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MatPlus.Net  Forum General WCCT - oops, they did it again... |
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| | | (1) Posted by Juraj Lörinc [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 00:02] | WCCT - oops, they did it again...
Once again I have the bitter feeling. Let me remind you of older topics:
http://www.matplus.net/pub/start.php?px=1334698352&app=forum&act=posts&fid=gen&tid=129&pid=630&mark=yes&#n630
http://www.matplus.net/pub/start.php?px=1334698352&app=forum&act=posts&fid=xshowh&tid=138&pid=690&mark=yes&#n690
Again, there are some authors who do not hesitate to publish WCCT-themed problems in spite of the WFCC wish not to do that before the results publication.
Now it is specifically in G section, dedicated to hs#2-4 with Chinese pieces and antibattery critical moves. The award of Petko Petkov's jubilee tourney is published in in StrateGems 58 (April-June 2012). Two problems there conform fully to WCCT theme, namely 5th Prize by Valery Semenenko and 3rd HM by Franz Pachl and Michael Barth. Other problems with Chinese pieces in the award seem not to show the WCCT theme.
I deeply regret that WFCC did nothing to avoid the issue, e.g. along lines I have suggested in the topics referenced above. Once again the authors respecting the wish of organizers have to pay for their patience, while violators get both awarded and also can claim the priority to WCCT entries, even claim the anticipations in the WCCT process (if some WCCT entries are similar).
| | | (2) Posted by Nikola Predrag [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 01:52]; edited by Nikola Predrag [12-04-18] |
If the closing date of that tourney was prior to the official announcement of WCCT then the organizers were kind enough to publish the award after the closing date for WCCT. If this is the case, those problems have indeed the priority.
But if the WCCT announcement was prior to the closing date for this JT, the director of the tourney should have reject those entries with an explanation to the author's, who hypothetically might not have been informed of WCCT themes. If the director, judge and other organizers were also not informed, even untill now, they may plead 'innocent' because of 'ignorance'. Even if they became aware of the WCCT themes just before publishing the award, they should have asked the judge to exclude those entries.
If all involved indeed did not know about the WCCT themes before the award was published, then surely none of these people did participate in their national teams in the ongoing WCCT, at least I don't expect to see any of these names in WCCT fairy section.
If their problems occur in the fairy section, then they were perfectly aware of everything and their entries should be excluded from WCCT. And that would be not a punishment, only a protection of the regularity of WCCT. That would be a perfectly normal decision in any official competition in any discipline, where even the unintentional unfairness results with an exclusion. If a mobile phone rings, a solver goes out and both individual and team results suffer. And it's hardly an intentional unfairness.
Such a great intentional unfairness and disrespect should result at least with the exclusion from the ongoing WCCT, otherwise it would be utterly cynical towards all the solvers and OTB players who forgot to turn of their mobile phones.
So, what was the closing date of that JT?
| | | (3) Posted by Steven Dowd [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 05:43] |
I don't understand this. What if, using just one example I can think of, you are excluded from participating in the WCCT? Why should your entries to tourneys be rejected or your submissions to magazines be declined? So you can wait three years and have someone else possibly produce the anticipation(s) to your problem(s)?
It would seem to me to be better for the WCCT to police itself rather than the WCCT try to police composers' output or what gets published in magazines.
Nikolai's statement that perhaps individuals who publish these thematic problems in other media AND THEN try to submit to WCCT should have those submissions subject to rejection (I hope I am stating his point correctly) makes a lot of sense to me. But even in that case, you are handicapping the country if it has individuals who would do this- the section head or someone else would have to search for their "self-anticipations."
If I misunderstood this, "oops, sorry." :)
| | | (4) Posted by Nikola Predrag [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 09:38]; edited by Nikola Predrag [12-04-18] |
I don't understand your point Steven. Games and competitions have their rules. Without the rules there's no game and competition. What the police has to do with that. No one is forced to obey the rules, as long as that one does not participate in a game and a competition. If you don't respect the rules, you don't respect the game and there would be no great harm to you if you're expelled.
I may be wrong, a list of official world championships in any discipline where a disobedience of the rules is tolerated would certainly make me to reconsider the whole thing.
I may also be impatient to wait to the end of the long lasting WCCT to publish my problems with these themes. But my respect to the chess problem community stops the very idea of it. If someone has no respect, he will publish the problems but a minimum of politeness should prevent him to participate in WCCT.
| | | (5) Posted by Steven Dowd [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 10:50]; edited by Steven Dowd [12-04-18] |
I may not have been clear.
My hypothetical point was, "What does someone do who is not allowed to participate in the WCCT?"
If that person is not allowed to participate, it doesn't matter what the rules are and excluding their problems from non-WCCT competitions and publications is simply wrong, and expecting them to "respect" those individuals who are allowed to participate by suspending their problem activities in certain thematic areas is also wrong. If you are not selected for your country's Olympic marathon team, does this mean you should "respect" those who were chosen by not running any marathons until after the Olympics?
| | | (6) Posted by Frank Richter [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 14:20] |
By the way - a marathon cannot be anticipated ...
But a difficult question, of course. And a neverending story without any happy end in my opinion.
Another fresh example:
http://popovgl.narod.ru/Bliz/Bliz-26-itog.html
Many problems show WCCT's theme B.
| | | (7) Posted by Joose Norri [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 15:58]; edited by Joose Norri [12-04-18] |
I don't think there is any mention about the matter in the WCCT rules - there couldn't be, they can only refer to the WCCT. If memory serves, a recommendation to editors has been given, but of course that hasn't necessarily reached everybody... On the other hand, it's difficult to believe that a composer with enough knowledge to try such themes would not have heard about the gentlemen's agreement.
But there are countries that are not affiliated to the FIDE, they may have composers and publications - what about them?
| | | (8) Posted by Juraj Lörinc [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 16:52] |
Oh, come on.
While B section (threemovers) has such wide theme that thousands of thematical examples exist and it is possible to find one in almost any threemover award around globe, fairy section theme is way more specific. Only about dozen examples published before WCCT were to be found in the huge WinChloe database of hs# with Chinese pieces and antibattery critical moves.
And the theme is so specific that anyone interested in fairies working in the hs# area is almost bound to know the theme. Judge and organizer Petko Petkov? Giants like Valery Semenenko who participates most successfully in international competitions, Franz Pachl - grandmaster, etc.? Can they be given the benefit of doubt?
No, it should be said in the most pronounced way that the wish of WFCC not to publish WCCT themed problems between WCCT announcement and results is not respected by many. And the consequences should be taken.
1. WFCC should change its approach.
2. Personally, I no longer feel bound by WFCC wish. The last WCCT I was waiting till the very end. And there were many perpetrators. Now they are here again. So no waiting from me now anymore. And not in the future WCCTs unless the WFCC changes its approach.
| | | (9) Posted by Sarah Hornecker [Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 17:58]; edited by Sarah Hornecker [12-04-18] |
I still stand at my opinion I had in 2007, in a bit refined = more understandable language:
- WCCT problems MUST count as published AND can participate in a tourney in 2 (or better 3 or maybe even 5) years afterwards with this priority date at the date they are made public.
- WFCC (at that time it was PCCC) members can publish problems as they want. Non members can anyway. Problems can be anticipated by WCCT problems after the WCCT problems' original publication, even if they did not participate in any tourney yet.
A more general point:
- Chess games do not anticipate chess compositions in any case, except possibly in directmates and studies, but this is always at the judge's discretion. In no case there must be a mention "after XXX" be made since games do not have any copyright (databases of games, however, have copyright) but the author should provide a game that inspired him. Similar rules apply to fairy chess games. Chess problems and studies heavily inspired by games should still not participate in the WCCT to make sure judges won't downrate it. Similarly, significant improvements of own compositons don't need the mention "after XXX" but should always have the predecessor added. They also should not participate at the WCCT unless they are clearly distinctive from the original.
We got independent of FIDE in the meantime, but there seem to be no changes related necessary to this.
| | | (10) Posted by Joose Norri [Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 02:01] |
Juraj
I was playing the devil's advocate. Basically I agree with you. Still, give it a good night's sleep.
| | | (11) Posted by Kevin Begley [Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 02:34]; edited by Kevin Begley [12-04-19] |
@Juraj,
Only days after the submission deadline, and already a familiar pattern emerges: once again, despite a great deal of effort invested into this WCCT, it never fails to generate more heat than light!
While I admire the competitive drive surrounding this National-Teamed Thematic Tourney, I don't often find the final product to be the most admirable.
You might expect that Team-Spirit (brotherhood) would be the driving atmosphere in such a team contest, and that this would benefit all parties involved (especially new composers); but, you'd be wrong -- it always quickly deteriorates into something far less than a source of pride for the problem community... the atmosphere is generally a divisive sibling rivalry (this even occurs within the teams!), where the interest in winning a judge's approval is always paramount to the interests of this artform.
First, let's recognize that this is not truly a team contest.
If it were a legitimate team contest, then the names of every member of the team would appear above every problem produced.
While there are national team implications, the competition is motivated, first and foremost, by individuals.
Second, let's recognize that TT's fail to provide a fair and legitimate contest for composers.
The selection of theme, and elements, are no less important than the construction within the selected constraints.
To usurp this part of the composing process -- arguably the most creative aspect! -- by imposing pre-selected themes & elements, goes to the heart of the failure.
It reduces a composing tourney into a construction tourney.
Furthermore, the pre-selections employed often confer a specialized favoritism -- especially in fairies, where an extremely broad category is narrowed to a small field (which is generally worked previously, by a handful of senior & titled composers).
[Would anyone consider it a fair contest to ask Marcel Duchamp to compete with Pablo Picasso, given that somebody has pre-selected the form of Dadaism/Cubism? And, unless you are a paying customer, shouldn't you leave the subject & form to the artist's creativity? I'm not saying all TT's are inherently evil, but if there are goals beyond the interest of the specific theme (such as winning high placement in a tourney that purports to be of global significance!), the organizers have a responsibility to address the issue of fairness.]
These are the primary reasons why I refuse to participate, but there are others...
All that said, I must say, I find the present controversy rather childish.
At one point you are presuming that two specific composers (and their editors/judges) have behaved unethically.
Later, you hastily decide that, in the future, you will act in a completely similar fashion.
If they have truly behaved unethically, then this is not the reaction I would expect!
This is not a difficult issue to resolve... nor is it exclusive to the WCCT (the same issues may apply to any TT).
A composer may strike upon an idea which is almost certain to be duplicated (for a given TT).
If the present rules provide ANY incentive for this composer to seek a prior publication (in order to anticipate contestants in this TT), then I submit to you that the present rules are a failure.
There is no need to impune the integrity of composers (who may or may not be aware of the WCCT, who may or may not care to participate, and who might very well have anticipated even the WCCT announcement!).
Please, do not presume that every composer has a responsibility to be aware of the selected theme of every TT (regardless how important you may consider any given TT, a composer has every right to elect to ignore it, and/or publish THEIR works elsewhere).
The simple solution -- in fact, the trivial solution -- is for editors/directors to REGISTER the date, upon receipt of any chess problem.
The matter of anticipations solves itself.
A second solution would be to restrict the announcement (of pre-selected themes/elements), such that it is shared only with participating individuals -- each of whom might be asked to explicitly consent to both secrecy (within the team), and exclusive publication (within this TT).
Each Team Captain need only validate an individual's consent, prior to team admittance.
The point is: you can overcome these issues by demanding sensible improvements in the rules -- that's the kind of constructive reaction that I would expect of you!
I would encourage everybody to step back, put aside the rivalry, and help find ways to improve our tournaments.
This should be a source of pride for the entire problemist community, and the first responsibility of everyone involved should be to provide an atmosphere that encourages greater participation.
| | | (12) Posted by Per Olin [Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 13:12] |
Kevin, we are happily surprised by your constructive approach! I will not comment on how to make everything function; instead a more common comment, partly / mostly off topic.
Composing tournaments for the masses: A) WCCT, a team competition with strict themes B) PCCC 50 JT, an individual competition with same theme in all problem genres C) FIDE World Cup and Olympic Tourneys, individual competitions with totally free themes. These complement each other very well. Springaren in its Winter and Summer tourneys has always a selected theme, which can be realized in any problem form (type B above, but no separation for different problem genres); accepted are orthodox and fairy problems (whatever that is). These tourneys by Springaren have turned out to be a success. More competitions of type B would certainly be welcome!
| | | (13) Posted by Kevin Begley [Thursday, Apr 19, 2012 22:22]; edited by Kevin Begley [12-04-19] |
@Per,
I don't know who the "we" is, that you presume to speak for... but, whomever that group is, they need to get something clear:
My goals are always constructive... but, often times the failings of our present architecture are the primary impediment to allowing improved construction... somebody must wield a wrecking ball at our failing infrastructure (even if the dysfunction is newly erected).
I don't enjoy bulldozing bad ideas -- I'd rather wait for somebody else to do it (sooner or later, it's going to happen anyway). But, why wait? If there are immediate benefits for the greater good, I'll not shy away from a demolition project. :)
But, don't act like my goals are ever anything but constructive -- and remember: I take care to avoid doing any personal harm (I wish I could say the same were true for everybody)!
And, I don't drive the obstructionists off their land... they are always accommodated into the improved structure, which conforms to code.
| | | (14) Posted by seetharaman kalyan [Friday, Apr 20, 2012 09:52] |
There is already a disincentive for publishing WCCT themes. Those problems published before the closing date of WCCT (and after the announcement) can be used by the participating countries freely as their entries without fear of anticipation !!
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