The Views on Checkers

[Dr.William Barnes]

My name is Dr. William Barnes. I have played checkers from a young boy to adulthood. But as many of you I had grown up and forgot this old game. Many years ago I became involved in getting my education. After college, I had begun a family practice. I found my true love and married. These years went by fast and never thought about this game. Being at the age I am now retired my children all grown up and gone I found a void in my life. In the new technology of the internet I bought a computer. Which I am not to familiar with but I searched the internet and found this site. I never realized that I had just sparked a lost love in which I had as a young child. I found many places to play.

I have been reading the forum of uscheckers.com and found many tournaments being reported. I never knew that there were so many federations and associations gathering people as members. This is a eye-opener for me, world bodies gathering together for World Class checker players to travel everywhere to play.

I never new of champions. I now have seen that and am overjoyed. But I do have to say I also see that most of the players are way above my level being I have been away from the game for many years.

I would like someone to answer a question for me. Do all of these federations and associations have both men and women? I believe that this game is for everyone. My grandmother played checkers and was a very good player. Being a doctor I have found that mental usage of the brain is never just of one sex. I do believe that there is a point I have seen here that women and children or young adults are few. Which is a shame.

As for world bodies they all should be working together as one. And if one cannot be this then they should be sanctioned. This does not and will not help keep the game alive. As I read about a Irish Open and a World Qualifier, mind you I have no idea what that is. I have seen negative things that has happened. To me if I were that person that had traveled to play there I would have hoped that all would have been treated fairly.

These are just my views, sorry if I bored any of you . But this is from an old man who has found a lost love (checkers)

Best regards:
Dr. William Barnes

[rich beckwith]

Dr. Barnes,

Thanks for writing and welcome back to the wonderful game of checkers.

Checkers has taken a more international emphasis in the past decade, especially involving countries besides U.S. and U.K. & Ireland, who have had a 100-year international match series. Checkers was played in Beijing in 2008 with 19 countries represented. The recent Irish tournaments had a similar feel of international representation.

I think you are very correct in your perception that that majority of tournament players are older men, but these generalities don’t apply to everyone. I have been playing in state-level tournaments since I was 15 (I’m 41 now.). Women players were a rarity when I started, but less so now, although still a minority.

Our current ladies world champion, Amangul Durdyeva of Turkmenistan, is very young but also very strong. She was one of several ladies competing in Beijing and finished 11th out of 42 players. We have seen many young men and teens emerge in the past decade from numerous countries. Unfortunately, some have taken a break from the game, and perhaps won’t return.

The qualifier tournaments determine the world title challengers for the following calendar year. There is an overall world title division, plus separate women and youth categories. Note there is no such thing as a “men’s-only division” in the qualifier, so you can’t always fairly compare payouts to the different divisions, or, at least not for prize money. For example, Amangul played for the overall title in the recent Irish Qualifier to vie for the 2000-euro “challenge bonus” designated for the overall winner. I was not present in Ireland, so I can’t comment well on other perceived inequities, which would also get us off-topic to your question.

As new international tournaments emerge, there are ongoing challenges with harmonizing rules and general practices across various language barriers. Incidents here and there, such as the one at Dublin, are inevitable, as much as our tournament organizers strive to do the best they can. Also keep in mind that on an open forum like this, there are occasional posters who thrive on magnifying the controversy as well. For the most part, I heard many positive comments about the way the recent Irish events were run.

[kiwinurse]

Hi William,It is refreshing to get your letter and opinion on the forum.I was at the qualifier and the Irish Open,one of the few women playing there.When i was in Dublin i wandered down to one of their old castles there and met the custodian of it.We chatted away,and i told him what i was doing in Dublin,he was surprised and delighted(like yourself) that checkers was being played in his home town,I took his name and gave it to one of the Irish players to contact him,as he indictated an interest to get playing again himself.
There has been contoversy over what happened to kim in the world qualifier.While the match was run very efficiently,there was the overlooking of that incident,and it did reflect badly not only on Kim,but myself. I did speak to the organizers about it,but they chose to not default Toyeva.I have been thinking about this incident,and wondered if the same thing happened in the mens division,whether the outcome would have been different.
This has hastened my decision to no longer play in the womens division. In fact id call on the powers to be to scrap womens checkers and have us all playing in the one game.This makes sense to me,as checkers should not be divided between men and women.
The fact is there is not much funding available for checkers these days,and certainly no funding available for women. Ron King did his best to ask at the qualifier meeting what was being done for women,and didnt get an answer on this.While the checker federations are doing their best,the workers are few and the funding less,and there are certainly many things to be addressed at wortld qualifiers,like enforcing the rules which the world checker federation have drawn up,and its there in writing.My question would be to them,why are they not being enforced?
I go to these matches because i love the game,not because im wanting to get money out of it,and it does cost me lots to go.If the rules arent being enforced,then im also being cheated,as well as the women concerned.
The other thing to look at in big matches like this is press attendance,and TV coverage,of which there was none at the Irish Open or the qualifier>Incredible, i find this incredible.When it would only take a phone call to get that attendance. We need press coverage to get sponsorship and to keep the game alive.
There is no effort to making the phone call,and when i asked at the qualifier why this didnt happened the answer was noone there was the publicity officer,he was in germany!What!If id known i would have made the phone call to get press attendance.These are the things that are letting down the game.
W.e need thinkers who would be prepared to help in matches and do these little things'
Anyway William just a wee insight into the latest matches.If you love the game you carry on regardless,and dont get too stressed over incidents.And id encourage you to get involved,the people you meety in this game outweigh the disadvantages,they truly are lovely people,and thats all that matters,regards jan mortimer

[waynegober]

Welcome Dr. Barnes,

Glad to see you finding your love of checkers again. The love of the game is what has kept me playing.

Jan, I liked your posting very much !!! I feel there should be no womens division at all!
To have a womans division makes it seem like you ladies can not compete with the men... which is ridiculous. Anyhow, you keep playing gal, your one of my favorites which I hope you know.....

Your friend,
Wayne

[Danny_Alvarez]

...W.e need thinkers who would be prepared to help in matches and do these little things'
Anyway William just a wee insight into the latest matches.If you love the game you carry on regardless,and dont get too stressed over incidents.And id encourage you to get involved,the people you meety in this game outweigh the disadvantages,they truly are lovely people,and thats all that matters,regards jan mortimer

Jan I also enjoyed your post and I think that we are all human and at the end of the day concentrating on the positives is the only way to go.
I agree with 99% of ur post, the only little bit I do not, is that I still think there is a place for different divisions wether they be by gender or age or playing ability.

On an altogether different note, Jan do you or anybody else in your federation know of any aussie players? I am trying to re-instate the australian federation. Wouldn't it be great for you guys to beat us at other sports other than rugby?
cheers,
D. Alvarez

[tommyc]

Hi Dr Barnes............Im sure you already know you can play live online at "okcheckers" .Just google okcheckers and become a member ,there is always someone playing in there.......Enjoy.!!

[kiwinurse]

H i Danny, at last an Australian player,ive been searching Australia for one too.We are having our New Zealand national in lower hutt,wellington starting 12 november,im not home from my trip from overseas yet,staying at my daughters in nap[ier,but im attending the 3 move match on the 14th,on the way home.theyre having both gayp and three move.Why dont you come over.We have a website for New Zealand, under New Zealand Draughts,look it up.Im really pleased you are trying to set up a group in Australia,that is one place id come over to play.Do you play online?
Thankyou Wayne ,you are one of my favourite players in Kurnick too,hope to play you soon when i get home.regards Jan

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear Mr. Barnes,

Checkers is a very old sport.
Did you know that the history of World Champions dates back to at least 1847?

It never was a child game, as the masters of this sport are highly skilled and trained, but(sadly) underpaid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4JyPeuXbxc

Here you can see the winner of the QT in Dublin, GM Michele Borghetti, even playing without sight of the board.
They just tell him the numbers of the moves, and he "sees" it in his "mental" board and moves by calling those numbers.
And if he imagines that these boards are small, he manages to play up to 23 boards at once, without even seeing them!


You had a few questions, and here are my answers:
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Irish Open


The Irish Open (IO)are a "national" tournament, held by the Irish Draughts Association each year in a different venue. (They also hold "local" tournaments in each country)
2010 it was in Dublin.

The event is open for all, ie foreigners and Irish, Masters and beginners.

The masters play in one class, and the others in classes determinded by their playing strenghts.
There are even classes with prices for absolute beginners.

The IO are very old and prestigeous, like the US Nationals, the British Open, the Schottish Open and the English Open.
You might call them "Grand Slam" events, though the price money is ridiculous compared to tennis or golf.
But some of these events date back to the 19th century

Even in smaller "developing" countries, like here in Germany, we host an annual "national" open, and sometimes, albeit to a lesser degree, attract good foreign players.
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QT


The QT, or Qualifying Tornamament is an "international" event, given to a national federation by the WCDF (World Draughts and Checker Federation), that was founded in 2003 as the "federation of all (national) federations".

The idea is simple:
Each federation (sometimes there is more then one federation in a country) sents their best two players, and they play each year to determine the"challenger" to the official World Champion, in this case (3-move) Alex Moiseyev (USA).

That means there are no weak players in a QT, but many Grandmasters and Internatonal Masters, titles awarded by the WCDF to the best players in the World for life.

2011 Borghetti now has the right to play a match of 40 games against Alex Moiseyev, the winner is the new or old Word Champion.

This year the IDA has decided to hold the QT immmediately after the IO, and we saw two top events in a row, which is quite unusual, but very exciting.
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Women

Threre are only seperated Women events held by the WCDF.
The WCDF did this, not as some on this, sometimes, quite biased forum, claim to destroy women checkers, but in contrast to promote it.
This is why we have a Woman Wolrd Champion, which is Amangul Durdyeva (Turkmenistan)

But the actual numbers of women attending is low and may cause us to rethink our decision, as actully the recources are quite limited, and eben many womwn question the sense of a seperate event.

This time the ratio women-men at the QT was 4-25, which is even higher then the average, which is less then 10 percent, and not 50-50.

In all other events, women play along men (like in the IO).
In New Zealand Jan Mortimer came very close to become the "men's" national champion, and in Ireland the former Wolrd Champion Patricia Breen also scored top places among men.
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Rules

Rules are not a new invention, but the idea of general rules word-wide is, and the set of rules is different to the various national sets of rules so far, as it only can be a compromise. The WCDF was founded 2003 and in 2008 the "new" rules were established.

That leads to some "incidents", as well as the fact that many players, like me, are not gifted with unlimited english language skills, as our native tongue is not English, while especially the referees so far are still from Ireand, the USA or Great Britain, and sometimes still use the old (national) rules or have only expirience with their "old" rules which are actually not the current rules, but after a transistion period that problem will peter out, while there are still, on a QT level, language problems, but that occurs in other sports as well.

BTW: If I counted correcly the QT has 212 games, and only one incident was reported on this forum.
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To conclude:

Checkers is a sport, though a (still) small one.
Our best players do not earn as much money as even a low ranked tennis professional or a benchwarmer in a professional football team.
Our officials are not paid at all.

The checker community is also sometimes like a family or a group of sworn freinds.
Even tough you read some harsh discussions on this forum, most players get along very well and support each other whenever they can.

Our Grandmasters and World Champions so far need no body guards or managers, but are friendly and willing to give away lessons for free, unless they just lost an important game, and everybody likes to be left alone while he or she is playing.


I can only invite you to ask the ACF which tournaments are there close to you and to visit or attend them.
Be sure, most players are no masters, and some are beginners just like you are.
At our German Open 2010, we could present 80-years old Juergen Sievert as the "oldest rookie" to the press.

But on websites and fori, you will find that the names of (much admired) Masters, Grandmasters and World Champions are there, but apparently not many names of beginners.
That is just like in any sport.

The paradox is that you will find the "beginners" in tournaments.
And they are a majority.
And they lose more often then they win.
And still they play busy in tournaments.
May I, on this occasion, offer my deep respect to those beginners.


Welcome to Checkers from cloudy Dortmund, Germany

Ingo Zachos

[tommyc]

Hi Jan ...............i have another NZ player for you if yu want to contact him?Email me for his addy.

[kiwinurse]

ok thanks Tommy,but will have to wait untill i get home as i havent your email on this laptop.We had two pretty good games in the open, huh? regards Jan

[kiwinurse]

Just send it to me through the acf website Tommy.Through private messages,regards jan

[Dr.William Barnes]

Good Evening to everyone,
I want to thank you all for a very warm welcome to this forum. And for all the information being given to me. As I read all of your responses I thought what a wonderful thing to have in common. I seen a wide spread of different views here and each one came from a different culture or may i say country. This is what it is all about.

I just thought to myself why would all of these people need a WCDF, and I don't know what that means. But looking at this warm welcome I received here. Do you need it?

As for playing in tournaments I would not even have a chance. But maybe down the road I might attend just one to see how it is done.

Thank you again
Dr. William Barnes

[Ingo_Zachos]

Dear Mr. Barnes,

you don't need the WCDF, ACF, NCCA or IDA to play checkers.

That's why all these organizations are strictly based on the principle of free choice
All members of the ACF, NCCA, IDA or WCDF are in it, because they want it, not as they need it.

Thre is no force in it at all, not even signed contracts, and some federations are indeed struggeling, as not many seem to think that they need a checker federation in Canada, Australia, Mexico.

No, there is no need for checker federations and tournaments in Canada, Australia and Mexico, and indeed in Mongolia, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Sweden, Andorra, Namibia or wherever.

But if there are players, they should not be left alone, and if they desire to form a federation, I can say that no need was satisfied, but rather new friends have been found, and they are welcome to join. Indeed they are appreciated.


So thank you for that post, as it gives me the chance to point out that we don't need federations, but rather that they need players and members, or the game might fade out in that country or area, or almost to quote John F.Kennedy:

Ask not what your federation can do for you, but what you can do for your federation. And to all players in the world, ask not what the WCDF can do for you, but what we can do together for the future of our game


May I say that there have been 29 players from 12 nations at the QT, and that in the future more players from more countries should participate?

Before 2003 any event that had more then one nation involved was labelled "International Match".
The WCDF makes it possible to promote checkers on a higher level then anytime before.
That is not easy, that can't be done without problems or efforts.

And of course the national federations need to win new members as well, but as for Germany may I say that the guidance, help and participation in our events by Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh, Danish and Czech players has helped a lot and was not in vain?


Greetinx from rainy Europe,

Ingo Zachos

[Dr.William Barnes]

Mr.Zachos,
In all do respect to you and others I would like to ask this question. Does all of these organizations have same rules? I as a once avid player just sitting in on a friendly game never new of these wide spread of organizations. We just played this old game.

But my question also is, " Does these federations and associations pay for each player they send? And how do they determined who is sent to these world checker events?
I have been amazed in reading this forum of many topics. It may take me awhile to read all of these discussions.

I sat here last night and was reading about the Irish Open and the World Qualifier in amazement. All of these players had to be top players. Not just men but women and youth. I find that when i was reading a heavy heart I begun to have. To see that the few women that had played there were now saying they would not play in these events again. This is not of sex (male or female). The mind like I said has no gender. You all should be standing by every player and not let these women do this.

When I was in practice as a doctor I had a young women come up to me one time and asked if I would be kind enough to take her under my wing. I was 25 yrs into being a doctor mind you. I never said no to anyone that came to me. I have to say if it had been a young man I would have done the same. For as of today she has become a great doctor and still practicing. When she was insecure and felt like one of the outsiders I was there for her.

I think you all should be taking someone under your wing and encourage these women not let them feel like they are on a back burner. Same for the younger players. Everyone of us has been there at one time or another in life.

Best Regards,
Dr. William Barnes

[tommyc]

Dr Barrnes i love your words of wisdom indeed......"So let it be"

You asked if the players chosen and sent are supported............well i dunno abt other Federations but here in the North West of Ireland we do offer them some small financial support which is right and proper ,I think, to represent their Associations or Federations.