Yes, there is something
seriously wrong, mday
the computer does not share
your preference!
His preference is based upon results, your preference is based upon your own
opinion, nothing more.
I met both Michael Holmes and the Durdyevs (BTW: they r more then just
two brothers...) and I also think they have more
potential then the rating shows.
Michael has a great positional understanding that I wish I could posses, and Baghtiyar and Mustafa r great tacticians and ambitious players, that will certainly make it to the Top Ten and the Grandmaster title sooner or later (Mustafa lacked one norm, and if I am not wrong, he already scored the final one at the British Open).
Michaels citicism is more founded, as he is obviously right:
We did
not get all tournament tables, and some of his successes were not calculated.
Here he is right, and I apologize to him, as he obviously suffered from that setback, but if you see, we provided a list of the rated events on our report.
Just look if the ty's you played r included.
We still accept every new crosstable, but we had to finish our work and so decided to publish the list, although we knew some events were still missing.
But if we had waited for
all events to be reported, I guess we would have waited forever...
Now that people get affected by our rating, we hope that the players themselves will help us and report all results(crosstables) they know.
You can sent any crosstable that we don't have to me or any other member of the committee at every time.
I believe a "USA vs. World" selection based upon our list looks good, and may be there r more then 12 players that would deserve to be in such a team, but I wonder if you, "
mday", would have selected a better team without the assistance of our list.
Most likely
you would forget more then just 2 outstanding players on each side.
Do you remember the discussion about the teams last year ?
Alex still does, and I think that is why he would not accept the role as nominating captain.
How bitter was it discussed which players r worthy and why they r worthy to play in the US team (or not), and I know that some players in the Irish & British team were also upset that they were not considered (I also understood there was a controversy in Barbados regarding the issue of nominating their team that nearly defeated the USA in 2004).
The rating list, used with wisdom and hindsight, is a clear-cut, intersubjective and useful tool to solve such problems in the next years.
Of course, border cases will always happen...
But one thing, I am sure, will
never happen:
that a player that does not even reveal his real name will nominate any team.
Just like Bertrand Ruissel said:
"If those, who do not want to tell a secret could at least shut up!"
Greetinx from Old Europe,
Ingo Zachos
P.S:
Tommy, I just have no news on the topic, but if I have I will tell you.
At the moment I am more busy with the German Open that will be played next weekend.