Olympiad Goals

[Alan Tate]

2. Andrew G says he finds it unsettling that it's not ok to not play.

Quit twisting my words; I said nothing of the sort.

I wasn't quoting you, merely pointing out that you don't seem to bothered by the current situation.

I find most of the views here backward, negative, or with agenda...

There's only one person who is blatantly pushing their own agenda here. Alan plays a lot of tournaments but missed out on selection this year. I believe he would like nothing more than to see a ruling put in place which might conveniently disqualify a few of the players who would ordinarily be chosen ahead of him on rating and consistency of results.

I restrained myself from pointing this out in my previous post as I didn't want the discussion to become too personal, but to see Alan, of all people, talk about others having an agenda is too much. Alan, you clearly have the ability to make the team when playing at your best, so I suggest that you focus on improving your own game and results. Leaving the discussion to prepare for your next tournament has been the most useful thing you've contributed to this thread so far.

Don't restrain yourself, I was hoping for more! You haven't pointed anything out yet though, I'm waiting.
This talk of disqualifying players is absolutely baffling. Do Quality Chess workers work 24/7 365 days a year or what?

I sincerely want as much competition as possible. Colin is a gentleman and a legend in Scottish chess having represented Scotland for the last 2 decades and I'd love to see him recover some form. Seeing you on board 1 and doing quite well is competition and it's motivating. Personally, I'd like to make the team on merit, but under no circumstances will I play on a lower board than players who don't know five moves of opening theory and play six games a year. This in itself is sufficient motivation for me to become a better player and I'm grateful to the selectors for their foresight in their selections.

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I'd like to offer some friendly advice about the openings in Baku: They were well below par. We don't have a hope in hell of scoring against the bigger teams if we give them clear advantages right out the opening. This is an area that really needs to be worked on but should be no problem given the wealth of opening books, strong players and authors that the majority of the team have access to.

When players refuse training, play crappy openings in spite of having this wealth of resources, don't interact at all with the fans, and don't play in Scotland, I have every right to ask questions and yes, as I've said before.... it's insulting.

My words are in the capacity of a Scottish chess player who cares more about how Scotland performs than individual players. I believe (perhaps wrongly given how sensitive some are) that all good players can respond to criticism positively. Sometimes I can't resist needling people but we're all adults here so you're just going to have to deal with it or ban me so you can carry on being nicey nicey Scotland who never wins. Think of me as a cross between Roy Keane at the 2002 World Cup and Conor McGregor.