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Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
There is no doubt that both Shiyam and Eric are taking chess seriously and we all wish more success to both of them. Personally, I would give Eric the edge in this one as he spent the summer of 2008 travelling to Quebec to make things happen...and he accomplished that. No doubt the Alberta Chess Association (they don't take enough credit for their behind the scenes support!) made it possible, but Eric did the leg work!
Perhaps (and of this I am not a good enough player to determine) Shiyam is the better player...but there is no doubt that the "wanna" factor is in Eric's court.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Personally, I'd vote for Eric, but I can't claim objectivity here. Although other players on the list have had better results, I can't think of any other player who has improved so much in such a short period of time.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
A reasonable idea; interesting the early results from the poll were picking Raja Panjwani. Eric Lawson comes to mind as a player like Eric Hansen; he was generally behind the leaders at national youth events for several years then started studying chess full time and improved a lot.
So it's a matter of taste really. Most improved, most newsworthy internationally ( Eric Hansen and Yuanling Yuan come to mind ), most accomplished, titles won etc. .
Normally it would be easier in an Olympiad year.
Last edited by Duncan Smith; Wednesday, 26th November, 2008, 03:41 PM.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
The journalists: Bob Armstrong, Sylvain Barbeau, Stéphane Beaudoin, Jonathan Berry,
Lawrence Day, Jean Hébert, Deen Hergott, Robert Hamilton, Ralph Marconi, Cecil Rosner,
Stephen Wright. If you know of anyone else, especially in Atlantic Canada, please let me know!
Eric: I added his Alberta accomplishments to the Polls web page listing, as well as the accomplishments of a few others who didn't make the ballot (there was only room for 20 names).
Canadian (rough definition): Registered CAN with FIDE; or 1 year living in Canada.
Ben: Grow up. I want to know what the fans think, not have one person manipulate the results and wreck it for everyone else.
Do you REALLY think that 85% of people believe the award should go to one of the first three listed? There was ballot-stuffing from the second you put up the poll. I have so far only voted once.
YOU SHOULD MAKE PEOPLE EMAIL YOU THEIR VOTES.
everytime it hurts, it hurts just like the first (and then you cry till there's no more tears)
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Well, Ben is right. Now it is just a contest to see how many people you can get off msn or facebook to vote for you. Unless a massive amount of people( such as two times more than all the previous voters combined) randomly all come on and vote for the same person in a very short time period is just a coincidence.I've only mentioned the poll to chess players so far but I'm sure others have gone farther.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
By following the progression of the polls, I could see an obvious bias. The ballot would not move for a long time and occasionally have sudden bursts of one-directional votes.
This probably shouldn't be a contest about who can get the most of their friends to click their names on different computers. I strongly back up the previous suggestion of using a more rigorous control system for the voting, such as sending them in by email.
Of course, all the current leaders definitely have good reasons to be where they are. It probably is difficult for most to be objective here; personal taste certainly plays a large role in decision making. If I look at some of the previous comments critically they start making less sense to me. I'm not saying that I'm 100% correct here, but the World Championships are in fact much tougher than the CYCC. I agree that it is impossible to discredit a perfect performance in the latter, but a worldwide tournament simply has more scope in a general point of view. The field is much stronger and I think Eric's joint 2nd place performance should be taken more seriously. He was in fact extremely close to the podium and probably could have made it if some totally random factors turned out differently.
Anyway, that's simply my personal take on the matter. My vote went to Kelly Wang, who really impressed me during the WYCC, but I honestly think that quite a few of you did an amazing job.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Ben, Eric,
The voting at Chess Polls is a fan vote. I'm okay with nominees rounding up their friends and asking them to vote for them. Those are the nominee's fans, and it's a fan vote. The only thing I don't want is actual cheating, where one person votes more than once.
The actual award is determined by a vote of the journalists (11) plus the results of the fan vote. So, there are actually 12 votes to be cast. It's the best I could come up with on limited time and resources. Please remember that I'm a volunteer, just trying to help publicize Canadian chess while recognizing the accomplishments of a few of our players (within the chess community and maybe within the larger Canadian public).
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Yay! Let's have an ego masturbating contest! Can I vote for myself? In all seriousness, though, this is a boost to one player, and a kick in the gut for several other (developing) players based mainly on subjective non-comparable criteria. It shouldn't have been done, the term "chess journalist" is becoming (isn't yet, but is getting there) to be a joke, and while I'm sure intentions were good, "I'm a volunteer" isn't a defence to creating this toxic situation. Did you at least ask the players if they wanted to be nominated, or did you just start encouraging people to praise/criticise them on a public forum?
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
I've been voting in these since they began and usually it was pretty easy to be objective.
The criteria come from the top down. This year Anton's GM title is not subjective; nor Mark's first prize in Hungary; nor Kevin's consistency on the European circuit. Young players with I.M. norms (Hansen, Kaminski, Tayar, Panjwani--am I missing anyone?) tend to cancel each other out but Eric in Vietnam and Yuanling in El Salvador have concrete FIDE results. The very last thing I would consider is social popularity or charisma.
Newspaper editors love press releases. It is convenient and free. The chess journalists simply filter a complicated situation into something the editors can digest and, if they want, publish easily. Lots of artistic pursuits have similar awards for similar reasons. Nobody considers the Booker or Giller or Governor General's poetry prize to be "a toxic situation"! Maybe chess fans are a tad immature, even, dare I say it, provincial?
But if they have all this energy and free time available why not write to the editors of newspapers that don't carry chess columns? Ask them why winter Olympic sports that only a dozen countries play get intense coverage while the chess Olympics with 140 countries are non-news? There was enough world interest to attract over 60 million file downloads per day from the official site. Accuse the editors of dumbing us down if you want, but do something constructive.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Jordan,
There are two issues. First, the player of the year. Nobody asks the hockey or baseball player of the year nominees if they want to be nominated, so why would I ask the chess player of the year nominees? I did not ask them. I selected the list of 20 nominees and I'm responsible for it. (I was limited to 20 by the poll host.) As for criticizing or praising them, I didn't encourage anything in this direction. Discussions of that nature are up to the fans, and Chess Talk is a great forum for that.
Second, the poll as a way to choose our player of the year. One way is almost as good as another way of doing this. Almost, but not quite. I did give this some careful thought, I don't believe I have anything to defend, and I do not believe the situation is 'toxic'. I chose the method that I did for a good reason: I wanted the poll results to make it into the mainstream media. The method and the voters had to be acceptable to newspaper and mainstream media editors. Canadian chess journalists are those who actively follow and write about our Canadian chess scene in recognized Canadian chess publications or newspapers. They are not a joke - they are serious writers and editors who are working or volunteering to help publicize our game. So, I created the poll, but after 4 years, no success yet.
Now consider the fan poll which I introduced. The first year, there were 117 votes. Is a mainstream news editor going to publish a news release that is of interest to a few hundred people? No. So far this year, there are over 400 votes. Better. What I'd like is for each nominee to ask their friends to vote for them. I'd like Bob to email everyone at the CFC and ask them to vote. I'd like Larry to put a notice on CMA's web site asking all kids to vote. There's thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of kids across Canada who play chess. I'd like a large number of voters. I'd like to show the editors that people in Canada play chess! Only then are we going to get media coverage. And only then are we going to get sponsorship.
Re: Vote for 2008 Canadian Chess Player of the Year!
Read about the possibly similar "ballot box stuffing" in the voting for the NHL All-star game starting lineup. Players on the Montreal Canadiens are in the lead for all six positions. Guess where most of the votes came from.
The voting at Chess Polls is a fan vote. I'm okay with nominees rounding up their friends and asking them to vote for them. Those are the nominee's fans, and it's a fan vote. The only thing I don't want is actual cheating, where one person votes more than once.
The actual award is determined by a vote of the journalists (11) plus the results of the fan vote. So, there are actually 12 votes to be cast. It's the best I could come up with on limited time and resources. Please remember that I'm a volunteer, just trying to help publicize Canadian chess while recognizing the accomplishments of a few of our players (within the chess community and maybe within the larger Canadian public).
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