Richardson 2012-13

[Alan Tate]

I'm going to save a lot of wasted typing...

Have the 80 point rule, fine. Just publish pairings the night before. Fide rate the event, use Fide ratings for board order.
Simples

[andyburnett]

If one team recruits players with similar grades eg Muir=Redpath=Coffey which gives more flexibility than another then they should be praised.
For Dragons: Burnett = Bathie = Cocuzzo. If Bathie and Cocuzzo don't play then it is Dragons fault.
I want to encourage as many strong players as possible and don't want the 3rd best player to always get weak games and put him off.
Why not prepare for Muir/Redpath/Coffey now, then when play Hamilton you have all the answers at your fingertips. I prepared for Burnett/Bathie/Cocuzzo and was happy to play all 3 or even Tate/Orr.
Variety is spice of life, keeps me young etc.

Those are my arguments for a 50/80 point rule

The problem here Andy is that it smacks of self-interest. You may have a point, but it shouldn't over-ride the simple fact that a rule should be fair to everyone involved - your team, ours and everyone elses. That's what the majority of rules do, and your version doesn't.

What is your objection to having the team lists exchanged in advance? (This seems to be a popular idea)

[WBuchanan]

Whether there is a rule of 50 points, 80 points or no rule at all, and whichever ratings system(s) is used (and even if team lists are exchanged in advanced), tactical options will still arise from the fact that the leeway that is permitted for a legitimate purpose (i.e. trying in good faith to play in genuine playing strength order) can allow the board order to be varied in order to meet a different, unstated purpose, like targeting a player ‘stuck’ on a particular high board.

One way of preventing this problem from even occurring would be to have a player registration system to set the order of the players in each team pool at the start of the tournament, with updates allowed to reflect form variations (and new players) so long as they were specified well in advance of a match. The requirement that teams should play in approximate order of strength could remain, but as there would be no tactical advantage to be gained by deliberately varying from the perceived playing strength order, this requirement could be made less specific – thereby, hopefully, avoiding most of the present arguments?

Might make life less interesting, though :-)

[JRedpath]

If one team recruits players with similar grades eg Muir=Redpath=Coffey which gives more flexibility than another then they should be praised.
For Dragons: Burnett = Bathie = Cocuzzo. If Bathie and Cocuzzo don't play then it is Dragons fault.
I want to encourage as many strong players as possible and don't want the 3rd best player to always get weak games and put him off.
Why not prepare for Muir/Redpath/Coffey now, then when play Hamilton you have all the answers at your fingertips. I prepared for Burnett/Bathie/Cocuzzo and was happy to play all 3 or even Tate/Orr.
Variety is spice of life, keeps me young etc.

Those are my arguments for a 50/80 point rule

The problem here Andy is that it smacks of self-interest. You may have a point, but it shouldn't over-ride the simple fact that a rule should be fair to everyone involved - your team, ours and everyone elses. That's what the majority of rules do, and your version doesn't.

What is your objection to having the team lists exchanged in advance? (This seems to be a popular idea)

I don't have a problem with exchanging team lists the night before, but as someone pointed out earlier what if there is a last minute withdrawal?

[Hugh Brechin]

The 'last minute withdrawal' point is a solid one, but it sounds more like an issue that would need considered rather than a reason to reject the idea entirely. Some variation on 'if someone can't play then the team is changed slightly and everybody copes with this', coupled with 'opposition are notified as soon as the situation is recognised' seems reasonable to me.

[amuir]

I am against team list exchange in advance and FIDE rating of Richardson for personal reasons .

If I am playing Alan Tate in an international tournament e.g. Gibraltar, I am in "professional" mode, I will be on my own and can do the same preparation for him as he will do for me. This is equal.

For the Richardson, I am in "amateur" mode : A typical conversation with my wife would be
Andrew : "Claire, can I play in the Richardson ? Will you babysit ?"
Claire : "ok but please make up for it"
If in addition I said
Andrew : " Can I spend Friday evening as well in order to prepare ? " she might say
Claire : "so you want Fridy evening and the whole of Saturday on your own selfish pursuit ? The answer is no".
Alan Tate being single has a considerable preparation advantage here.

[Alex McFarlane]

Just a brief comment.

The current rule states that players should be in order of strength. There is no mention of grade or rating.

I believe this is historical and dates from a time when there was only one list per year. It would have therefore been common for an improving player to be underrated by the later rounds of the event.

There is nothing in the rules about 80 points but I would say that it would be more difficult to show conclusively that players were in the wrong order if their grading difference is within this limit.

If team list were to be published in advance colours would need to be decided too. Substitutes would need to come in on the vacant board to minimise disruption.

I hope that Andy Muir was making a joke when comparing his potential to prepare to that of Alan Tate. Isn't he aware that Alan will have to prepare his own meal, clean his house, do the weekly wash, shop, etc. As a married man Andy obviously has a clear advantage.

[Craig Pritchett]

Thanks, Alex: for clearing up the fact that there is no actual "80 point rule" but that discretion is available to teams to vary their move orders within reasonable bounds that do not infringe such an "80 point rule" (or similar) were it there!

1. I think we do need an "80 point rule" (or similar ... and I'd be happy with "50 points") ... and it needs to be spelled out clearly in the rules.

2. It should be in respect of "published" rather than "live" ratings.

3. It should, however, critically, be permitted to refer either to CS or FIDE ratings, which is the way CS international selectors use ratings in their assessments of playing strength for selection purposes (they also occasionally use other, non-rating criteria, by the way) and which has solely to do with the fact that there are two potentially good but slightly different markers of "strength", whether anyone likes it or not, and they might well starkly conflict.

4. If the CS ratings published earlier in this thread are correct (I haven't checked as I can't get worked up about such things) Keti and I may have played out of strict "CS" rating order in the last Richardson round against Poly (as I may be some 30 CS points ahead of her on the last published list, a fact of which, if it is true, I have been quite blissfully unaware). Yet on "FIDE" ratings, which have in the past few years for both of us included almost all of our games, Keti is currently some 50 points ahead of me.

5. Of course, Keti should have played board 1 for Edinburgh West v Poly. But if CS insists on solely applying CS ratings without reference to FIDE, I'd be (perversely in my view) "forced" to play ahead of her. As a certain tennis player might have said, expletives deleted, "You cannot be serious!"

5. Without going into details (which I could), the reason for this is that the CS rating system is much more responsive to even short periods of "under-par" or "over-par" performances than FIDE, whose statistical drag calculation (especially for players, who have got over FIDE 2400) is much more pronounced than in the CS system ... both systems are as statistically "reasonable" as the other but clearly for the same players ratings can commonly be quite different. Having said that a "50 point" rule would more or less get over that purely statistical quirk.

[Jim Webster]

If one team recruits players with similar grades eg Muir=Redpath=Coffey which gives more flexibility than another then they should be praised.

Extracted from Rules for Richardson/Spens Cup

4 Each club shall be represented by eight players who shall be bona fide members of the club they represent. They must be normally resident in Scotland or within 50 miles of the normal meeting place of the club. They need not be the same throughout the competition, but no player shall represent more than one club in the Richardson and Spens Cups or Campbell Rosebowl in any one season. For every infringement of this rule, one point shall be deducted from the score of the offending club and added to the score of the opposing club

5 To be bona fide a player should have:-
a Paid the required membership fee for the current season
b Satisfied at least one of the following:
* Represented the club in other events in the current or preceding season
* Represented that club previously for an extended period
* Represented that club previously and no other Scottish club between times
* Had no affiliation to a Scottish club for at least 5 years and the chosen club is geographically acceptable (ie not necessarily the closest but either near to being the closest suitable club or one more easily reached by road or rail)

I shall be asking Richardson captains to make proposals for rule changes e.g. board order , FIDE rating in May and votes will be taken.

The board order issue actually applies to all 3 cups (Richardson/Spens/Rosebowl) and there is no mandate to restrict any decision on this to Richardson captains only. I admit that most of the discussion regarding this is from Richardson teams, but on this point the same rule applies to all competitions regardless of playing strength even though player preparation is much less likely in Spens/Rosebowl. Nor do I see anywhere in the rules that this type of method to implement change is actually legitimate.

I see things rather simply I'm afraid - the rules are those published and there is no mandate for anyone, other than Home Director, to change them other than the AGM

[Hugh Brechin]

They must be normally resident in Scotland or within 50 miles of the normal meeting place of the club.

Rats, there goes our plan to use Naiditsch as a ringer.

Craig's point about the higher variance of CS ratings leading to some funny situations at the top of the order is a good one - as a corollary (and one of which Craig is almost certainly aware) it should be noted that for players lower down the rating scale it's more usual for the FIDE ratings to be somewhat anomalous, for the much simpler reason that they're often based on rather fewer games - but I still don't like the idea of ordering players by a rating system which isn't used in the competition. I'm absolutely in favour of FIDE-rating the Richardson, and if that's put in place I'd be absolutely in favour of allowing teams to use either CS or FIDE grades for team ordering, but at present I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. Given that we seem to be looking at rating again for the next year, I'm hopeful that this won't be an issue anyway.