8. New Business

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I don't think I can support this motion, when it comes up at the 2013 Spring Meeting.

I think the concept of the Selection Committee purpose is still sound - to build a very small bit of flexibility into the Olympiad team selection process. It allows Canada to bring in a clearly underrated player, who equals in strength the rating selected team members.

But I don't think the Committee should ever be selecting more than one member of the team. The Rating Selection should be the objective norm that generally applies to the majority of team positions.

But we should keep the door open for the system to take advantage of the unusual circumstance.

Bob A

The problem with the selection committee approach is that it is never then about the clearly underrated player. It is about the different members of the committee applying their personal and regional biases. For some people, representing their country in an Olympiad is a very significant dream and milestone in their chess career. Anything that is done to make this process less transparent, objective and fair, by introducing personal biases and something as unscientific as having a committee make decisions about chess strength, seems to me to be wrong. If we could get borrow the enchanted mirror from the Snow White fairy tale we might ask it who the strongest chess player was but we don't have that luxury.

[Vlad Rekhson]

After witnessing all the unnecessary quarreling in respect to the selection committees of the last two Olympiads, I believe that anything would be better than a selection committee. Deciding by rating would be just as good as, if not better than any other system. Of course, there can be disadvantages to that, but if we agree on it now then at least we will know that there will be no bias in respect to one player or another.
As an alternative to deciding by rating strictly, one spot could be decided by a special tournament, which of course would be quite expensive to organize. It could also be decided by a special formula figuring out a rating trajectory of a “hot” player, but since I don’t want to design such a formula I wasn’t going to make a motion considering that possibility. In fact, drawing a random lot among the top five contenders for the last spot, would still be better than having a selection committee!

[Christopher Mallon]

No need for a special tournament Vlad. Just take the top 5 finishers from the Canadian Closed.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Please clarify: If motions would pass during the Spring session (April, 2013), would they be applied for 2016 and afterwords Olympiads?

2014 Olympiad (in Tromso) starts on 2014 August 1. The CFC selection process starts one year + 180 days before the Olympiad, roughly February 1, 2013.

In a case a motion to scrap the Selection committee would be presented for vote, I would move a conditional motion to increase the number of rated games to 20 in this clause:
"iii) Have played at least 10 regular CFC rated or FIDE rated games during the year prior to the start of the selection process (which begins 180 days before the start of the Olympiad)."

[Christopher Mallon]

Please clarify: If motions would pass during the Spring session (April, 2013), would they be applied for 2016 and afterwords Olympiads?

2014 Olympiad (in Tromso) starts on 2014 August 1. The CFC selection process starts one year + 180 days before the Olympiad, roughly February 1, 2013.

In a case a motion to scrap the Selection committee would be presented for vote, I would move a conditional motion to increase the number of rated games to 20 in this clause:
"iii) Have played at least 10 regular CFC rated or FIDE rated games during the year prior to the start of the selection process (which begins 180 days before the start of the Olympiad)."

It used to be 20 didn't it? Maybe 8-10 years ago?

[Michael von Keitz]

Please clarify: If motions would pass during the Spring session (April, 2013), would they be applied for 2016 and afterwords Olympiads?

The intention of the mover and seconder is for these regulations to apply for 2014. Under our current rules, things truly get underway no less than 180 days before the Olympiad, with the appointment of the Selection Committee. If this motion were to pass in April, that process would not yet have begun.

I would move a conditional motion

Amendments may be discussed with Fred and Vlad prior to the April meeting. Their purpose in presenting the motion now was to garner feedback.

[Christopher Mallon]

The intention of the mover and seconder is for these regulations to apply for 2014. Under our current rules, things truly get underway no less than 180 days before the Olympiad, with the appointment of the Selection Committee. If this motion were to pass in April, that process would not yet have begun.



Amendments may be discussed with Fred and Vlad prior to the April meeting. Their purpose in presenting the motion now was to garner feedback.

The problem is that while the Selection Committee might not be involved yet... the ratings period will have already started by April and so the rules would be getting changed DURING the process.

[Michael von Keitz]

The problem is that while the Selection Committee might not be involved yet... the ratings period will have already started by April and so the rules would be getting changed DURING the process.

I am not convinced it's a major issue. Although the Handbook says 10 games, Ilia has always gone with 20 (e.g. here). As far as the players are concerned, this won't be a change in policy.

[Félix Dumont]

With regard to 2013-S Olympic Regulations (McKim/Rekhson) how would this function in light of the FQE-CFC agreement where we agreed that they would have a voice on the selection committee? It seems to me that getting this voice was at least one impetus to their wish to enter into such an agreement. If you eliminate the selection committee (which in general seems like a good idea to me) then we need an agreed upon formula to convert between FQE ratings and CFC ratings for purposes of choosing national teams before we eliminate the committee or at least at the same time as we eliminate the committee.

The solution is actually rather simple : why wouldn't we use FIDE ratings?
It would be much better and simpler... I still can't believe we consider CFC ratings for the Olympiads, while we all know that they are not accurate at all and highly depend on the number of tournaments a player participates in every year.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

I am not convinced it's a major issue. Although the Handbook says 10 games, Ilia has always gone with 20 (e.g. here). As far as the players are concerned, this won't be a change in policy.

There are other posts:
http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/sh...6454#post16454
Seems that the real threshold is 10 games. Ilya just stopped counting games after it reached 20 games.