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This is what I have posted on the CFC discussion board in the news section:
Hello everyone,
There is an erroneous report on the CFC newsfeed that names Mali-Jade Ouellet as the selection committee nominee to the women's olympiad team. She is on the team but she is on by rating and not by selection committee. The report lists Nava Starr as being the fourth member. Nava had declined her invitation giving an opportunity for some new faces to emerge on the international stage for Canada's Women's team.
Men’s Team Selection =
Alexandre Le Siege
Women’s Team Selection =
Lali Agbabishvili
I would like to thank the members of the committee for their deliberations and for their quick decisions.
Whoever posted that didn't know because her name is on that list. My question is how did he/she know who the 5th player is.
You would have to ask the person who posted the report. My guess would be that they talked to someone involved in the process and the message got garbled. When I first heard that Mali-Jade was a member of the team (from Hal Bond in a Skype conversation) my initial reaction and belief was that she was there by the committee decision but no, I was informed that she had moved up the rating list as a result of her recent series of tournament successes which is great.
I would really love to hear the selection committee's reasoning behind this. 19 rated games played in the last 10 years, and those recently played 19 games did not exactly indicate he's at his full old strength (multiple losses and draws to 2300 rated opponents).
I'm confused. Before WIM Nava Starr declined the invitation the Canadian Chess Newfeed had the 5th member of women team. How was this possible without an official announcement from the selection committee?
The news feed item you linked was apparently posted on April 10th, four days after Nava declined her invitation.
I have two questions (not directed at you, Rene, unless you happen to have the answers):
1. Who is Hou Ji Yao, the person who posted the CFC news feed item Rene linked? S/he isn't a member of the selection committee. Is s/he an officer of the CFC or does s/he work in some capacity for the CFC that would give her/him the authority to publish an item on team selection on the CFC's news feed? Or is it the case that any Tom, Dick, or Hou Ji Yao, can post anything they want on the CFC news feed?
2. Why do we have to go through this every two years; i.e. this repetitive b.s. of selection mistakes, news leaks, questions about who has the authority to do what, etc.? Can't we just have one Olympiad year when all this crap operates smoothly, when the announcements are made when they're supposed to be made, etc.? FIGSOTCOBS!!
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
Re : Re: The very final list for the National Team
Houji is an undergraduate student at McGill university. The point of the CFC Newsfeed is (was ?) not to provide official statements but to keep people posted about what's happening in the Canadian chess world. It's not a forum but a news feed managed by John Upper and McGill students, and I don't think Houji considered whether or not he had the authority to post this, he just saw it on Facebook and posted it to let people know about it. The students have been posting pretty much anything they felt was relevant or worth posting.
Anyway, if you have any problem with the CFC News Feed in its current form it's a non issue because the McGill Chess Club will not be contributing to it anymore after this month.
Re: Re : Re: The very final list for the National Team
Originally posted by Roman Sarrazin GendronView Post
Houji is an undergraduate student at McGill university. The point of the CFC Newsfeed is (was ?) not to provide official statements but to keep people posted about what's happening in the Canadian chess world. It's not a forum but a news feed managed by John Upper and McGill students, and I don't think Houji considered whether or not he had the authority to post this, he just saw it on Facebook and posted it to let people know about it. The students have been posting pretty much anything they felt was relevant or worth posting.
Anyway, if you have any problem with the CFC News Feed in its current form it's a non issue because the McGill Chess Club will not be contributing to it anymore after this month.
Thank you for that information. If the CFC decides to continue the news feed arrangement with some other party then perhaps they could put a brief disclaimer or clarification statement at the top of the page so that people will know that what they're reading is not official. So easy it is to avoid confusion!
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
I would really love to hear the selection committee's reasoning behind this. 19 rated games played in the last 10 years, and those recently played 19 games did not exactly indicate he's at his full old strength (multiple losses and draws to 2300 rated opponents).
From CFC handbook: 905 b) The Selection Committee shall select three players to be eligible for the National Team in a ranked order and three players to be eligible for the Women's team in a ranked order, taking into account the players' recent results, potential for improvement and such other factors as they consider relevant. These selections shall be made no later than 165 days before the start of the Olympiad. [Motion 2011L Bluvshtein/Zeromskis; amended by McDonald/von Keitz]
Recent results and potential for improvement don’t apply to GM Le Siege so I’m assuming that “other factors as they consider relevant” were the reasoning behind the decision.
In my opinion the committee wanted a “GM team” (IM Tomas Krnan won the Canadian Closed so they couldn’t remove him from the team) and between GM Sambuev and GM Le Siege they decided to go with GM Le Siege to keep the ”team chemistry”. It is well known the bad blood between GM Sambuev and GM Hansen. No other explanation will stand.
Maybe the committee and the CFC executives should watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ2x0FIxkhk&t=67m40s and learn how Americans are planning the future Olympiad teams.
Re: Re : Re: The very final list for the National Team
Originally posted by Roman Sarrazin GendronView Post
Houji is an undergraduate student at McGill university. The point of the CFC Newsfeed is (was ?) not to provide official statements but to keep people posted about what's happening in the Canadian chess world. It's not a forum but a news feed managed by John Upper and McGill students, and I don't think Houji considered whether or not he had the authority to post this, he just saw it on Facebook and posted it to let people know about it. The students have been posting pretty much anything they felt was relevant or worth posting.
Anyway, if you have any problem with the CFC News Feed in its current form it's a non issue because the McGill Chess Club will not be contributing to it anymore after this month.
Clearly he had the authority to post anything which was considered newsworthy. The students at McGill Chess Club have done a good job even if this one item was somewhat incorrect in its details.
As for the selection process, there were delays while Hal Bond recruited and confirmed volunteers for the committee but in the end we got the committee's decision and now we need to support the teams.
"The CFC Executive shall appoint a Selection Committee (905) no later than 180 days before the start of the Olympiad."
180 days before Sept. 1 was March 5.
"Players selected for the Teams shall be notified by the CFC Executive no later than 150 days before the start of the Olympiad."
150 days before Sept. 1 was April 4.
"Players who agree to participate on the Team shall notify the CFC of their participation no later than 120 days before the start of the Olympiad."
120 days before Sept. 1 will be May 4.
"All nominations for Team Captains shall be submitted no later than 105 days before the start of the Olympiad."
105 days before Sept. 1 will be May 19.
"The players shall submit their votes for Team Captains no later than 90 days before the start of the Olympiad."
90 days before Sept. 1 will be June 3.
"The CFC Executive shall appoint the Head of Delegation no later than 75 days before the start of the Olympiad."
75 days before Sept. 1 will be June 18.
This is what I have posted on the CFC discussion board in the news section:
Men’s Team Selection =
Alexandre Le Siege
Women’s Team Selection =
Lali Agbabishvili
I would like to thank the members of the committee for their deliberations and for their quick decisions.
Hi,
I am writing this purely as a chess player and fan who has followed the last 4 Olympiads, in particular the Canadian National Team.
-----------
As for the women's selection, it makes sense. Lali is next in average rating and meets the activity requirements.
-----------
I don't understand the committee's choice in picking GM Le Siege for the national team.
Some statistics purely based on results:
Total Games from January 2015 --> March 2016
FIDE Rating Change, from January 2015 --> March 2016
Games against titled players (GM, IM, FM, WGM) in the relevant time period.
Note that only losses and draws are listed as conceded results against untitled players.
In a couple of cases instead of counting them as "conceded results against untitled players", I marked them as if they were FM (2300-2400) and IM (2400-2500) since they were untitled players with established FIDE rating, games played in Europe -- There were two 2300s and one 2400+ opponents. Therefore, any game listed as "conceded result against untitled player" was against someone below 2300, who was also untitled.
I hope I didn't make any mistake as I didn't triple check, but I was pretty careful in my counts.
To me, a relatively ignorant amateur, I do wonder how such decisions are made. It's very strange why GM Le Siege was chosen over any other contender, especially ahead of GM Sambuev and IM Preotu. On the surface, it practically looks like the type of decision that would have been made during an office meeting on Friday at 4pm.
Or perhaps it's up to 3 people (who were appointed - by who? based on what criteria? - as the Olympiad Selection Committee) to choose who they would like to represent Canada. I imagine there were several factors, including data much deeper than the one presented above, to making this decision. It would be awesome reading the thoughts of B. Hartman, R. Berube and V. Pechenkin on the subject.
I want to stress the point that I have absolutely nothing against GM Le Siege. It just seems strange to me the decision by the Olympiad Committee, since I would have expected them to select who they felt would be most valuable and a bigger contributor to our National Team. I hope and trust that GM Le Siege will prepare and play his best to make us proud, and am looking forward to following his games, and our progress in the Olympiad in the Summer,
Alex Ferreira
Last edited by Alex Ferreira; Tuesday, 19th April, 2016, 11:06 PM.
I don't understand the committee's choice in picking GM Le Siege for the national team.
Thanks for quantifying in more detail the exact question I asked earlier; choosing our least active player who has shown the worst results seems like a very very strange decision by the selection committee. I would also like to hear their thought process.
Thanks for quantifying in more detail the exact question I asked earlier; choosing our least active player who has shown the worst results seems like a very very strange decision by the selection committee. I would also like to hear their thought process.
Hope the decision is not due to a petty personality conflict between two players.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
Hope the decision is not due to a petty personality conflict between two players.
I feel it was most likely that case for why GM Sambuev wasn't selected, but why was IM Razvan Preotu not selected (just because he wasn't a GM yet)? His current strength and results far exceed GM Le Siege (and I'm a huge fan of his chess during his prime), I don't see how the selection committee could possibly make such a terrible decision when the empirical evidence (which was outlined in this thread and I'm sure the selectors had access to) shows their choice is far weaker than alternative options.
I feel it was most likely that case for why GM Sambuev wasn't selected, but why was IM Razvan Preotu not selected (just because he wasn't a GM yet)? His current strength and results far exceed GM Le Siege (and I'm a huge fan of his chess during his prime), I don't see how the selection committee could possibly make such a terrible decision when the empirical evidence (which was outlined in this thread and I'm sure the selectors had access to) shows their choice is far weaker than alternative options.
The decision to include GM Lesiege does seem odd but there could be a logical explanation. Hopefully the CFC or Selection Committee will provide that explanation rather than leave lingering questions.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
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