04-03-2014, 10:11 AM
Andy,
Again some very good points and I suspect we agree about 90% of this stuff. To address a number of points you have raised
1. I don't think it is a good idea that the Scottish Champion should be automatically selected for the Olympiad. This is for two reasons
a) It 'forces' some strong players to compete and enables the organisers to get away with putting on a substandard event. We should want a vibrant Scottish Championships where the top players want to compete.
b) There may be reasons why an International Director shouldn't select a player (confidential medical information for example). Forcing their hand just makes a volunteer's position untenable.
2. You still haven't heard a defence to the point that certain players are using the system for purely personal reasons - well of course not, because there isn't one - some are!
3. I wish you best of luck with your quest to gain 150 points to make it into the Olympiad team, but I would also say be careful what you wish for. To restate again I would very much like to play in an Olympiad for Scotland one day, but would I really like to play in 2034? Really it should be Murad, Kai and Vagif by then shouldn't it?
Matt
Again some very good points and I suspect we agree about 90% of this stuff. To address a number of points you have raised
1. I don't think it is a good idea that the Scottish Champion should be automatically selected for the Olympiad. This is for two reasons
a) It 'forces' some strong players to compete and enables the organisers to get away with putting on a substandard event. We should want a vibrant Scottish Championships where the top players want to compete.
b) There may be reasons why an International Director shouldn't select a player (confidential medical information for example). Forcing their hand just makes a volunteer's position untenable.
2. You still haven't heard a defence to the point that certain players are using the system for purely personal reasons - well of course not, because there isn't one - some are!
3. I wish you best of luck with your quest to gain 150 points to make it into the Olympiad team, but I would also say be careful what you wish for. To restate again I would very much like to play in an Olympiad for Scotland one day, but would I really like to play in 2034? Really it should be Murad, Kai and Vagif by then shouldn't it?
Matt