4G. Master's Representative's Report

[Fred McKim]

A holding place for Victor Plotkin's Report.

[Victor Plotkin]

1. Change in the Olympiad selection rules.

Last year, Fred McKim and myself submitted 6 motions for Olympiad selection process. VMs approved 4 of them, included the most important one (Selection Committee is eliminated). While 4 out of 6 is not a bad result, I was really disappointed that the motion about bonuses for Junior players failed.

Probably, it was all my fault. I was concentrated in discussion about other motions, especially about FIDE-rating only for the National Team. Being sure, that "junior" motion will pass anyway, I did not pay enough attention to it.

I do not want to start discussion again. However, I want to express my opinion about this "junior" motion.

a. The initial idea of Selection Committee was to give more chances to younger players. By adding 20-30 points to juniors, I wanted to take the best from this idea.

b. The deadline for the Olympiad is about 5 months before the start of the tournament. In these 5 month "random junior" is expected to improve his rating, while "random adult" is expected to stay with the same rating. How many points "random junior" is expected to gain? In my opinion, about 10-20 in 5 months. It's a very modest expectation even for 2400-2500 players.

c. Theoretically, every junior is under-rated, because rating reflects past results and not the current strength. I believe, that junior improves every time, even if he does not play/study chess.

d. I am not talking here about "giving to junior extra motivation". I am talking how to make our Olympiad Team stronger. I believe, that our team is stronger with the junior rated X, than with the adult rated X+20 or even X+30.

2. Canadian Closed.

Many players, including myself believe that it was the worst Canadian Closed for the very long period of time. I expressed my opinion on Chesstalk with words "total disaster".

Not only organizers/arbiters are responsible for this "disaster". CFC executive and myself as a Master representative are responsible also. We all need to learn lesson from this fiasco. Canadian Closed deserved a much better attitude.

At least twice CFC violated it's own rules during this Canadian Closed

a. No free entry to IMs and no free accommodations for GMs/last winner/runner-up.

b. CFC executive granted a waive of 10-points penalty for 2 players (Hansen, Preotu) who did not play in Closed for Olympiad Team calculation.

If the want other people to respect CFC (or at least to take CFC seriously) we have to follow our own rules. If we do not like our rules, let's change them.

3. Olympiad Team.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Canadian Closed had an incident that could potentially destroy relationship between our top players. It's a very possible scenario that both Sambuev and Noritsyn will play in 2018-Olympiad. A Team Captain will have a pretty serious problem in 2018.

Actually, a very well-known conflict between Hansen and Sambuev started after Canadian Closed -2011 (misunderstanding about play-off/ World Cup spot) and deteriorated after Closed-2015.

4. Senior events.

Nowadays, we have more and more senior tournaments. One of them is World Senior Team (4 or 5 players) chess championship. This event is scheduled for Jun 30 - Jul 8, 2018 in Dresden (Germany). I will be senior next year (2018-1968=50) and hopefully would like to play there.

[Victor Itkin]

Victor,

Thank you for the interesting report and for the great job as Olympic team captain. 11th place is really outstanding result, not mentioning that in the last round the team was literally one chess move in one game away from drawing with US, which would result in the 4th place instead of 11th.

Also, I would like to point out that I share your concern about "junior motion", which did not pass. I agree with your assumption that the team will be stronger with X rated junior rather with X+20 rated adult. I may add to this that the team also will be more experienced in the following Olympiad, because this junior will be playing his second Olympiad instead of first. By the way, in the next Olympiad, because of failing of this motion, we may not have Razvan in the team.

My suggestion is that after having additional explanations about the "junior motion" in your report, Executive may want to put it for voting for the incoming meeting once again. If this will happen, I am prepared to second this motion.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Victor,

Thank you for the interesting report and for the great job as Olympic team captain. 11th place is really outstanding result, not mentioning that in the last round the team was literally one chess move in one game away from drawing with US, which would result in the 4th place instead of 11th.

Actually I think we were one move away from a winning position which would have meant Canada won the match instead of losing.



Also, I would like to point out that I share your concern about "junior motion", which did not pass. I agree with your assumption that the team will be stronger with X rated junior rather with X+20 rated adult. I may add to this that the team also will be more experienced in the following Olympiad, because this junior will be playing his second Olympiad instead of first. By the way, in the next Olympiad, because of failing of this motion, we may not have Razvan in the team.

My suggestion is that after having additional explanations about the "junior motion" in your report, Executive may want to put it for voting for the incoming meeting once again. If this will happen, I am prepared to second this motion.

In general, you are not supposed to vote on the same motion over and over though it seems to me that the Liberals may have added some wiggle room in the regulations and certainly made it more difficult to find explanations of the rules aside from the laws and the accompanying regulations.

[Fred McKim]

Actually I think we were one move away from a winning position which would have meant Canada won the match instead of losing.



In general, you are not supposed to vote on the same motion over and over though it seems to me that the Liberals may have added some wiggle room in the regulations and certainly made it more difficult to find explanations of the rules aside from the laws and the accompanying regulations.

I think we could have some discussion on the junior bonus and a decision made as to whether we want to try to vote on this again. In any event it wouldn't be in effect for 2018 Olympiad. I think one of the problems is that it may violate the Canadian Charter of Human Rights.

[Victor Itkin]

Actually I think we were one move away from a winning position which would have meant Canada won the match instead of losing

You are correct. However, as far as I recall, in both cases (irrespectively, if winning match vs US or if drawing it), Canadian team would anyway finish in the 4th place.

[Victor Plotkin]

I think we could have some discussion on the junior bonus and a decision made as to whether we want to try to vote on this again. In any event it wouldn't be in effect for 2018 Olympiad. I think one of the problems is that it may violate the Canadian Charter of Human Rights.

I believe, we can discuss it next year and make adjustment for 2020-Olympiad (if necessary).

About the Canadian Charter of Human Rights or discrimination - I don't see any violation here. However, the magic word "discrimination" was, likely the main reason for failure of this motion.

[Fred McKim]

I believe, we can discuss it next year and make adjustment for 2020-Olympiad (if necessary).

About the Canadian Charter of Human Rights or discrimination - I don't see any violation here. However, the magic word "discrimination" was, likely the main reason for failure of this motion.

Another way to tackle this is to define a "rapidly improving" player, who can be awarded a bonus. Perhaps something like 5 points added for every 50 FIDE points gained (or 1 point for every 10 points gained) in the past year. Gets away from the age issue.

[Victor Plotkin]

Another way to tackle this is to define a "rapidly improving" player, who can be awarded a bonus. Perhaps something like 5 points added for every 50 FIDE points gained (or 1 point for every 10 points gained) in the past year. Gets away from the age issue.

That means you want to artificially increase k-factor from 10 to 11 for fast improving players. If adult player A increased his rating from 2400 to 2500 you would take him instead of another adult B with rating 2509? Not sure about it.

I remember, one year I increased my FIDE rating from 2230 to almost 2330. I lost 70 points the following year. We do not know for sure if it's a real progress, or just a random fluctuation. For juniors, it's a different story.

[Richard Bérubé]

Mr Plotkin,

Your report concerning the Canadian Closed is completly unfair. This tournament was organized in Time pressure. Only six weeks. Nobody was interested to organize the tournament even if it was a zonal. The conditions were not perfect, but quite ok (lighting, space, parking, cafeteria on the site, bilingual web site, hotel nearby, games recorded). When you say «disaster», you probably refer to the case Sambuev-Notitsyn. This case was in fact very simple. CFC took no time to render a decision and it was supported by FIDE which is, in a way, the Supreme court of Chess.

A suggestion : as a CFC officer, you are not supposed to discourage organizers, but to help them. To have super conditions, this tournament needs at least 10 000 $ to 15 000 $ in sponsorship. This will surely boost the participation of masters. Any ideas ?

Richard Bérubé

[Michael Barron]

List of tournaments who needs an organizer

Somebody can tell me what tournament needs an organizer for 2017 ?
Women Championship ?
Canadian Closed (Zonal) ?
Junior ?

The FQE can surely organize one or two of those.

Richard,
The post above was made by you on November 11, 2016 during Quarterly Online Meeting.
At the same Meeting you was asked to organize Canadian Closed.
Since November everybody was sure that FQE will organize Canadian Closed and was waiting for your announcement, which came only in May.

Why do you say now you had only 6 weeks to organize it? :confused:

[Victor Plotkin]

Mr Plotkin,

Your report concerning the Canadian Closed is completly unfair. This tournament was organized in Time pressure. Only six weeks. Nobody was interested to organize the tournament even if it was a zonal. The conditions were not perfect, but quite ok (lighting, space, parking, cafeteria on the site, bilingual web site, hotel nearby, games recorded). When you say «disaster», you probably refer to the case Sambuev-Notitsyn. This case was in fact very simple. CFC took no time to render a decision and it was supported by FIDE which is, in a way, the Supreme court of Chess.

A suggestion : as a CFC officer, you are not supposed to discourage organizers, but to help them. To have super conditions, this tournament needs at least 10 000 $ to 15 000 $ in sponsorship. This will surely boost the participation of masters. Any ideas ?

Richard Bérubé

The word "disaster" perfectly and fairly reflects my opinion as well as opinion of many other players about this event. Indeed, incident in play-off contributed to my negative opinion. However, had the Closed have no play-off at all, I would have used the same word "disaster".

Actually, it was not only disaster, but also it was a truly unique tournament.

- probably it was the only tournament in Canada there GMs had (at least potentially) to pay entry fee,

- in was the only tournament in Canada with forfeit rate of 31% (9 out of 29 players did not finish the tournament)

- I don't remember any other tournament, where organizers allowed to player with rating 400 (!!) points below the cut-off to participate in the National Champiomship.

I agree with you, Richard. Some of conditions were normal, like lighting or air-condition. Student who fails usually doesn't score 0. He scores 10 or 20 or even 45. But the result is the same: he fails.

[Pierre Dénommée]

- in was the only tournament in Canada with forfeit rate of 31% (9 out of 29 players did not finish the tournament)



This is the withdrawal rate, not the forfeit rate. If 31% of the players have been forfeited by arbiters for any reason other then arriving at the chessboard after the default time, that would indeed have been a problem. In some countries, all the players who have withdrawn would have been suspended for three months but this penalty has been proved ineffective in preventing withdrawals.

[Victor Itkin]

Of course, it was the withdrawal rate, not forfeit; Victor just used inaccurate word. But organizers had different ways how to prevent these numerous withdrawals, for example:

a) not to allow players under 2200 rating at all;

or

b) to take from those players extra $300 collateral at registration, which would be returned only if the player has played all 9 games.

[Victor Itkin]

Of course, it was the withdrawal rate, not forfeit; Victor just used inaccurate word. But organizers had different ways how to prevent these numerous withdrawals, for example:

a) not to allow players under 2200 rating at all;

or

b) to take from those players extra $300 collateral at registration, which would be returned only if the player has played all 9 games.

[Fred McKim]

That means you want to artificially increase k-factor from 10 to 11 for fast improving players. If adult player A increased his rating from 2400 to 2500 you would take him instead of another adult B with rating 2509? Not sure about it.

I remember, one year I increased my FIDE rating from 2230 to almost 2330. I lost 70 points the following year. We do not know for sure if it's a real progress, or just a random fluctuation. For juniors, it's a different story.

I don't think players at the 2500-2550 level have these random fluctuations as much as lower players would.

[Halldor P. Palsson]

I think the CFC Executive better get the next Zonal nailed down ASAP.

A good start might be to tell organizers what the rules are & how much support the CFC is prepared to give.

[Gary Hua]

I think the CFC Executive better get the next Zonal nailed down ASAP.

A good start might be to tell organizers what the rules are & how much support the CFC is prepared to give.

Totally agree. It will be fantastic if Canadian Closed can be held on a yearly basis not just every two years. "Talk is easy" but "doing nothing about it" is equally easy too.

WE just need to find a way. Where there is a will there is a way