Tromso Olympiad

[Matthew Turner]

Adam,
Well done for organising some training matches for yourself. Clearly that shows that initiatives are possible without Chess Scotland necessarily having to be involved. However, can you give us us some ideas on how Chess Scotland could best help aspiring players like yourself? Money is always going to be an issue so let's combine wishful thinking with a bit of realism and limit you to spending £1,000 per person.

Alan,
How do you define par?

[Graham Morrison]

I think Graham Morrison's suggestion merits a lot of attention as it seems cheap and logical.

Graeme's suggestion to get training games in would be a great start. I really believe it would help people to play at a higher level. In order to prepare for the Euro Club Cup I have been playing some Eastern European IMs in training matches online. If something like this was set up in Scotland it would be great.

Well, at least a few of us seem to think that our collective knowledge, commitment and energy (ie, the things we control) can perhaps be harnessed to better effect without waiting for the mythical money-fairy. In any case, I shall commit to getting some details from Greg Shahade on how the US Training Events work and put a proposal to interested top players and juniors in the next few weeks.

Cheers,
Graham

[hamish olson]

Delighted to hear it!

[Andy Howie]

Jonathan, I would happily trade the smileys in exchange for voting up/down and some other features. Things could be pretty dull and tedious otherwise.

If I could get our esteemed webmaster to update the version of PHP on the server....

[Matthew Turner]

Ditto

[Adam Bremner]

Adam,
Well done for organising some training matches for yourself. Clearly that shows that initiatives are possible without Chess Scotland necessarily having to be involved. However, can you give us us some ideas on how Chess Scotland could best help aspiring players like yourself? Money is always going to be an issue so let's combine wishful thinking with a bit of realism and limit you to spending £1,000 per person.

Training matches are not free, but much much cheaper than an event, which is why I went for them. I maintain that in order to play at that sort of level, you need regular games at that level. It is why I like Graham's idea so much (sorry for the wrong spelling last post!). So I guess, how do you get regular FIDE games for aspiring players against good opposition is the question.

There is the obvious one of helping out with costs for big FIDE events. Of course if any player wants to play an event, they should have to contribute to it, so I would not suggest CS straight up pay for someone completely. Maybe CS could hire out a flat at wherever (which is always cheaper than hotels) maybe for two events during the summer and fill it with aspiring players. Flights and entry to be paid by the player. The Scottish is also a prime example of this, where helping with at least accommodation would be helpful. If you don't have your own place nearby, it ends up being as expensive as any other event. I don't mean that as a criticism, because there is not a lot can be done about it, it is just a fact. Now of course you could say, yes but with this one you support CS, but equally it should be a 2 way street.

I also wonder how many congresses would be able to maybe put a closed FIDE section in. Say a 6 player all-play-all. As much as I hate two games in a day, shoehorning FIDE games into weekenders seems to be one of the more realistic ways to get games. It really isn't important to make all FIDE events norm opportunities, because let's be honest, getting to FM first is more realistic. Of course titled players would need paid for this, but I am sure that aspiring players wouldn't mind an increased entry fee. After all, as I said earlier, it costs around £100 a game for 4ncl. However, finding titled players willing to put their rating at risk is difficult.

A lot of this is dependant on us finding this mythical money though. It is a very tricky one.

Of course, this is my opinion as a patzer on how things could be improved, and a lot is guesswork. As someone who actually knows what is needed to get good, what do you think needs doing Matt? What are the important things a federation needs to do to start generating more titled players?

[andyburnett]

Money is always going to be an issue so let's combine wishful thinking with a bit of realism and limit you to spending £1,000 per person

Not a lot of money, but still a lot of money to CS

Let's say CS give £1000 for a year to 2 ambitious players, on the proviso that they match that with £1000 of their own (personal/sponsorship/whatever). What can we do with 2 x £2000?

-Most of our promising (and leading) players do not have a coach. It is very rare for players nowadays to make any headway without a coach, so we enlist (paid) someone like Jacob Aagaard (whose coaching credentials are superb) to hold a 'training' weekend with the players to assess their abilities/goals/strengths/weaknesses and then devise a playing/training schedule for the year, with regular bi-monthly meetings/sessions to build upon this. Let's say we can keep this cost for the year to £1000 total.

That leaves £3000 for the 2 players.

If the goal is to improve to say FM - IM level, events are available everywhere in the world where our 2 players can play for rating points/norms.

Czech Republic is both cheap, cheerful and full of events aimed at our (2200+) players.

For about £600 each our players could play 2 closed IM events in a row in the summer (as an example, this IM event was held alongside the Open I played recently in Olomouc <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://chess-results.com/tnr141384.aspx?art=1&lan=5&flag=30">http://chess-results.com/tnr141384.aspx ... =5&flag=30</a><!-- m --> and also this GM event for stronger ambitious players (say Alan Tate for example) <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://chess-results.com/tnr141383.aspx?art=1&lan=5&flag=30">http://chess-results.com/tnr141383.aspx ... =5&flag=30</a><!-- m -->.

Combine this with local/national events for practice, then repeat again in January. (or whenever suitable; I mention these times only because I know the Czech Tour calendar works this way. Other place/events may be suitable also but Czech Rep. is hard to beat for this on a number of levels!)

Critical self-assessment, personal analysis, coaching and playing as often as possible against strong/stronger opposition. I imagine this could all be done within the budget I mentioned. CS could try to throw in a wee Scottish Champs. inducement also (free entry/accommodation etc.)

The players of course would have a responsibility to do their best, and perhaps having them write about/pass on their methods and results through e.g.junior coaching sessions would help instil a sense that it's for the common good of Scottish Chess as well as the individuals concerned.

Anyway, just a few thoughts - others will hopefully expand on this.

[D-Oswald]

Glad to see this topic has really taken off (it has been ignored for too long) and that some of our top players are giving their input as well as our aspiring 'next generation'.

I like Andy Bs idea. I think it would be worth considering having a development coach for all players aspiring to be titled... and consisting of getting an Aagaard/Turner/Shaw or a combination to take training sessions for these players and essentially giving them 'homework' to do in their weak areas.
From personal experience, I really struggle to study on my own, that is why the guys at Edinburgh CC meet up and do about 3 hours of puzzles and study every 2/3 weeks. This is is nowhere near enough. But being in a training group has helped, and that is why I think having a core 'development' group that was meeting fairly regularly and working together with a coach would be rewarded.
Regarding finances, some from CS and some from a development group could work.

The online training games also sounds like a good idea!

Probably get shot down for this but... How about Scotland's next FM, gets a guaranteed Olympiad place? Something to work towards for these aspiring players to aim for and as an improving player at 2300+ strength shouldn't be an issue. Scotland desperately needs a young budding titled player. It has been far too long.

[amuir]

Andy B: Both Alan Tate and I have played First Saturday before but the cost has gone up.
What would the total cost of a Czech tournament cost Alan (flights + accommodation + entry + food) to get 9 good games + chance of GM norm like First Saturday ?

[andyburnett]

Andy B: Both Alan Tate and I have played First Saturday before but the cost has gone up.
What would the total cost of a Czech tournament cost Alan (flights + accommodation + entry + food) to get 9 good games + chance of GM norm like First Saturday ?

The first Saturday tournaments are very expensive to enter and not as cheap accommodation-wise as Czech, although food-wise I hear they do have some old Hungarian classics on the menu at reasonable prices

Czech closed events for GM norms are more expensive - you're talking £200+ entry fee for players with a 2300-2350 rating although IM's get a 10 % discount.

For the IM events you're looking at about £100 entry fee, £100 return flights (max. if you book in advance), £150 accommodation if you share with another player and the food, etc. is cheap as chips
Playing 2 in succession can probably be done for about £600 as I mentioned.

Apart from Alan Tate and Andrew Greet we don't really have anyone strong enough to seriously be looking at GM-norm events though.

For aspiring players, improving to 2300+ through playing strong tournaments and hard work and then trying their hand at the IM-norm events seems like a sensible approach.