3 move qualifier

[tommyc]

OMG...........Imagine a Welsh-man asking an American for photos of Scotland ...............??? I dunno whether to laugh or cry??/

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Richard, please, sign me in. Your "travel memos" are real masterpieces and I always enjoy them.

Alex

[Ingo_Zachos]

A good start for a joke Tommy, but how will it end ?
Maybe they start a game of draughts with a single malt opening...

Anyway, I would like to see the pictures, too.

You don't need the pictures Tommy.
You were there.
But some of us wish they had been there...

Greetinx to you!

Ingo Zachos

[william]

Hi All

First of all it was great to get back to Scotland, even though it was only for one week , and especially Stonehaven which is the most delightful town that I've ever had the chance to visit.

I also ,on this occasion had the good fortune to make aquantance with many players of high quality wether it be on or off the board.
Most of these players names were known to me but up until Stonehaven
remained faceless.

I cannot say that there was one amongst the twelve who could be classed as unlikable , and once again I state that all the pleasure of meeting them was for me.

Graham and Colin Young must be thanked enormously for the time and effort put into organising this ty. and the next bidder will have a mountain to climb to at least meet their acheivements , although I do wish him well.

The only bad point came from the players who said that they would be coming but never turned up . That's ok ,one can have problems but these people insulted the hard working youngs and did not even take 1 minute to notify them . I wonder if any sanctions will fall as Graham had to pay all unoccupied rooms for the Sunday night .

Well done guys !!!!!!!!

As far as the Ty. went , everything went smoothly .Perhaps a maximum of 2 incidents but these were small and not really worth evoking.

As I told Ron King at least 10 times I was pleased and surprised by his sportsmanship.

Here is what happened. He is down to three kings against two and a man in an utterly drawn position. His opponent offers a draw , King refuses ,his opponent then goes into a two for two with winning move on the king for Ron. Ron King then tells the ref that he takes the draw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is not totally guaranteed winning the ty at this point.

So the moral of this story is ,,that we can all change for the better if we so wish.

As far as my play is concerned , if you all don't mind me saying, I felt very rusty , and cannot expect more with only being able to play 1 ty every 2 or 3 years..I did lose on pioneer 2 games against King on play that I had been over but only ty play can sharpen me up ,and I probably would say not technically, but psychologically one must be sharp to meet this guy, and the others.I also missed 2 wins against mustafa Durdyev, also through lack of competetive games probably.

I was impressed by the quiet nature of the brothers and forgeting the British ty held the week before would say that in 2 years they will be posing serious problems for all of us.
Obviously their lack in PP play is compensated by a deep instinctive feeling about the game and very good x board visualisation.
WATCH OUT GUYS THEY ARE COMING!!!!!!

It would be my wish next year to take part in Scottish open , in 2 years the WTQ, wherever that may be , and also the USA nat ty.

I think that I would need to get sponsors , give up work and divorce with my girlfriend and two kids to do this , as life seems so short and a crack at the world title must be prepared for , notably through match and ty play both of which I certainly do not get near enough of.

To end this bla bla I would like to say that Shane McCosker impressed me also by his knowledge of PP , and I would like to agree with Myles when he says that if the next USA GBIR match has all of ukir best players that is MCosker, Hannigen, Devlin CANNING, O'Driscoll, Pask, Watson, Docherty, Grant ,Buckby, and amogst those there is room for some great subs and inactive players comebackers we certainly beleive that the result will be in our favour!!!

Is that too wild a statement to make? Come on guys lets get this UK IR team together and do some serious biz

By for now all

WILLIAM

[tommyc]

WOOOW.........Bill Doherty YOU SURE DO WRITE A GOOD LETTER...Have you ever thought you MIGHT have missed you real vocation as another of the GREAT SCOTTISH POETS!!!!!!!.......Like Rabbie Burns!!!/

One day i fell in wi/ a Scotch-man
He took a fiver a me
He said ill send ye something
But............it might be in a week or two.

So...ivry day a waited
N ..a waited n a waited ye see
A was thinking aboot ma wee fiver
That wee Jimmy took affa me.

Till one day a finally decided
To take the bull bey the horns
I called him up on the "blower"
Tae see wat he was gaany bey dun

A pit on me best Scottish telephone voice
If ya get me drift .......ya see
To see if we could work out something
Or if he wod returrn that Fiver tae me?

Well a wish now ad niver phoned him
Cus he was down on his luck at the knees
He says Tommy ....wod ya do me a favor
Says i ..wat ? wod that favor be??/

He says yu know that fiver a owe ya
N the stuff a didnae send
If only i still had it
A wondae ask ye again!!!!

Achh i did feel kinda sorry fer him
He wusnt a bad wee chap
an the moral the stoory is
Nivver lend a Scotch -man a Fiver .........cus ye ll niver get it back.

Tommy Canning Aug 2006

That ones for Bill for lookin after the guys in Scotland!!

[william]

Well now

Thank you for those kind words tommy , ;;;;

and now for my next song !!!!!!

Ok I'll stop here otherwise, as they say here in France,

I may cause it to rain.



I did forget to mention also Edwards, and Patricia Breen on the team , who I met for the first time up in Stonehaven. It was a pleasure.
She is so polite and reserved that I think to myself;; one must be careful cos this kitten probably turns into a ferocious tiger when playing a game of checkers!!!! No offence meant Patricia.

I have probably left out other names for the team but I'd rather not write a book on it


BY BY CHECKER PLAYING FANATICS FOR NOW .

OH I did have one question, does Alex accept private challenge matches for the world title ,, is this allowed ;; ? Could be interesting

William

[Alex_Moiseyev]

does Alex accept private challenge matches for the world title ,, is this allowed ;; ?

Hi, William !

Good question Yes, WCDF rules allow "independent challenge". We did have one this year when Jack Francis challenged Ron King for GAYP title.

Based on my understanding and what I read from WCDF documents, three criterias shall be meet:

1) To challenge a World Champion there suppose to be an outstanding player who is recognised by Federation and fraternity. It cannot be just a one who has enough money for bidding !

2) Match fund must be raise by Pretendent and should be reasonable and high enough to get Champion attention. Usually this amount is higher than prise fund in "official matches"

3) Champion must accept challenge. In differenece with official match against official challenger, in case of "indepemdemce challenge" chmpion has a choice.

Again. the champion cannot refuse to accept official challenge, but don't have an obligations to play match with independednt challenger.

In order to finalize all this bla-bla I can say ...

Due to my extremely limited vacation time and although ambitious plans to try next GAYP cycle - I do accept independent chalenges with match fund at least $25,000 or higher.

I'll be glad to play revange match with you again, and I hope - I have some chances to do it better this time . I cannot improve the number of games I win because this is out of my control. But I'll try to reduce the number of games I lose.

Bla-Bla William, I am very glad to see you back to business, and I hope you will not disappear again for the next 2-3 years.

Life is short !

Alex

[Lindus Edwards]

Hi Tommy,
It is not that I wish to see photographs of Scotland in particular, but I would like to see photographs of the players and read Richard's account of his time there
I have numerous photographs of Scotland, having visited there many times with my Scottish wife.
Look forward to seeing you at Knighton for the Welsh Open if you can make it.
Lindus.

[Michael Holmes]

I am one of the players who has attended the first two WQT's and was going to attend this one. I was offered a management job and with the communication that I had with overseas WQT organizers it was unsure if they would provide any monies toward any expense. There were several emails that I sent (I know of several other Americans that experienced the very same issue) that were either not answered or it took an extremely long time to answer. My last notification for expense relieve was that there might be some and if so it depended upon the amount of people that showed up. Not really sure you can say that I have committed or have been committed a monetary amount at that point.

[tommyc]

Hi Lindus.............Of course it must have been the way i read your initial post ,all in good fun you know...grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

But i understand your sentiment and i have to agree that Richard(MR Beckwith)....does have a certain talent for this type of thing as his report on the Prague Ty(Im sure you read it?)was nothing short of excellent.

So i for one will be looking forward to his latest editorial on Scotland especially as i wasnt there second week and said photos as well.

As a general point perhaps the powers that be might consider (im the interests of the promotion of draughts world-wide) an extension of what is being used in Tys at the moment where the winner of the Irish Open is ,say Alex Mois!! but the Irish Home champion is ,lets say Hugh Devlin who was 2nd or 3rd to Alex.

Maybe this could be extended to bigger Tys like World Qualifiers/Playoffs (like we had in Scotland) except instead of Home champion we introduce age level so we could have , say a World under 25 or 18 year old World Champion who had finished down the field like Shane MCCosker or Clayton Nash or anyone else for that matter.

Does anyone think this is an idea that is worth looking at??.








.

[EdTrice]

Maybe this could be extended to bigger Tys like World Qualifiers/Playoffs (like we had in Scotland) except instead of Home champion we introduce age level so we could have , say a World under 25 or 18 year old World Champion who had finished down the field like Shane MCCosker or Clayton Nash or anyone else for that matter.

I would think if you wish to emulate the way much larger board game organizations stratify titles by age class, you limit the distinction to 21 years of age and younger. In the chess world, for example, we already have a 12 year old Grandmaster! Yes, I did not transpose "21", the kid is twleve and has achieved Grandmaster status already!

From this link:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=310

You will see even the great Bobby Fischer was 15 1/2 when he made his Grandmaster title.

Sergey Karjakin 12 years, 7 months, 0 days
Bu Xiangzhi 13 years, 10 months, 13 days
Teimour Radjabov 14 years, 0 months, 14 days
Ruslan Ponomaryov 14 years, 0 months, 17 days
Etienne Bacrot 14 years, 2 months, 0 days
Peter Leko 14 years, 4 months, 22 days
Judit Polgar 15 years, 4 months, 28 days
Bobby Fischer 15 years, 6 months, 1 day

In giving recognition to "World Champion" standing beyond the age of 21, the organization could potentially run the risk of being ridiculed. There are Under 21, Under 18, Under 16, Under 14, Under 12, and Under 10 titles, which I think are appropriate.

I say wherever possible, "copy" the behavior of organizations larger and more successful than yourself. In this respect, it is easy to duplicate the model of the world chess federation, F.I.D.E.

[Lindus Edwards]

Hi Tommy,
I agree with you one hundred percent about Richard's wonderful account of his Prague trip. I enjoyed every word of it and look forward to reading his impressions of Scotland.
I was delighted to receive confirmation from Liam Stephens that he will be playing in the Welsh Open and trust that you too will be playing. It just would not be the same without your great sense of humour.
Best wishes,
Lindus.

[tommyc]

HAHAHA...Lindus i like it when pple rub me up the right way...then the usually get a favourable response...hehehe .

I had a bad experi last time i went to Knighton with the N.I. lads.....we just didnt sleep any you see?

We just partied and got "wrote off" n im getting to old for that but....well in answer to your question Lindus if you can keep me on the straight-n- narrow ill be there and ill bring Shane too....just let me know when its on...

OH and yes the Irish Open is in Carlow the home-town of Patricia and the Breen family(just outside Dublin) in October.Its a great lil town not unlike, and abt same size as Stonehaven.

The home too of that great Irish Ledgend ...P.J.Furey...now theres a poet!!!....are there any Welsh poets i wonder??.mmmm.

In reply to Ed Trice i would agree with you analysis and i guess "21" as your choice is as good as any ,if a lil old-fashioned. You know the story of "coming-of-age n all that"key-of-door ..bla bla!! blarney>>>!!!!.

As checkers stands unfortunately we dont have any 12 yr old WIZARDS mores the pity......so we gota "cut the cloth" to fit the suit!!! or is it "cut the suit" to fit the cloth...well something like that!!

[Ingo_Zachos]

I say wherever possible, "copy" the behavior of organizations larger and more successful than yourself. In this respect, it is easy to duplicate the model of the world chess federation, F.I.D.E.

I agree, but not if "possible", but if "proven successfull".
I don't want this kind of organizers that run the FIDE to run the WCDF.
Also I don't want ideas like doping-tests or title or rating fees.


To tommy:

Why not playing all three QT's (men, women and juniors) in one group if not enough players show up to make a ty for either (or both) the women's or junior's event ?
I would say with less then 5 entrants the players of this group could be allowed for the men's qualifier. The best placed is Junior World Champion respectively the official challenger for the woman's title.

Imagine a second Woman instead of Amangul Durdyeva would have shown up.
Should they have played a match with 16 games ?
I believe it would be wiser to allow them for the men's QT, maybe also pair them automatically in round one to ensure they had a chance to play each other.


To anyone who knows:

Was there a Junior World Championship at Stonehaven?
With Bashim Duryev entering the British Open I guess there was at least one other youth player but Shane, so did they play a ty ?
And if so, who did win and what was the final score ?

Greetinx from sunny Dortmund, Germany

[Lindus Edwards]

Hi Tommy,
That sure is good news. Please bring as many players with you as you can as the more the better
I too obtained little sleep at Knighton. There were some noisy persons in the bar you see - drinking and singing at the top of their voices until past three in the morning
I wonder who they were.
Lindus.