Turner - Gormally

[Alan Tate]

Most of my best tournament performances have had at least one short draw. It does help to conserve energy but it doesn't look great from a spectator point of view. If there are no Sofia rules then you can't blame the players. It did strike me as a bit arrogant for the top 2 seeds to do this and not set the board back up, but I'm sure this was not the intention of the players.

[Alex Gillies]

Andy likes live boards left so he can check final position.

[Phil Thomas]

I don't blame the players at all - the organisers might want to think about making conditions for titled players "conditional" on fighting chess but that is up to them too. Would have been more fun to watch if it had been a game although if they want a draw badly enough they could always do some contentless Re1 Berlin line and trade everything....

I see a player with conditions as being equivalent to an employee accepting a contract to work for 9 days.
Future offers of a 9 day contract would be more likely if employee performed well (=in this case brought along IM or GM title risked grading points, played well and entertained the audience)

That's how things work in the business world.

[Jonathan Livingstone]

Alan's original point, he was really just saying out loud what we were all thinking really. There can't be anyone who would not have preferred to have seen a proper game played out rather than a shorty.

If I understand things correctly there is no NORM opportunities at this event? As there is a lack of foreign titled participants? In which case does it really need any condition type funding to add 1 or 2 more titled players to the player pool?

Perhaps the model in place could do with some tweaking? Would it be better for instance if CS looked into giving conditions to our own titled players to get them back playing on the weekend circuit? That would add some much needed support and revitalisation to that part of our game.

[Alex McFarlane]

If I understand things correctly there is no NORM opportunities at this event

Wrong. Each federation is allowed to nominate an individual event and a team event where the foreigner rule can be ignored. These are usually the national championships.

Unfortunately no-one looks likely to achieve a norm this year.

[Clement Sreeves]

For the purpose of norms,

I see a player with conditions as being equivalent to an employee accepting a contract to work for 9 days.
Future offers of a 9 day contract would be more likely if employee performed well (=in this case brought along IM or GM title risked grading points, played badly and entertained the audience)

That's how things work in the business world.

[Alan Tate]

The chances of getting a norm in such a field are so unlikely it's not even worth thinking about. I'd rather see big cash prizes (the prizes were generous already) instead of pointless appearance fees on players who come along, play mediocre chess and somehow mop up all the cash.

[Matthew Turner]

I do feel that a few comments are a bit unfair here. I think if you take my 9 games as a whole there is some pretty fun and exciting chess. I played the same opening against Andy Muir and fought very hard for the win (but failed to get it). Danny had obviously prepared, neutralised the opening and I felt I had nothing. I was happy with a draw, but if I had gained a slight advantage then I would have tried to win; I didn't so I didn't.
In this particular case Sofia rules or the like are unlikely to have made a big difference, you'd have just seen 20 more moves of turgid stuff. I have no problem with Sofia rules and the like so if they were introduced that isn't an issue.
As an aside, I would agree with Alan that the prize money was quite generous, but the appearance fees were fairly modest (less than half what I spent on accommodation).

[Alan Tate]

Honestly Matthew, there's nothing to prevent anyone from playing how they want or drawing when they want. If I figured out a way to be more practical even if it meant playing sub-optimal moves quickly, I'd probably do it if it improved my results.
About your Catalan v Gormally. If you don't think White has anything in that position then you should probably play a different opening. Far from deep preparation, Black played a line that looks like he will be slightly worse for some time. I would go into details but I made a conscious decision today to stop educating my opponents But of course offering a draw is within the rules so you really don't need to explain.
No idea where you stayed so can't comment on the size of the fee, but I still don't know why any player is given an appearance fee when norms are virtually impossible and the first prize is £2000.

[Matthew Turner]

Alan,
There are many ways of running an event, but it sort of is the bottom line that if you want professional players then you have to offer appearance fees (or at the very least this is a more cost effective way of getting players to play rather than offering big prizes). I would say that the fees at the Scottish were quite considerably below the 'market rate', hence the reason why there were very few, if any, professional players.
I am not complaining about that; I enjoyed the tournament a lot and I am very grateful to all those who put in a huge amount of work to make it happen.