What are we doing wrong?

[Jim Webster]

Just saw this on the Chessbase page.


1233 players at French Youth Championships


Wow!!!

[hamish olson]

France is a big country but yeah that is amazing. Am in France atm and they do have a good chess culture. Chess gets funding from a lot of the councils (according to the organiser of the tournament I played in last week) given to chess clubs to coach in school clubs etc. Was in Paris for a few days and have to admit I spent a lot of the time playing blitz in the Jardins de Luxembourg, they have 150 players or so who play 3 min blitz there regularly, I played one of the weakest players on their ladder competition (which is where I get the 150 players number from) and he seemed to be about 1700, some of the stronger guys were definitely better than me. I didn't plan to be playing chess there, I just was wandering about and saw some guys playing blitz. Think Scotland is doing some steps in right direction with online coaching but we need more programmes like David Leslie's - not a coincidence that 10 years after that programme in Aberdeen Bon Accord wins the Richardson for first time ever, it's a numbers game at least to a certain extent.

[Andy Howie]

Population of France is 65 million, We would need an entry of about 100 in comparison with per head of population.

Mike gets 200+ each session for the Lanarkshire Primary Schools league which is 2,600 scaling up to the size of France!

[Donald Wilson]

It's not just a matter of population difference - if I'm reading Hamish Olson's recent post on the junior page correctly, the French Junior Championship is restricted to the top 100 players at each age: so a 13-year-old boy rated 1600 wasn't good enough to take part. Do we have even 10 13-year-olds graded 1600 or over?

That's not to say that I think "we" (which I will interpret as the chess community in Scotland, rather than any specific organisation or set of organisations) are doing anything fundamentally wrong. The problem, as I see it, is that the people in charge of education in this country refuse to accept that we are no longer living in the nineteenth century.

[Andy Howie]

Morning Donald,

No but we do have 10 over 1400 which is not that far behind!

[Glynis Grant]

I had 650 children from age 5-18 the last year I organised UK chess Challenge.

Now that it is split into three areas there may be even more taking part.

I think we have a strong youth base for competitions and training throughout Scotland. Maybe it doesn't look good number wise because we are so spread out and don't have the road systems (motorways) that France etc have. This makes it difficult for places like Oban etc to take part in Centralised tournaments -- too much time traveling with youngsters, need for overnight accommodation etc.

GG

[Kevin Mayo]

Fear not, that will all be sorted under Independence.
The Scottish Government have asserted that there will no longer be any need for roads.
How, why?
Here's how it will be done. Close your eyes, tap your heels 3 times, uttering the words "there's no place like <desired destination>", and you will be transported there faster than the speed of light.
Faster than the speed of light? You say that's not possible?
Hmph. I will choose to ignore the vast body of independent tests, guidance, evidence, analysis and opinion, and simply assert that Einstein was wrong.
Assertion. It's a winner.

[Andrew McHarg]

Eh? What's that got to do with the conversation?

From past experiences it's clearly for the best to leave politics away from the forum.

[Kevin Mayo]

Eh? What's that got to do with the conversation?

From past experiences it's clearly for the best to leave politics away from the forum.

Good point, from past experience it's clearly for the best to leave the forum well alone.
The Independence debate is so important it should be way beyond politics.

[Andrew McHarg]

Good point, from past experience it's clearly for the best to leave the forum well alone.
The Independence debate is so important it should be way beyond politics.

Well the forum is what people make it. But despite how important the independence debate is, it makes little tangible difference to Chess in Scotland. However, this has proven to be a contentious issue on the forum in the past, and I'm sure everyone would rather not see that side of it resurface.

But anyway, I'm not a moderator anymore - so that's just my opinion. :p