I. The Question

I was looking at the club championships standings and it led me to thinking about a couple of things. Why is it Open and U2000? Players between 1900 and 2000 always have to play in the open section and if they ended up in the U2000 section for the championship would obviously be heavy favorites. I am not sure of the goal of the championship (find the best U2000 player in the club or what) but it is difficult enough for 1800-1900 to qualify, let alone a 1900 player. That isn't a huge problem but seems a little curious. Also, instead of having points available for the following year's championship during the current year's championships, why not just offer an automatic invitation to the first place finisher (there would need to be some sort of tiebreaker to get a single winner to each section) to the next year to defend their title (assuming they remain club members and participate in enough events).

II. The Answer

In 2003 when I devised the qualification concept for the club championship, my goals were (1) to re-institute a club championship, (2) to make it a special event, (3) to invite players based on merit, and (4) to give Class A players a shot at qualifying. In practice, one needs to be at least an 1800 level player to qualify. Over the past two championships, 3 of the 12 participants were rated U2000, so I think the system has worked out well with several players vying for the final spots even into December.

Given the very high level caliber of our club, it made sense to me to offer a second championship event to accommodate the A/B/C players who have little or no realistic chance at qualifying for the club championship. This is aimed at the 1500-1900+ players who are the majority of players at the club.

I chose the U2000 label as it is the traditional cutoff between class and master/expert player.

You bring up a good point in that the 1900-1999 player must always play in the Open section and would be a heavy favorite if they played in the U2000 championship. There's a good argument to call it the U1900 Class Championship instead. Of course, the mixture of players will change over time and who knows, we may have U2000 or U1950 sections in the future. I remember Derek Slater remarking about 5 years ago, that there were very few expert players and that his opponents were usually way better or far worse than him. Over time that has changed. Today we have quite a few expert or near expert players on a regular basis.

The point that I'm trying to make is that there needs to be a rule as to what rating separates the Club and Class championships. I chose the classical definition of "class" player and tried to not just to look at the current mix of players, as this will change over time.

Having said all of this, the biggest flaw (as you pointed out) in the qualification scheme is that the 1850-1999 players have the most difficultly in qualifying for either of the two championships. It's hard for them to place in the Open, and frequently they cannot compete in the top Unnnn section due to their rating - you being an excellent example. I've tried to make small improvements to help these players. One improvement is that this year there will be three U1900 sections offered. For next year (based on this year's attendance), I will review whether we can offer an U1950 section without thinning out the Open section too much. Also, during the championship month, the Open

section is weaker than usual, therefore the 1850-1999 players really have 4 events in which they can realistically earn championship points.

You suggested that the winners of the championships be given an automatic invitation to the following year's event to defend their title. I had considered that, but felt that awarding championship points (for the next cycle) for their participation in the championships was a more general, flexible, and easier to administer solution (ie, no special rules and ties are already handled). In practice, the winner of each championship is just about guaranteed a spot in the following year's championship. 100 points goes to the club champion (150 if it's a 5-0 sweep), and so far everyone who has earned 100 points for the year has qualified (assuming that they also meet the 4-tournament requirement). The same is true for the class champion who gets 50 points. Furthermore, the class champion has a very good start at qualifying for the club championship. For example, it's quite possible that Nikita Konovalchuk can score one or two other placements and qualify for the 2006

The intent of the U2000 championship is to recognize excellence among the U2000 players at the club. However, in reality, the 1900-1999 player who qualifiers will likely turn down the invitation to either play in the club championship (if eligible), or simply play in the Open section since they will be considerably stronger that the rest of the class championship field. That was definitely that case for de Koekkoek and Ruthramoorthy this year. My guess is that 1800-1899 players will probably accept an invitation to play in the class championship (unless they also qualify for the club championship).

Thank you for your observations/comments. I'm open to suggestions on how things can be improved in the future. At this point, I'm not motivated to change the name to the U1900 or U1850 Class Championship, but I certainly do recognize the problems in getting the U1850-1999 player to qualify and accept an invitation to play in this championship event.

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