WYCC is under way

[Ellen Nadeau]

We have 24 players representing Canada at the WYCC in Vung Tau Vietnam. The first round results are almost complete. You can find results at http://chess-results.com/tnr15980.aspx?lan=1 . Many arrived not long before game time but seem to be doing well for the most part.
Ellen Nadeau

[Ellen Nadeau]

First round Eric Hansen played against Canadian Alexander Martchenko and in second round is paired against Lloyd Mai. Poor Eric could have spent less money to play these two opponents in the first two rounds.

[Bob Gillanders]

This is ridiculous. We send a Canadian team to the WYCC and they play each other. I see from other posts that this happens all the time.

I think we should start a campaign to get the rules changed for 2009. At the very least, pairing rules should minimize pairings within a country.

What do say Ellen, shall we throw the full weight of the CFC behind this campaign ?

[Valer Eugen Demian]

This is ridiculous. We send a Canadian team to the WYCC and they play each other. I see from other posts that this happens all the time.

I think we should start a campaign to get the rules changed for 2009. At the very least, pairing rules should minimize pairings within a country.

What do say Ellen, shall we throw the full weight of the CFC behind this campaign ?

The chances to have an impact with such requests are similar with the ones CFC has to recouperate the money WYCC 2005 Belfort organizers (Mr Touze in particular) have overcharged quite a few Canadian delegation members. We have not seen a penny back more than 3 years later!...

Would the current CFC Executives be willing to look into that problem? I am willing to donate the amount they owe me (and it is not just a few dollars) if CFC manages to solve anything. Is that good enough incentive?

[Ellen Nadeau]

We have one player with 3 out of 3 . Kelly Wang in the U 8Girls is doing very well. Today is the 2 round day so we'll see if some players can get good results in the heat. GO TEAM CANADA!!!


PS Hi Valer I will ask about the 2005. From all I've heard it was an administrative catastrophy and there will be little chance of recuperating money at this point. I believe Patrick tried to get refunds for participants.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Games can be viewed at http://chessasia.net/?page_id=336
At this moment there is only form the first round.

[Jonathan Berry]

This is ridiculous. We send a Canadian team to the WYCC and they play each other. I see from other posts that this happens all the time.

I think we should start a campaign to get the rules changed for 2009. At the very least, pairing rules should minimize pairings within a country.

What do say Ellen, shall we throw the full weight of the CFC behind this campaign ?

It might get worse. Our four players in U-16 have similar scores, but they haven't played a mini-RR amongst themselves. Yet. Rd 7 showed no further intra-Canadian pairings there.

FIDE pairing rules tend to be strict. They are obsessed with reproducibility of pairings. And you can kind of understand that because somebody points out that the exact pairing rules were not followed, and then as a domino consequence their precious player received an unfavourable matchup. Changing pairings because of the origin of players is verboten. The penalty could theoretically be maximal: non-rating of the tournament, non-counting of norms. You can't blame the pairing committees for doing what FIDE orders them to do.

Another example of FIDE's policy on this is the World Cup pairings. Frequently they have highly avoidable intra-country pairings in rounds 1 and 2 of that event, but they don't budge.

If you wanted to mandate reproducible rules which prohibit intra-country matchups, it could get complicated. For example, if in a 40-player section, you have 10 Canadians, prohibition would badly skew the pairings. 20 Canadians and you suddenly have a Scheveningen tournament. 22 Canadians and prohibition makes it impossible to pair round 1. Oops, my bad. You give four Canadians byes in each round! A different example: two Canadians are in the lead. Do you never pair them?

Even now, FIDE pairing rules are not comprehensible to a human. They are a wordy flowchart for a computer programmer. That's one reason why some computer programs actually do produce perfect FIDE pairings: the rules are written for computers! Add a new complex schema for avoiding intra-country pairings, and the whole system becomes even less accessible, to humans.

At the 2006 Great Open in Morelia, with 722 players, I let the computer make FIDE pairings for the first six rounds, but then in the last round vetted the pairings so that players from the same state (in Mexico) didn't meet. As it turned out, I needed to change only one pair of pairings (i.e., one switch), and in a section that wasn't going to be FIDE-rated anyway. Given the opportunity (time doesn't always allow), I'd still make minor switches to avoid geographical pairings. Darn the torpedoes!

[Ellen Nadeau]

My WYCC Trip
By Janet Peng U8G

As I got off the Cathay Pacific Airplane, I felt hot and humid. I was finally at Vietnam! We got our bags and went to the shuttle bus. After three hours driving, we arrived at B&T Hotel to get our photo ID picture taken. Then we went to our hotel called Vungtau Intourco resort and had a later dinner. We went to our room and slept right away.

I woke up and saw the beautiful beach right in front of our resort. Then we went to the tournament place. It is very big. As the first round started, I was very nervous and scared. I saw so many people from different countries and so many good chess players as I walked into the room.

After 6 rounds, we had a free day. YEA, FREE DAY! We had a city tour and we went to four places. At the end of the tour, we went shopping at fine art market. I bought lots of things, like a wooden crab for my grandfather and a model motor bike for myself. Now I am ready for the 7th round.

I am so happy for my sister Jackie who is also in the tournament and is winning 3.5 out of 6 games

[Ellen Nadeau]

Leading Canada
Kelly Wang U8 5.5

with 4.5
Li Changh He U12
Tanraj Sohal U12
Eric Hansen U16
Jonah Lee U8

With 4
Arthur Calugar U14
Lloyd Mai U16
Shiyam Thanvandiran U16

Many with 3.5 and 3

[Ellen Nadeau]

Leading the Canadian Delegation
5.5
Jonah Lee U8
Kelly Wang U8G
Eric Hansen U16

5.0
Lloyd Mai U16

4.5
Liza Orlova U14G
Jackie Peng U10G
Regina Kalaydina U12G
William Graif U8
Tanraj Sohal U12
Chang He Li U12