've got friends around you also losing games, though it perhaps doesn't do an awful lot for our international reputation.
I just think that this need not be the only way to do it. Many of the same benefits could be gained by a better coaching regime - and here I'll say that I'm a big fan of the steps being taken under the current IJD setup to expand the online coaching structure - as well as travel to other, perhaps less challenging and expensive to reach tournaments. The idea mentioned by Robin and Calum of using large summer-holiday-time tournaments for this purpose seems like a good one. I just don't think we need to have a binary dichotomy between sending frankly enormous squads to the Worlds and Euros on the one hand and some strawman austerity regime where only people who can beat me get to enter these tournaments on the other.
Yes, I think that the requirements for selection for these tournaments are currently too loose. I'm not going to name examples, because that would be a deeply unfair thing to do. But that means I believe that it would be more helpful to provide different opportunities to lower-rated players at or near the top of their age groups, not that we should just kick away the ladder and giggle. I'm a bit disappointed at some of the responses which are essentially suggesting that we're trying to cancel Christmas here.
Incidentally, I'm hoping this post will make me Emanuel Lasker.
EDIT: Yes!
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Mike Scott - 22-12-2011
Quote:Mike, I'm sure he learned a lot in respect of prepaing for opponents etc that he may not have got elsewhere. He may have struggled but hopefully it helped him become a better player and more prepared for his next trip and was an important part of his chess development.
No actually it didn't - he came away with a lack of confidence and when he returned at the next event and struggled at the start that lack of confidence of being good enough kicked in and he played well below how he played at home. Yes there were lessons but he would have learnt far more had he played in other less fierce events and built up to that experience. His strength as a player has come from hard work and gradually moving through sections in home congresses.
I can not comment on recent events - but I think they have been smaller squads for a start which ispart of my point.
Quoting improvements following trips to liverpool indicates that someone has missed the point for two reasons.
a. I am not saying that players do not benefit from such trips - in fact I am saying the reverse. What I am saying is that to maximise the benefit they need to go to events that are appropriate to their skill/experience.
b. Quoting an increase in this manner is meaningless. You need to establish what they would have improved by had they not gone to an event before you can determine whether that particular event has had an effect. As an example laste season Jonny went to Euros, Shivan did not. Whose grading increased the most? Shivan's. Does this prove anything? Nope.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - David Deary - 22-12-2011
Phil, I see you still haven't retracted your spurious comment on what another club supports. The arrogance in declaring the view of an entire club you are not a member or involved in is really quite something. I will ask you again to retract it and amend your post. It is supported by individual members but has hardly been endorsed by Greenwood Chess Club. Your post gives a false impression and is on the verge of deceitful.
Quote:When the July 2012 grades come out, I will compare them with the July 2011 and earlier grades and tell the notice board readers how much good has been done by Robin's efforts. Given the quality of the coaching skills of those recent junior getting involved I predict that the measurable benefit will be substantial. The credit I will attribute to Robin and the new coaches.
Yes I do know many other people put much work in but in the grand scheme of things the sum total of their efforts is near constant year upon year.
I look forward to you posting this as I will strongly disagree with selective statistics again. For instance last year my Daniel’s grade (just to avoid confusion) increased by approximately 400 points. If any of that increase was attributed to the efforts of the IJD position or coaches I would strongly debate it. Paul coached Daniel on several occasions at the tail end of last season but much of his chess had already been played. I would argue that individual player’s work ethic, support of parents and family and mentors also makes a valuable contribution.
Back to topic:
I am supportive of extending the online coaching network and in fact I am looking to get Daniel some regular coaching for the first time. I believe this will help drive up standards of our young players and should be encouraged. That said there is a financial cost to all this as well which is borne by the parents/family I hope this does not act as barrier for some of our younger players' families who perhaps are not in a financial position to arrange regular coaching.
On the setting of grading bands for entry to the euro and world youths – perhaps surprisingly I am not opposed to it. However, to be based on the prior bands suggested earlier by Clement (I think) would be too severe but are something to aspire to as the standard of our juniors improve perhaps that’s where we could be in 5 to 10 years time?
We would need to set them where they are achievable for our juniors and they don’t need to be set in stone but can be moved before the start of a new season. In addition there needs to be some common sense applied if selectors believed a player was capable of performing well they should go even if they are 100 points lower than the band. Although for some a grading band would be a cast iron measure and if a junior were 1 point below it they wouldn’t go – For me that would be entirely wrong! It is that fear that worries me from prior experience of CS rules being set in stone I am somewhat reluctant to support grading bands without the caveat that they are a guide only.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Clement Sreeves - 22-12-2011
As Hugh pointed out, we are not saying that if a player is not ready to play for the World/Euros they would not get a chance to play for Scotland at all! All we are saying is that other tournaments might be more appropriate, and would include all the same benefits, such as 1 round a day, preperation, coaching etc.
An interesting stat: At the recent World Youth in Brazil, overall we scored 32/81. However, by looking at the games only against Brazilian and Argentinian players, who both had huge squads made up mostly of what are presumably weaker filler players, we scored 15 points! That's almost half of our total points, and is probably casting a veil over our performance. Of course there are exceptions, but in general we always do pretty poorly in these events.
While it's true that juniors that have gone to these events have improved, the point is that this is because they are spending 2 whole weeks in a chess environment, with strong chess coaches and their fellow juniors!! Not because of the actual games themselves, which often have a demoralising effect!
Some other options:
For younger juniors the British Championships are a great tournament. There are age-group championship, which are mostly 1 round a day, and these would be a very good level, since we can compete at that level, and even winning it from time to time! I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to send sizeable squads to these. In addition we can have strong coaches helping to prepare and analyse, while playing in a tournament themselves.
For older juniors the British is also fantastic, with the Major Open and Championship, but also Robin's idea of sending a squad to the Czech Open for example would be good. The same concept can be used with the coaches helping the juniors.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - robin moore - 22-12-2011
There is some great input from all here that I am following with great interest. I want to put forward a current example of the danger of simply blindly picking the player at the top of the grading list. I know their parents well and I am sure they won't mind me doing this. Anna Milton and Monica Espinosa were terrific for us at the Euroyouth at Bulgaria. Anna has since done very well at the World Youth at Brazil. A couple of weeks ago Monica was ahead on the grading list (by 2 points!). Now Anna is ahead again via her Liverpool results. Monica played in the Benidorm International and Spanish U12 championship but didn't score well. A big problem Monica will have gradewise this year is that her family have formed a new club at Girvan in the Ayrshire 3rd division. I realised that Monica would probably have to score about 90% in this division playing board 4 just to "break even" gradewise. Monica is not the fastest of players. I travelled down to Girvan to watch their first match, which she lost to a guy graded 400 odd simply because she never adapted to the much faster time control. We know both of these girls are capable of playing at Euro and World level with it's longer time contols. Past experience and performance at this level will be one of the things foremost in selectors minds. I want both of these girls to play as many of the "majors" they can this year. Grade will not influence me a lot.
Robin.
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - David G Congalton - 22-12-2011
Clement Sreeves Wrote:For younger juniors the British Championships are a great tournament. There are age-group championship, which are mostly 1 round a day, and these would be a very good level, since we can compete at that level, and even winning it from time to time! I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to send sizeable squads to these. In addition we can have strong coaches helping to prepare and analyse, while playing in a tournament themselves.
For older juniors the British is also fantastic, with the Major Open and Championship, but also Robin's idea of sending a squad to the Czech Open for example would be good. The same concept can be used with the coaches helping the juniors.
Would you envisage a World/European set-up for tournaments such as the British, with a head of delegation and specific coaching staff, with selection for a squad and the squad and coaches staying in the same accomodation or would this be arranged on an ad-hoc basis?
Re: Appearance fees for our best players - Andrew McHarg - 22-12-2011
Another interesting and vital point for you and Paul to consider Robin:
"How much more highly graded do coaches need to be than the players they are training?"
My view: It depends on the level of ability.
I'd say that a coach doesn't neccesarily have to be higher than the person they are training in order for the person to take something valuable from the lesson. I know this from my own experiences. I started playing Chess in the summer of 2008 and now my grade is around 1720-1750. When I lose to guys graded around 1600 I often find that it's because I started out badly due to my inferior opening knowledge, and was never able to recover. More often than not these guys tell me where they think I went wrong; and I listen - because clearly there is something to learn if I lost. It would be arrogant of me to think that just because my grade is higher that I'm somehow better at every part of the game than someone who has a lower grade, and have nothing to learn from them. Simply not true. I excel (comparatively) in the middlegame, where tactics and strategy are probably more important than theoretical knowledge, and my decision to choose a coach for opening theory would not be based entirely on their grade, but more importantly it would be based on their teaching style. More often than not it's the teacher which makes a subject interesting (again from my experiences of school), and Chess is no different in reality.
When teaching young juniors, a charismatic guy graded around 1200 might be a far superior coach to the world champion (for instance).