Sun 9th: Junior Congress
Tue 11th: Bobby Fischer Against The World
Sat 15th: Funding Vote
Sun 16th: What's wrong with 50%?
Wed 26th: Accidental October

Sun 9th: Junior Congress
I nearly missed out on this competition as Traci's email seeking support failed to arrive. Fortunately she also rang, and I was happy to turn out to officiate alongside her, Simon Edwards and Matthew Carr. Traci had also organised a team of other helpers who worked outside the playing hall to ensure a pleasant day for all. They deserve to be acknowledged by name, but I confess to not having all the info to do so.

84 children competed in 11 age groups, though some sections were merged for playing but not title purposes. With the help of sponsorship by Home Bargains an impressive display of trophies and medals was augmented by other prizes so that no-one left empty handed. No tears or memorable incidents come to mind, so I'll go straight to the list of champions - names for the future. I give the winning scores out of six. Some of these may seem a little small for champions, but remember in most cases the children played some games against those from other age-groups.

County ChampionscoreGirls championscore
U18Craig Whitfield6
U16Athar Mehmood4Laura Smith
U14Leo Tsoi5
U13Jack Healings4
U12*Daniel Holland
Alexander Jarvis
4Anna O'Leary
U11Jacob Boswell6Skye Wiggins3
U10Emily Chan4Edina Hassell
Katrina Pacaj
3
U9Daniel SmittenMaila Raymundo
Misha Twardochleb
U8Victoria Holland4Thyvyaa Rahulan3
U7Dominic Holmes4
U6Sakthivelan Pandy3
* Section won by Ashwin Kalyana (6 pts), who is not eligible for county title.
Section won by Sanam Chawla (5pts), who is not eligible for a county title.
Section won by Anish Kalyana (6 pts), who is not eligible for county title.
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Tue 11th: Bobby Fischer Against The World
No more than half a dozen of the league's players turned out to watch the screening of Liz Garbus's documentary Bobby Fischer against the World at Stoke. Did the rest miss anything? Firstly they missed the company of a sizeable number of film buffs who presumably turn out for every film. One of these seemed to regard the whole film as a comedy, chuckling at frequent intervals.

The film itself is a mixture of archive newsreel material and modern talking heads, all displayed to a background of forgettable music of indeterminate parentage.

The ninety minutes of film are shared roughly equally between pre-Reykjavik beginnings, The Match of the Century at Reykjavik, and post-Reykjavik escapades. In truth there is little new in the film for those of an age to have followed Fischer's career as it developed, perhaps a few details of his home life and upbringing; and of course the post-Reykjavik section was far from uplifting viewing.

The composition of the audience at Stoke was a reminder that the film would be watched mostly by non-playing film-buffs (or those with only a casual interest in the game), so the lack of chess analysis in the film is only to be expected. Bearing this in mind the coverage of the Reykjavik match was entirely reasonable.

However to me the film failed to to make the outsider appreciate Fischer's achievement and status. Yes, we are told that Fischer won the US title at 14, but the average viewer has no context to place this in. We see shots of Fischermania, but are given no reason to suppose this is any more justified than Henmania. As far as I can recall there was no mention of the 24 player interzonal that Fischer won by 3½ points, the best of 10 game candidates matches resulting in 6 - 0 thrashings of Taimanov and Larsen, or indeed of why such scores are exceptional. Fischer taking on Spassky could have been Tiger Tim trying to take down Sampras. Without truly appreciating the scale of his achievements leading to the world championship match one fails to realise the importance to Spassky of playing the match - winning by default would have left him a puppet champion. For how long and by how much was Karpov's title devalued by Fischer's failure to defend?

To me Fischer was more than a crazy man who became world champion and then quit to descend into unpleasantness. Maybe the outsider's perspective gives a sounder judgement, but I'm not convinced.
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Sat 15th: Funding Vote
There were two county matches played at bridge club today, so I spent the day there helping John Day to set up the room beforehand and return it to its normal state afterwards, with a bit of spectating and chat in between. Elsewhere the ECF AGM was in progress featuring a vote designed to change the way the organisation is funded.

The proposed Universal Membership Scheme (sounds better than compulsory) would see game fee replaced by tiered membership according to the type of chess played - lowest tier (bronze) would be for those only wishing to play league and other non-congress chess, a silver tier additionally entitles people to play congress chess, and the gold tier would add eligibility to play in FIDE rated events, which are excluded from the benefits of the lower tiers regardless of the structure of the competition. There would also be a platinum tier for people who want to give the ECF more money.

It is claimed that that it will be cheaper to collect than game fee, though it seems impossible to tell from the ECF accounts why this should be so - indeed more work apparently needs to be done on last years accounts before anything useful can be learned. Current Membership Organisation areas have strongly promoted the change, claiming their schemes work well. There does seem to be some danger in suggesting that because it works well in areas where both players and organisers want membership it will also work well where neither do. I am always wary of such extrapolations.

Illustrative figures of £12, £18, and £27 were quoted for bronze, silver and gold memberships respectively, with concessions only for juniors, but as it is the job of an April meeting to set charges actual figures are not known. To make the scheme stick charges of £1 or £2 (suggestioned values) will be levied on non-congress games played by non-members, depending upon the membership percentage amongst other players in the competition.

When the proposals were first announced it was anticipated that they would represent changes needing 75% support, but when it was realised that they could be interpreted simply as game fee of £1 or £2 for non-members they became subject to a 50% hurdle, rather convenient as they got 70% support at the AGM. Whether support in the country as a whole is greater or less than this is unknown. For example Staffordshire are rumoured to have supported the motion, but any local debate has passed me and probably most of my readers by.

It is not at all clear where the buck will stop in terms of collecting monies. Suppose at the end of the season the North Staffs league results are sent in for grading, and in return we are given a bill for £50 to cover games played by non-members. What happens if the bill is simply ignored or passed on to clubs who ignore it on the basis that if the ECF wants everyone to be members they should chase the non-payers themselves. Will the games be graded? Is this a recipe for bad feeling and/or bad debts? The ECF is already known as a body that allows people to organise their own chess, and then charges them for the privilege. Do they now want local organisers to act as gatekeepers, ready to bar entry to non-members?

Relative to current game fee arrangements the new plans benefit active players by putting a cap on their payments at the expense of the more occasional player. They also mean that organisations can create extra graded competitions or grade previously ungraded ones at no extra cost. Thus if clubs so wished they could have internal competitions graded. If you are a non-congress player and you want to see whether you gain or lose financially simply work out an implied game fee for your anticipated activities by dividing £12 by the number of games you expect to play. Current game fee is 58p. You could do a similar calculation for your club as a whole, which might be more meaningful as most clubs share the game fee costs of their league entries equally between members rather than allocating them according to the number of games played.

The ECF's chief executive officer has promised that an online procedure for becoming a member, or renewing or upgrading membership will be available before Universal Membership commences, with membership status readily checkable, as it will clearly need to be.

Some leagues are very unhappy with the switch. It remains to be seen whether enough of them will opt out and self-grade to adversely affect the ECF's finances. Despite the change to becoming a membership organisation from the point of view of finance, the ECF will for the time being remain a federation for voting purposes - you'll pay, but have no direct say on decisions. It remains only to be seen whether the change works as anticipated so that in a short time everyone will be wondering what the fuss was or whether problems in implemention leads to recriminations and some fragmentation.
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Sun 16th: What's wrong with 50%?
The sudden change declared from 75% to 50% required to pass the ECF resolution above brings into focus the question as to why 50% should not always be the hurdle for adopting a resolution. After all why go with the minority? there are two distinct situations where 50% is an inappropriate hurdle.

Firstly when an organisation is set up the founders will have (hopefully) a clear idea of what the organisation is for and how it should operate. Equally clearly the organisation needs to be able to evolve over time without being subject to changes that merely represent a passing fad. To balance the founder's vision with the need for some flexibility for necessary change constitutions often require more than 50% approval for changes to be implemented, thus providing the organisation with some protection against being hijacked.

Secondly some changes can be expensive in terms of time, effort or money to be implemented. A small majority could easily be overturned in a subsequent vote in a following year, immediately laying waste to these expenses. Few organisations are so flush with money and volunteer time that it is sensible to make such decisions on a 50% hurdle basis. Even raising the barrier just to 60% means that 1/3 of supporters would have to change their mind in a subsequent vote to reverse acceptance. In North Staffs doing away with promotion and relegation seemed such a decision, hence the 2/3 majority required. Doing away with the intermediate time control on the other hand was a decision simple to implement, and so subject only to a 50% hurdle.
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Wed 26th: Accidental October
Maybe its because it is the first full month of the season, but October featured a large number of accidents in my games. If I wait to write them all up properly I'll never get around to publication, so just sit back and enjoy the highlights (or do I mean lowlights?) as players who should do better don't.

RR v John Yee after 9 ... cxd5

Exhibit A comes courtesy of John Yee. Nine moves into the game and John is safely castled and RR isn't, but having exchanged pawns I am eyeing c7 with malice aforethought.

10 Nb5 attacking the d6 bishop and exerting pressure on c7 and the e-pawn.
10 ... Bb8, 11 Rc1 I really fancy Nc7
11 ... e4, 12 Nfd4 Ne8 adding defence to both c7 and d6.
But hang on. How did that happen. A moment ago the c8 bishop was protected by queen and both rooks. Now however ...
13 Qxc8 ends the game as a contest.
Roger Edwards v RR after 39 ...

Next up RR entertained Roger Edwards. With the game bogged down for long periods RR grabbed a pawn on move 35 and despite having the more air-conditioned king really should be favourite when we reach move 40:
40 Qh4
Roger's queen has been menacing me on the kingside for a while, and having previously kept her uncontrol omitted to realise I needed to do so again. h6 is an obvious move. RR's choice of Rd6 allowing Qxh7 was not his finest hour, as his king was about to discover!
RR v Paul Middleton after 14 ... Nfd7

On to the Scarborough congress where RR played Paul Middleton. paul has just provided his e-pawn with additional support, but finding simple tricks irresistable, RR grabs it anyway:
15 Nxe5 ?? Bxe5 ?? allowing the fork d4.

Not liking the look of 15 d4 Bxh2+ maintaining material equality despite the fact this leaves considerable dark square weakness around the black king, RR blunders on:
16 Bxe5 ?? Nxe5, 17 d4 with fingers crossed as he finally wakes to the error of his ways.
After a pause: 17 ... Ned7
Wipes brow and grabs the knight on c5. A safe pawn up and the ability to slowly crank up pressure on d5 eventually leads to an RR win. But what if 17 Bf4? RR's clever fork trick fails as knights jump into d3. So who's accident was this - mine or his?
Michael Parker v RR after 29 Qe4

Again RR tries to be clever. Knowing that eventually he can block a check woth his knight he offers the exchange of queens:
29 ... Qd5, 30 Qh7+ Kf8, 31 Qh8+ Ng8 as planned
32 Bh7 as overlooked!
There was no convenient perpetual hanging around, and although RR momentarily scared his opponent in the endgame around move50 or so, the result was never really in doubt.
RR v Carl Gartside after N(f6)e8

Last round at Scarborough, and time for RR to give Carl Gartside a present. Can you believe RR played 13 Qg4 allowing the fork f5 in response? I kept Carl at the table for many moves after this to no avail. One day I'll have to learn to play properly.
Back to the league and a game against John Booth.
John Booth v RR after 22 Nh4

A case of who is winning here? Both sides are directing their forces at the opposing king, though it is blacks e-pawn that is the biggest cause for concern. Time to panic.

24 ... Bxh3, 25 gxh3 white is still OK, though Rf3 forcing a material gain and protecting g3 would have been better
23 ... Qg3+, 24 Ng2 ?? Disaster. Rg2 would have been fine
24 ... Bd6 and black's threats are overwhelming.
So forget the idea about games being determined by small superiorities in play in an immense struggle between intellects. Its the blunders, stupid.
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