Preregistered list for the Scarborough Chess Club Howard Ridout Swiss

[Steve Karpik]

Save yourself the stress. Save yourself having to line up. Be relaxed and well rested for your chess game. All of these benefits come from pre-registering. Email me at info@ScarboroughChessClub.ca to enter the Howard Ridout Swiss which starts tomorrow (September 12, 2013).


Howard Ridout Memorial Swiss: 1800+ (Alphabetical)
1 Doug Gillis
2 Thomas Guo
3 David Krupka
4 Michael Li
5 William Rutherdale
6 Sam Sharpe
7 Chris Udrea
8 Pino Verde
9 Harry Zhao
10 Harmony Zhu

Howard Ridout Memorial Swiss: U1800 (Alphabetical)

1 Robert J Armstrong
2 Doug Gillis
3 Ken Kurkowski
4 Phillip Liang
5 Benjamin Lin
6 Maurice Smith
7 Constance Wang
8 Dean Ward
9 Yanchun Zhao

Howard Ridout Memorial Swiss: U1600 (Alphabetical)

1 Hamid Azizi
2 Dinesh Dattani
3 Richard Feng
4 Nameer Issani
5 Steve Karpik
6 Justin Li
7 Bill Thornton
8 Nicholas Vettese
9 Jonathan Zhao

Howard Ridout Memorial Swiss: U1400 (Alphabetical)
1 Mark Bercovici
2 Mysha Gilani
3 Aahil Noorali

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Preregistered list for the Scarborough Chess Club Howard Ridout Swiss

The moving to 4 sections from 3, was due to the SCC AGM passing such a motion (slightly amended), brought by member Will Rutherdale, and seconded by me (also a member).

We hope that this will make the sections even more competitive than they were before, as the rating spread between players in the sections will now be less than before.

Bob A

[Sam Sharpe]

Re: Preregistered list for the Scarborough Chess Club Howard Ridout Swiss

If the goal is to make the sections more competitive due to less rating spread, does it make sense to remove the ability to play up if you're withing 100 points? With 200-point section gaps, basically 1/2 the players might not even be playing in "their" section. Just a thought.

[Bob Armstrong]

Tightening up the Middle Two Sections - Scarborough Chess Club

Hi Sam:

We miss you at SCC!

You are correct not allowing playing up would further tighten up the sections.

But the issue was a balancing of member interests.

As you know, SCC now has 50% of its swiss registrants being juniors. About 60% of them are likely stronger than their ratings. For them to improve the quickest, they need large section rating spreads - a low-rated but strong junior knocks off someone like me (1556) and gets a basketfull of my rating points, + a basketfull of bonus points, and jumps up his/her rating closer to his/her playing strength.

Also, a number of our juniors are sent to SCC for specifically the playing up option, for the reason given above. We did not want to lose these juniors by cancelling the playing up.

At the same time, tightening the sections a bit gives us declining adults a bit of relief from being beaten up by the lowest under-rated juniors. They have to be a bit closer to our rating now, so when they beat us, they take a couple of less rating points from us.

So the tightening up of the sections was done mildly - a saw-off of interests.

Members seemed happy with the 300 point range two middle sections last night.

Bob A

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Tightening up the Middle Two Sections - Scarborough Chess Club

But the issue was a balancing of member interests.

I notice there are only 31 entrants. How many members are there at the club these days?

[Bob Armstrong]

Allowing Playing Up Makes NO Difference - Scarborough Chess Club

Hi again Sam:

I have reconsidered my explanation above in one respect.

It really does not matter at all whether playing up is allowed or not. The middle two sections still remain, effectively, a 200 point rating spread.

The reason is that although, for example, the 1500's play up into the U 1800 section, at the top, the 1700's nearly all play up in the 1800+. So effectively the 2nd section becomes 1500 - 1699. Same happens in the U 1600 3rd section.

Bob

[Bob Armstrong]

Let's Talk Numbers - Scarborough Chess Club

Hi Gary:

We had 95 players for round one. We were getting slightly under and over 100 registrants by the end of the tournaments last season (we allow entry at any time). But usually we have not started Rd. 1 so high! We'll definitely break 100 again for this tournament.

Here is the breakdown:

i) 1800+ (1800 and up) - 18
ii) U 1800 (1600 to 1799) - 20
iii) U ...1600 (1400 to 1599) - 17
iv) U 1400 (0 to 1399) - 40
(Note - playing up is allowed if you are within 100 points of the floor of the next section up; or you can opt to stay in your own section)

The actual fully paid-up membership is likely around 125 now (not all members play in all tournaments). Our membership is now 50% juniors.

Bob

P.S. The 31 figure you noted was just the pre-registrations. SCC is still working on educating members that it is easier on the Pairings Administrator, if members pre-register by e-mail. But unfortunately, with non-registered playing members, and new members joining on site, our pre-regs are not even 50%.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Let's Talk Numbers - Scarborough Chess Club

Hi Bob,

I'm not a big fan of a tournament held in sections like that. It ends up as players in each section swapping rating points back and forth. Rating pools within a club like the rating pools we see from region to region.

The players in the lower sections don't get much benefit or chance to win an event. Probably many would be better off staying home and playing internet chess. The players in the upper section get the benefit of not losing too many rating points to lower rated players. They also don't get the experience of beating some of the openings weaker players use.

Howard used to play all comers and it's nice there is an event for him.

I met Howard in Winnipeg around 1960, give a year or take a couple of years. There was a coffee shop. Myself and a friend used to drop in to try to win some coins from the regulars. Howard always had time for us and I noticed his openings were much more varied than most who played there. We had no idea who he was.

He showed up at an event we had, maybe it was the Manitoba Open, and had a high placing as I recall. After that we remained friends through the years.

Howard was into his 40's when I first met him and I was still a junior. By today's standards, Howard was playing at least IM class. I still recall the simuls he did at malls.