Can someone please explain to me why JGP points are being awarded for the WCL 3-2 blitz tournaments? The rules for these points clearly state it has to be slower than G/60. Our state has run several G/60 tournaments that haven’t counted. Now, points are being awarded for online blitz matches? That hardly seems fair for the kids that have been following the rules and competing in the long time controls that were advertised for the year, and they haven’t received points for some of the G/60 tournaments.
From the WCL online info:
[size=85]World Chess Live holds an OGP Satellite tournament each Thursday and Sunday (as of August 17th), except during the last Thursday of each month, when the OGP Final tournaments run. Winners in the Satellites earn free entry into that month’s Finals as well as other prizes (see below).[/size]
[size=85]All OGP tournaments require current USCF membership, are USCF quick-rated matches (with a 3 2 time control on Thursdays and 5 0 on Sundays), and may earn Junior Grand Prix points for qualified members. Only the monthly OGP Final tournaments will also award regular Grand Prix points, 20 each month.
All Thursday events start at 8pm server time (U.S. Eastern Time) and Sunday events are at 7pm server time. No advance registration is required for these tournaments. To join, just log in shortly before the start and click on the Online Grand Prix listing under the Tournaments tab in the Activities window. Note that your USCF membership number must already be added to your WCL account, which may be done when you first register or later from your account page. [/size]
It’s starting to look like the USCF is displaying an embarrassing sycophancy towards World Chess Live. This illustrates why I’m less than enthusiastic about sponsorship. Free money often comes at a high price.
I guess the answer is simple: If World Chess Live sponsors the Junior Grand Prix, then they have some right to establish the rules. Obviously, WCL would want a mechanism to attract USCF members to its server. Now the Executive Director must decide when to accept money while giving concessions. Were there other sponsors who expressed interest in funding the GP and JGP earlier this year? Sadly, the USCF has scared off a lot of people recently.
Nonetheless, considering that the rise of internet chess has coincided with the decline of adult otb chess, it appears logical for the USCF to tap that market. The JGP targets juniors who are strong enough to continue as adult players as they continue through college and beyond. Perhaps this is one means for the USCF to maintain a connection to high school and (future) college players, many who play far more frequently online than at tournaments. I know from my state that at least 80% of the juniors on the top 100 lists own ICC accounts; some play otb once or twice a year but play online daily.
It was certainly a judgment call on the part of the Executive Director, one that I’m sure many people will disagree with. Would there be a GP and JGP without this controversial provision mixing online blitz play with otb slow games? Considering that the year began without a sponsor for the Grand Prix, I have my doubts that someone would have stepped up if WCL had not.
The USCF’s sponsorship agreement with WCL for the JGP and GP included a provision that WCL could run one JGP event per week and one GP event per month. This was mentioned in the March press release announcing the sponsorships, see: main.uschess.org/content/view/8260/443/
However, a player is limited to 20 JGP points from any one WCL JGP event and a total of 100 JGP points from WCL JGP events throughout the year. The JGP rules page should have been updated back in March to reflect these changes, I’ll try to get that done. (Why is it that these kinds of issues always come up over weekends!?) FOLLOWUP: The JGP Rules page has been updated.
G/60 events are not eligible for JGP points, because they’re dual rated. Except for the WCL sponsor’s exemption events, JGP events must be regular-rated only and must also have had a TLA in Chess Life.
BTW, as the regular/dual rules are currently being interpreted, 30/30 SD/30 events are not dual rated so they would be eligible for JGP points because they are regular-rated only events. (As far as I can tell, there have been no 30/30 SD/30 events held that earned JGP points because I don’t see ANY events coded as having that time control so far in 2008.)
That would change for the 2009 JGP, because under the new time control rules approved by the Delegates in August 30/30 SD/30 (should anybody hold such an event) will be dual-rated events since the total time control is 60 minutes. (All events with a total time control of 30-60 minutes will be dual rated starting January 1st.)
The Golden Rule of sponsorship: He who has the Gold gets to make the Rules.
The Junior Grand Prix was designed to encourage juniors to play in slower time-control and non-scholastic events, thus the reason for tournaments of at least 4 rounds and slower than Game/60. Nevertheless, WCL had its own ideas, and now we are left encouraging juniors to play in online events at the expense of Game/30-Game/60 events. Undoubtedly, the pressure to eliminate this double-stanadard will eventually become overwhelming, and all the tournaments will end up having to be included in the Junior Grand Prix, regardless of time control. Ironically, this will end up defeating the original purpose of the Junior Grand Prix, which was to encourage juniors to graduate from non-scholastics to move on to slower and more serious tournaments.
You may want to still have some limit on the number of times such a fee could be paid. Otherwise an entity that originally intended to give $20,000 would be able to instead run 200 such events (maybe on-line events every Fri evening, Sat morning, Sat evening and Sun morning to get in four per week).
But eventually the other USCF G/30-G/60 tournaments (and/or the 3-round events as well) will have to to be included in the Junior Grand Prix (because of the double-standard which already allows online quick and blitz tournaments to award Junior Grand Prix Points). When all the G/30-G/60 tournaments are included in the Junior Grand Prix, there will be many more G/30-G/60 tournaments (and 3-round tournaments) than G/61+ tournaments, and the Junior Grand Prix will thus end up encouraging juniors to enter one-day tournaments, particularly scholastic tournaments, instead of entering slower, multi-day tournaments, particular open tournaments.
One way to offset this effect would be to award Junior Grand Prix points at a higher rate depending on the time control. Mabye start with three categories to try and keep it from getting too complicated: 1.) G/30-G/75 tournaments award x JGP points; 2.) G/76-G/120 events award them at 2x; and 3.) events longer than 2 hours per player award JGP points at 3x.
That may be the case nationwide and it probably won’t be a big deal in states where there are a lot of tournaments available. However, in a small state where there aren’t a lot of these tournaments, these points can make a huge difference to kids who are online. Both of our top 2 have more than half of their points coming from the blitz games. I know the sponsor can do whatever they would like, but you would hope that they would give incentives for the things that you are trying to promote.
“8. Conditions concerning JGP tournaments are subject to review and adjustment by the USCF executive director. Designation of tournaments as JGP events which require play at Game/60 or faster in most rounds is discouraged and may be disallowed.”
“11. The sponsor for the Junior Grand Prix, World Chess Live, will be entitled to hold one online event per week that can earn Junior Grand Prix events (regardless of the time control used.) However, an individual may earn no more than 20 JGP points in such an event or a total of 100 points during the year from these events. If these events are quick-rated only, then quick ratings will also be used to determine whether a player’s opponent is rated 100 or more points higher.”
Is 3 2 even quick ratable?
Perhaps WCL could hand out coupons for Natrol as prizes.
I think if G/30-G/60 tournaments were to be included they should be restricted to non-scholastic events, and must not have rating caps. So an event such as your “Four Rated Games Tonight!” could give JGP points, but your Under 1600 and Under 1800 sections would not be able award points because of the rating caps. Also those Under tournaments seem to be more like scholastics with a few token lower rated adults added into the mix.
I agree that having a sliding scale of points awarded based on time control might make more attractive to play in the longer events. Though I think G/30-G/75 should award 1/2x, G/76 -G120 award 1.5x, Events over 2 hours award 3x. This would make more difficult for the kids who could play all 4 to 8 g/30 to G/60 events at the Marshall every month from rolling in points from sheer volume.
I think giving points for WCL 3-2 tournaments totally defeats the purpose, but as you so aptly said “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
Retaining high school and college age members is a stated goal of the USCF. Most of the players in the JGP fit into these age category. And as I have wrote earlier in this thread, the vast majority of nationally ranked juniors play online blitz daily but many don’t have the time or money to play much otb. Putting the pieces together, the USCF badly needs to reach out to these internet players.
I agree that we need to reach out to the internet players, and perhaps these quick rated online events will spur more competition, and keep kids interested in chess. However I think we need to also encourgae otb play to juniors.
Maybe New York is not the norm, but we get many junior players playing in non-scholastic otb tournaments. We especially get a large influx after Steve Immitt runs the NYC Scholastic where he awards 6 months, 3 month, 1 month free entry to any of his tournaments to the top 3 finishers in every section. There are also free entry prizes for the top 4 scorers on the top 3 school teams in each division. These prizes are a wonderful opertunity for kids to play in tournaments that they may not normally consider. Since many of the tournaments are played at faster time controls then g60 I still would like to see them included even with reduced JGP points.
I’d like to see more organizers who run both scholastic and non-scholstic events award entry prizes into the non-scholastic events to winners of their scholastic events . That may not take care of the time issue, but it does take care of the money issue.
I think it would be fair to say New York is not the norm. The population density is so much higher than anywhere else, one can draw a very small percentage and have a bunch.