Scottish Championships 2019

[WBuchanan]

Lots of interesting points and ideas but before getting sidetracked I just want to know exactly how the vote went down and if proxies were used. 
Hopefully Alistair can publish his findings too.

You are probably referring to the 2011 AGM vote I mentioned in my reply to Alastair. That was the one referred to by Alex.
Minutes: https://chessscotland.com/documents/csin...s_2011.pdf
Agenda: https://www.chessscotland.com/documents/...a_2011.pdf
 
To answer your question Alan, 17 were present, including Matthew. A motion was passed by majority - it doesn't say overwhelmingly, so 9-12 votes in favour maybe?

1) The first thing about this vote was that the item was not on the agenda, it was under AOCB. So the issue never was put to the membership - it is not true that an AGM accepted Matthew's eligibility (I believe Alex believed this to be true, though).
There could have been no proxies, as the item/motion wasn't on the agenda.

I don't know who was what in CS then (others would); but the 17 present were mostly people who have held CS office. The ordinary members would appear to be in the minority.
In several ways this motion was hardly competent. Though, I believe few members would object to Matthew having a SCO code in itself (as he has done nothing wrong, and has contributed significantly to chess in Scotland) as long as this was not being used to bypass the criteria that bind other players.

2) The next main question is what did they vote for? The motion's wording, being ad hoc, was not on the agenda; so we must rely on the minutes which say the subject was

" 6.9  Matthew Turner nationality transfer", item 6 being AOCB.

The minutes say Andy Howie proposed that

" we process the transfer now and not leave MT stateless for another 3 months".

This does not refer to eligibility. The code is needed for FIDE to process ratings properly.

Indeed, Andy's attributed reason was that Matthew was 'stateless" - ie, didn't have a Federation code.
Nothing in the motion for transfer about eligibility for Championship or International selection.

3) In the discussion Andy preceded the call for a vote on the transfer by explaining that a motion to change the 'Scottish parent' criterion to Grandparent would be got together for an EGM. This was within the item about Matthew's nationality transfer; it looks clear there was an expectation this was needed if Matthew was to be eligible.

So...the transfer related to  the SCO code for FIDE and the suggested (future) Grandparent motion was for eligibility.

Hope helpful.

[Alan Tate]

Thanks for translating Walter :')

[Craig Pritchett]

I have nothing but great admiration for all the truly wonderful participants in the recent International Scottish Championships, which was played, as ever, in such an obvious spirit of mutual respect and boundless friendliness by all. I am especially grateful to all of the organisers, who, as ever, do such sterling work on an overwhelmingly voluntary basis to make such events in Scotland work and sustain Chess Scotland.

Poignantly, this year's event was dedicated to the memory of one of the most stalwart, quietly objective, effective and selfless of these Chess Scotland servants, Ken Stewart (1942-2018). I thought of him a lot at Edinburgh ... and of his endless ability to defuse tensions and solve problems, sometimes, Solomon-like, when all despaired. I'd like to ask his advice on the current thread, as there is an (apparent) very 'real' problem here about 'eligibility'. Sadly.

Here is what is actually logged at Chess Scotland's (own) 'international' link (though not easy to find) about selection criteria for Scottish (adult) international individual and team representation: https://www.chessscotland.com/internatio...sentation/

I presume that Matthew Turner, although registered through CS for FIDE international rating purposes (and therefore potentially eligible to represent Scotland internationally), still fails to meet any of these three 'selection' criteria. This has long been my own understanding and I well remember being (one of very many) consulted on the finalisation of these criteria some years back, when the issue was raised whether CS should relax the 'one parent rule' to include 'one grand-parent', which would admit Matthew to consideration  for selection to represent Scotland internationally. Those moves (for good or worse) failed to achieve a majority.

If this (published) definition of 'international eligibility for national representation' (CS's own published words) also holds for eligibility to contest the national individual Scottish championship title(s), then Matthew was clearly ineligible to contest this year's Scottish championship title ('only' the International Scottish Championship Open title, which he won hands down … fantastic play, by the way!). But do they?

I think most folk's 'assumption' has been that the nationality definition for international 'representation' extends to eligibility (or otherwise)  to contest national championship titles. That kind of makes most obvious sense. Unfortunately, however, there may actually be a legal lacuna here in CS's definitions. I cannot find any clarity on this on the CS website anywhere re: national titles.

Moreover while the 2019 entry form does indeed say (under 'Titles') that winners must satisfy 'Scottish nationality (SCO)', that only adds puzzlement to me, as it's far too cryptic and certainly unrelated to the only Scottish nationality definition (for international selection purposes) that appears to exist on the CS website, which I and most others (I guess) thought also applied to eligibility to win the Scottish Championship.

An act of Solomon!? I have some ideas. But I'll keep to myself just yet.

[Alan Tate]

I couldn't agree more regarding the comments about CS officials and organisers working tirelessly to provide us with Chess Scotland. I thanked Alex and Andy in person and I'm doing it again now. I admire Alistair White's honesty.
Matthew is an interesting player with a clear positional and practical style who I enjoy playing against and learnt from. I'd like to see him play next year. 
We all make mistakes. Clearly there are many issues with the motion in 2016 - these obviously need clarifying. Personally I don't care who is responsible. I just want to see the right thing done, and that is for Colin McNab to be given the title.

[Stuart McKinney]

24 games here

Link will be the same for the whole tournament

U1850 and U1500 draws will be posted at 10pm.

Hello Andy,

Are there plans to put up the PGN files for the U1800 and U1500 tournaments?

[amuir]

It's quite hard to retrospectively change the result e.g. Cricket World Cup , umpires may have made a mistake in the Stokes overthrow incident in awarding one run too many, but England have trophy. This would have to be done by a proposal to CS AGM.

[Alan Tate]

I don't follow cricket but fairly sure that if the winners were found to be ineligible then the 'result' would be changed.

[WBuchanan]

I couldn't agree more regarding the comments about CS officials and organisers working tirelessly to provide us with Chess Scotland. I thanked Alex and Andy in person and I'm doing it again now. I admire Alistair White's honesty.
Matthew is an interesting player with a clear positional and practical style who I enjoy playing against and learnt from. I'd like to see him play next year. 
We all make mistakes. Clearly there are many issues with the motion in 2016 - these obviously need clarifying. Personally I don't care who is responsible. I just want to see the right thing done, and that is for Colin McNab to be given the title.

I don't know what should happen now - but I do think it should be acknowledged that an error was made.

Edit: I do have a view of course - but this extends beyond this one Championship. The eligibility criteria for Championships (and International Selection, note) should not be changed by accepting errors on entry forms as the new policy.

[George Neave]

So far no CS elected official has commented. I hope we can expect some comment soon?

My observations to contribute to the discussion:

1) Whatever criteria apply, they should be same for eligibility to represent Scotland and compete for the Scottish Championship title.
2) Any change to these criteria must surely be put to the general membership and not for any individual to decide.
3) The amendment that I seconded a few years ago added that to be Scottish Champion you must be SCO affiliated. It is quite apparent the wording did not mean this removing existing criteria - only adding this as an additional criterion.
4) It seems quite well documented that the current criteria require one of birth/residency or parental inheritance apply. Unless somewhere it is documented that the organiser of the CS event is empowered to override this, then it seems to me that Matthew Turner is ineligible to be CS champion without a change of the rules.
5) Changing rules to allow grand-parental inheritance seems a perfectly reasonable proposal to put to the membership. I am sure there will be healthy debate should that topic be put forward.
6) As others have said, this mess-up really is unfortunate because it seems in every other respect this years event was very well run and in a great location.
7) Personally, I would like to congratulate GM Turner for being clearly deserved winner of the Scottish Open
8) Why is it that chess players, who must clearly possess fairly advanced powers of logical reasoning fail to get something this simple right? One of life's mysteries it seems!

I look forward to hearing from Alex and Jim for their views of all of this.

[David Deary]

I feel sorry for Matt in all this. He doesn't deserve to be the subject of this thread. Congratulations on your win btw!

As for the eligibility criteria it is archaic by comparison to other sports. Grandparentage is the norm for criteria now and it should be the same for chess. I'm quite sure if this was put to the membership it would pass. I'm happy to propose it for the next AGM. Any seconders?

Talk of taking back the trophy is frankly crass and unbecoming! The optics of that would be a PR disaster. Even more so than this thread!