The culture of selection

[firegoat7]

Hello,

Here we go again,another bi-yearly championship with the usual stories.

This is the most recent post from the ACF bulletin.........


"The ACF Council has appointed the Selection Committee for the Australian Championship 2005/2006, comprising Kevin Bonham, Bill Gletsos and Denis Jessop. The committee's function is to decide any questions of eligibility that might arise in relation to entry to the Australian Championship.

Independently of that, the Council has decided that Chris Wallis is to be eligible to play in the Australian Championship on the "improving junior" ground in the By-laws. There is no limit on the number of juniors who may receive such approval so that it is still open to any other junior, who wishes to play and is not otherwise eligible, to apply if they think they are of Australian Championship standard."

- Denis Jessop

The first suprise is ..... why appoint two bots to fill the same position. To suggest that Denis will have an independent voice, when confronting Bill Bonham, makes the selection process a joke. I can not remember a time when BillBot and Bonhambot have ever disagreed with each other on this bulletin board. One wonders how they will ever disagree on the selection panel. I can imagine the arguements, picture this scenario...

Scene: The flowerpot men have to decide between a taleneted adult player who has a rating of 2100, we will call this person Pat Rolrate and a talented junior, whom we will call, Robie Gesiou , just for arguements sake .

Billbot: The adult player has the higher rating
DJ: Maybe we ought to examine their tournament performances
Bonhambot: I don't like children
DJ: Well the adult has performed better recently, but the kid did well at the Canberra open in which he achieved 20/20 against an average rating field of -123.
Bonhambot: Clearly the kid is almost as talented as me!
Billbot: According to my calculation he will be 3rd on the Australian rating list after that one off tournament result.
DJ: But the adult scored 49% against a field of 27 GMs, 123IMS and 253 FMs through the year.[/B]
Bonhambot: Talentless dilletante!, wouldn't even get a pass mark in my lecture subject Snails,Greenies, Labor and Politcs: Biography of a Biologist
Billbot: And he dropped 14 points under the ELO system, but 123 according to my calculations based on the Glicko, with a Billbot factor of warp 10.
DJ: So whats the verdict? Im voting for the adult
Billbot: your a fool Sweeney....(editors note: the actual transcriptions from the meeting had to be edited here due to length...suffice to say that for the next two years Billbot continued with his Vietnam veteran, chopper hallucination, recollections about M.S, and how he "destroyed the N.S.W.C.A, junior chess, language of the human race... etc etc.
Billbot: Thats enough about Matt Sweeney I have banned him from my memory, back to your question Denis, err what was it?
DJ: Im voting for the adult Billbot, what about you two?
Billbot: If you take into consideration my Billbot RD factor of Warp 10 and the fact that 6 Australian rating periods have expired since we bagan this council meeting, then its clear that at this time the junior is rated 0.00001 ahead of the adult in the current rating epoch. So my vote is for Robie
Bonhambot: I'm with B1
Billbot: Good on you B2

cheers Fg7

[four four two]

I am interested to know if Ronald Yu,Vincent Suttor,James Obst,Michael Wei,Junta Ikeda ,Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic will also be eligible under this by law to play in the Australian championship?

If they are and successfully apply wont this have a major impact on the Australian junior championship?

[Garvinator]

I am interested to know if Ronald Yu,Vincent Suttor,James Obst,Michael Wei,Junta Ikeda ,Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic will also be eligible under this by law to play in the Australian championship?

If they are and successfully apply wont this have a major impact on the Australian junior championship?

better be careful commenting on junior selections, lest you be called a junior hater

[four four two]

I am not a junior hater,but all the junior players I listed are at the same or higher rating as Chris Wallis.
What will happen to the Australian junior championship if half of these juniors qualify for the Australian championship? Wont juniors just end up bypassing the Australian junior championship? Is this not going to be potentially divisive?

[Ian Rout]

I am interested to know if Ronald Yu,Vincent Suttor,James Obst,Michael Wei,Junta Ikeda ,Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic will also be eligible under this by law to play in the Australian championship?

If they are and successfully apply wont this have a major impact on the Australian junior championship?

Michael Wei is eligible irrespective of the "promising junior" by-law by virtue of being 2005 ACT Champion. However the last I heard he is not intending to take it up.

[shaun]

I am not a junior hater,but all the junior players I listed are at the same or higher rating as Chris Wallis.
What will happen to the Australian junior championship if half of these juniors qualify for the Australian championship?

Someone else gets a chance to win

Wont juniors just end up bypassing the Australian junior championship?

And this is bad why?

Is this not going to be potentially divisive?

Only to those that see a divide been junior chess and chess (IMHO)

[jenni]

I am interested to know if Ronald Yu,Vincent Suttor,James Obst,Michael Wei,Junta Ikeda ,Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic will also be eligible under this by law to play in the Australian championship?

If they are and successfully apply wont this have a major impact on the Australian junior championship?

Junta Ikeda has already made the decision that he prefers to play the Juniors.

Michael Wei will be in China.

Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic are too old to be eligible to play (apart from the fact that Peter is going to Uni in Europe).

So that leaves Ronald, Vincent and James. There is of course potential for a bit of a keeping up with Jones' effect to happen. I hope it won't and that the majority of juniors will elect to play the Juniors. It should be the premier junior tournament and supported by our strongest kids.

However there is no doubt that selectors and commentators have made clear over the years that results in the adult tournaments are valued more than results in the Aus Juniors, so not surprising that ambitious juniors value them more as well.

I am a bit with Shaun - although I think the Juniors is a great tournament and our family has always supported it over the adult one (they do have another 60 years to play in the adult tournaments), I think it is a choice thing. If Chris and the others are happier playing in a very strong Aus Champs then what does it matter if they choose one over the other? Looking at Chris' results recently it would be hard to argue he is not performing extremely well in Victoria. From there it is just a short step to argueing that the Aus Juniors is too weak for him and that he needs to test himself against the strongest possible players.

[bobby1972]

Hey firegoat i reckon they should all be allowed in,just remember caisa is waiting for a life long commitment let the psychosis begin early to truly enhance their social skills and who knows maybe a few will and in 20 years or so we can see the fruits of it.

[pax]

I am interested to know if Ronald Yu,Vincent Suttor,James Obst,Michael Wei,Junta Ikeda ,Kevin O'Chee and Peter Jovanovic will also be eligible under this by law to play in the Australian championship?

If they are and successfully apply wont this have a major impact on the Australian junior championship?

The eligibility of juniors for the Championship should be considered independently of any percieved impact on the junior event. It is not the job of selectors for the Australian Championship to worry about other events - only to determine if the applicants merit a place in the event.

Bear in mind that if Juniors apply for the Australian Championship and are rejected, they may still choose to play in the Major and bypass the Junior. This is their choice to make, not anybody elses.

The impact on the Junior event is something we won't know until all entrants are finalised. If the Junior event has clearly suffered, this might affect whether the two events are run simultaneously in future, but it should not affect the selection process for the Australian Championships.

[pballard]

Michael Wei is eligible irrespective of the "promising junior" by-law by virtue of being 2005 ACT Champion.

Similarly, James Obst is the 2005 SA champion.

[four four two]

Pax,Chris Wallis has been offered a place on the basis of being "an improving junior". He hasnt met the criteria of winning a state title,an Australian junior title or being 2150. If he needs to be only "improving" then why have a place for the australian junior champion? Wasnt that place in the Australian championship created so as to encourage the better juniors to play in the Australian junior championship?

[Garvinator]

I think the first question that should be asked is: Why is there an improving junior clause?

I would like to know how many juniors that got in under this clause have then automatically qualified (ie over 2150 acf) two years later for the next Australian Championships?

[Garvinator]

ACT people, who is likely to be nominated if Michael Wei cant play and Junta decides to play the juniors?

[Kevin Bonham]

firegoat, I appreciate the attempt at humour but alas you're still a goose. Selection for the Aus Champs is not like selection for the Olympiad. There is no limit on the number of entries for the Aus Champs and, in general, applicants do not compete for the same place. Applicants are assessed on their merits and either selected or not selected irrespective of how many other applicants there are.

So if the players are both good enough in our views they will both get in, and if they are both not good enough they won't. This idea about juniors competing with adults for places is total nonsense.

The only instances in which applicants can compete for the same place are:

* A maximum of four players can be admitted under paragraph 3(h) which refers to overseas players rated over 2250 (if not from NZ they must have played 20 ACF-rated games)
* One otherwise ineligible player may be invited under "exceptional circumstances" (paragraph 5).

Of course it is quite remarkable that someone as obsessed with closing off opportunities for improving juniors (and flaming those who support junior chess) as you should stoop to hanging "I don't like children" on someone else just because they are not personally interested in having any.

[Kevin Bonham]

I think the first question that should be asked is: Why is there an improving junior clause?

I don't think I was on Council when it was first created but I would say the arguments for having it are:

(i) That even the best rating system cannot keep pace with the improvement of the most rapidly-improving strong juniors, so if a junior is over 2000 and improving rapidly there is a good chance they are at least as strong as those adults who are currently admitted by the selectors.

(ii) That it is desirable to expose strong juniors to strong competition, especially in a situation in which nobody else's rights to enter are affected by doing so.

I would like to know how many juniors that got in under this clause have then automatically qualified (ie over 2150 acf) two years later for the next Australian Championships?

I would also be interested to see data on this if anyone has enough records to prepare a full list.