Winter Butterfly - 15a 1/10/02
Dear Friends
Cardiff Confirmed as Best of Brits
New Welsh ELO Ratings
Cardiff Confirmed as Best of Brits.
It might not look it, but Cardiff performed wonders in the European Club Championship. The final table shows them as the highest placed of the British and Irish teams. Final standings:
Cardiff 39th Place ahead of Barbican 40 (but a match point less), Bristol 42nd and Crumlin 43rd. 43 teams competed.
At first sigt, not a great result, but remember that Cardiff were outgraded by three of the four teams that finished below them while most of the higher teams were professional or semi-professional. The only British team that has ever done better was Monmouth, last year, who managed three wins and pulled out of the bottom quarter.
I'm afraid the tournament must have been a bit of an eye-opener for our English friends, who will have to have a long hard think about how they approach it next year. In terms of average team strength, this is probably the strongest large tournament in the World (and I include the Olympiad). If you doubt what I'm saying just check the grades of the top four boards of the middle third of teams in this against the top four boards of those that finished in the middle third in the last Olympiad. The result isn't what you'd expect.
If we want to make an impact in this tournament, both us and the English are going to have to rethink our approaches. But that can wait for a future issue, for now lets bask in Cardiff's success.
New Welsh ELO Ratings
FIDE has just published the latest list of ELO grades and you can find the Welsh grades on Mark Adams excellent site. Go to
http://www.mark-adams-home.com/website/index.htm
This really is a very good site, and if you haven't been there before you should take the time to have a look. Quite apart from all the Gwent and other news it also contains a grade calculator. Go on, upset your grading officer. Download it and work out your own grade. You'll find it at
http://www.mark-adams-home.com/website/Gradings/Grade_Calculator/grade_calculator.htm
Mark works hard on this site and its regularly updated. Not just Gwent news, but lots of interesting stuff. One of the Best Welsh sites.
Best wishes
Dai James.