Glorney Teams

[Andy Howie]

Chrome also works - just don't use Internet Explorer!

Dave has raised this with DGT

[robin moore]

First of all, many thanks to Dave Clayton for supporting the live boards, it's very much appreciated.

Some ups and downs results wise today but there are still plenty of points to play for tomorrow. Thought that was an interesting strategy pitching Leston and Colin straight back in this morning (u14 Robinson) after they both lost on Monday afternoon. I was expecting Euan and Callum to come in and I wouldn't be surprised if their opponents prep team thought so too. One and a half points vindicated that decision...nice one.

A special mention to a guy that gave me an awfy pasting the last time we played, Daniel Thomas. I love watching Daniel's games, he might be a little bit unorthodox but he is certainly direct and aggressive. He has scored brilliantly so far and totally deserves it.

[Phil Thomas]

Great results by Daniel this week. He decided a couple of years ago to coach himself and develop his very own unorthodox opening repertoire.

The ideal that all chess playing teenagers should aspire to

[hamish olson]

Looking promising for glorney team just now - murad should be better now that he's played Rb5 (I was only looking at Rb4 but it seems to be more accurate), lennart is playing extremely solid logical chess - liked c5 a lot. Ben looked to be in trouble when the rooks were on as e5 was weak and perhaps Bb4 was a strong idea that white should be able to make work but then the endgame with the knight vs bishop was not too bad and then white self-destructed by playing as if he was better still. Daniel was unfortunate not to win - perhaps slowing down would have made the difference but its easy to get nervous and play to quickly. Chigorin seems like a very good opening choice for him.

Looking decent in under 14s too!

[hamish olson]

some nice technique from ewan gray calculating that he could win the rook.

[robin moore]

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Congratulations to all the players and organisers. You are normally talking about roughly 160 persons (forty per delegation) from all areas of the British Isles arriving and departing at the venue via all routes. Stirling University looked a great venue and hopefully it will be under consideration for all chess events in the future.

The event is now drawing to a close and I wish to ask for thoughts and opinions as the event is fresh in everyone's mind. This event has been going since the year 1949, the format changing over the years.

At present we have an open U18 event (five players), a girls U18 event (three players) and two open events (U14 and U12-six players per team).

Traditionalists will say that's a good format, there is a nice blend of ages and genders.

These are the concerns I have...

The Euroyouth/World Youth events are played at U8,U10,U12,U14,U16,U18 for girls and boys. Does it not seem correct that we should try and emulate the agegroup format of these pinnacle events as close as reasonably possible?

I am worried on two fronts...

1/ We may lose some of our best U14 players as they are good enough to play in the Robinson (U14) event but may not be good enough for two or three years to play in the full U18 Glorney (an U16 section could be a solution).

2/ I am most concerned that we are not giving enough of our youngest players opportunities to represent Scotland at international level. If we had an U10 section at the Glorney and for that matter the Liverpool Quadrangular (end of November, beginning of December) could that be a step in the right direction? I don't feel the Liverpool event is particularly worthwhile for U16's (the standard is lower) but definitely is for U14/U12. To me, an U10 section addition seems a better fit for Glorney and Liverpool.

[harrymarron]

Is this the same world youth event that were talking about not sending kids to this year cause its too far away and too expensive? Not really sure how that fits together Robin. Of more concern than the format would be the fact that we lost 30 of the 36 Stokes matches and failed to win a single game in the Gilbert. This should raise questions for Clubs, Coaches and Selectors as we are clearly not good enough at these ages. Let me make it clear that I' a big fan of young people who do their best, this is not the fault of any of the kids taking part who I'm sure all tried their hardest. Well done to everyone for the effort and the Glorney and Robinson teams who performed solidly.

[Andrew McHarg]

I think we are better than many of the match scores would suggest. Our selectors chose a fair combination of our best players at those age groups, and the kids all then went to Stirling and tried their best. A lot of the games that swung against us were close, often coming down to only relatively small differences in ability and experience. But there were moments of brilliance from many of our players as well! :ymapplause:

[robin moore]

I had a look at the 2014 South Africa World Youth details after Harry mentioned it a couple of posts above. If we are not sending a squad, I can understand why. The first couple of things I came across was the English IJD warning that the staging of the event itself was in doubt and a letter from Fide to the organisers complaining about the delay in publishing full regulations plus the cost of the (shared) accommodation which was twice that of any previous event.

The regulations were eventually published a few weeks later. The organisers were not providing free accommodation (as normally happens) for a head of delegation or a coach (unless they had a full Fide trainer qualification). At a conservative guesstimate it would therefore cost CS £4K plus to send these officials.

I fail to see who the South African organisers are expecting to turn up at the technical meeting to register the players or who they will be in contact with throughout the event.

There is no sign anywhere of any squads that have indicated they will be attending.

In 2015 the event is in Greece so hopefully at that event we will be back to normal.

[hamish olson]

Is this the same world youth event that were talking about not sending kids to this year cause its too far away and too expensive? Not really sure how that fits together Robin. Of more concern than the format would be the fact that we lost 30 of the 36 Stokes matches and failed to win a single game in the Gilbert. This should raise questions for Clubs, Coaches and Selectors as we are clearly not good enough at these ages. Let me make it clear that I' a big fan of young people who do their best, this is not the fault of any of the kids taking part who I'm sure all tried their hardest. Well done to everyone for the effort and the Glorney and Robinson teams who performed solidly.

This year is a bit of an exception as Robin has already highlighted (the euro youth is in georgia which is similarly awkward/marginal on safety). Changing the format is unlikely to happen(and I don't think Robin is suggesting this as a panacea or anything close!) but if it did to Robin's suggestion the stokes players would be more experienced as they would have probably played in the u10 squad in previous years. His point about u16s often not getting to play for Scotland for a few years till they are 17/18 is extremely valid and certainly resonates with my experience a few years ago.
Regarding the Stokes, I would like to point out that it wasn't really a case of Scotland having a bad year but rather the other countries having a good year. Look at the grades of last years stokes competition - Scotland is roughly the same standard but the others are not : <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chessscotland.com/event2014/Stokes_Cup.html">http://www.chessscotland.com/event2014/Stokes_Cup.html</a><!-- m -->

With that in mind I think a more positive outlook is appropriate. Rather than berating ourselves for a bad result (that was quite possibly made to look worse by variance), we should be asking ourselves what the other countries, particularly in my view Wales, are doing right. Might seem a bit of a strange choice but when I played my first glorney then I was told by a friend who had played the glorney that so long as I beat the welsh player then I hadn't disgraced scotland. The next year Wales did considerably better, winning the u14s and the only player I didn't register a win against was the welsh player!
Another point is to look at the standard of our u14 team - the top 4 boards would all have been serious contenders for selection for the world youth even if they had been in the u18 age group when I was 18! I think this shows the strides we are making, and I think this is partly due to the online coaching scheme.
That said there is plenty of opportunities for improvement if we all row in the same direction and make positive suggestions rather than putting ourselves down without any reason.