India started in 2009 in Division 'A', but based on performance was lowered into Division 'B". In 2010, still represented by Indian Marauders (IM), it came down to Division 'C'.

In 2011, TI (Team India) was brought back (in Division 'A') with IM continuing in Division 'C'. The condition imposed on Indian players was that in same round (say, round 5) a player cannot play for both TI and IM.

The records show that at the moment (when round 7 is about to start in few days) Team India is placed 14th out of 20 teams in division A. Check here:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/wl-2011-division-a

Obviously this achievement is far superior to previous years' performances, but it is still not the true reflection of what Team India can showcase to the chess.com community.

If our players are given the freedom to play for both groups in a round, Team India will be able to put forward a much stronger team and is likely to figure in top 10 of the list in division 'A' itself. We are much better than what this list suggests.

Since Indian Marauders play in division 'C', it has no direct competition with Team India which is playing in Division 'A'. Therefore I request that Indian players be allowed to play in both teams in same round and let Team India show it's real strength.

Since Division 'A' winner is considered "League Champion" of the year, it is only fair that Team India is given the opportunity to demonstrate it's true strength, not the depleted one due to the current restrictions on players. Fact of the matter is that even after removing this restriction, some players will play for one team only as they cannot afford too much workload. But from WL side, at least they can try to make the conditions as fair as possible.

I don't know what the right answer should be, but I do have some questions.

Why not just try to convince the players you're concerned about to play for Team India?  And if they consider playing for Indian Marauders as more important than playing for Team India, if forced to make a choice, then maybe respect that choice?

Secondly, I have not been paying attention but thought that it's a general rule, not just for India.  A player can only play in WL matches for one WL team, right?  This used to be even more strict, a player could only be a member of one WL team group.  If India can do it, then how about the US players who might want to play on more than one regional team?  Or someone who lives in the US of Irish ancestry, could that player also play for Ireland?  Like I said, I don't know what the right answer is -- but in general, exceptions for one pair of teams seem to open the door for other exceptions.

DaveShack raised valid points. I share his opinion.

In 2009 TI defaulted in 8 rounds as there was no admin. The misinformation of 2009 records should be corrected. TI were wrongly invited in the first place due deceptive name given by its US creator. After they defaulted, I was called to take over as SA of TI which I said was not right when IM was there representing Idia. TI kept persuing their target of replacing IM by using number games.

Please be fair to all those Indians who strongly believe in a group Created by Indians for Indians and not rebellion

Dear Mr.Kulkarni, statements like these are implicating that TI is run by non-indians for non-indians while IM is run by Indians for Indians. We strongly object to misleading comments like these.

Please go ahead and take a look in our group and you will see that all admins and all members are none other than Indians. We have a rule in TI that only the members that fly Indian flag in their profile are accepted into the group. It can not get any more Indian than that.

In fact some of the members in your group don't fly Indian flag. Just to show that I attached an image here that shows two of your own admins don't believe in flying Indian flag. Can you show me at least one out of 4000 members in TI that is not flying Indian flag ??

One difference between US and India's case is that TI and IM are not regional groups whereas five groups from US are well defined regional ones (it is another matter that I disagree with the very concept of breaking US into 5 groups for WL purposes because it is unfair to US).

Also, Team India permits only those members who fly Indian flag. Indian flag is the sole criteria of determining 'Indian-ness'. Hence 'US citizen with Irish origin' type of situation does not occur for us.

I am requesing for Indian players to be allowed to play in both IM & TI. Without getting into 'rebellion', 'created by Indian for Indian' kind of argument, all one needs to see is the number of members, Team match Leaderboard, Vote chess Leaderboard etc to figure out which group most Indians consider their own and deserves to represent India if there were just one group to do so.

The other thing that baffles me is why "Baseballfan" - the staff SA of TI  did nothing to resolve the SA problem in 2009 - it was really a very simple issue that could have been resolved in minutes, once he realised that SA was not logging into site. All that was needed was to make a willing TI member, it's admin.

But these are not the topics of this discussion.

Here I am requesting that Indian Players who are members of both groups be allowed to play for both groups in a round as they are in different divisions, 'A' and 'C'. This will create a level playing ground for Team India to compete with other teams in division 'A' which is the premier division .

@ vijay_phanidhar,

The flag is not an indication of nationality or country, but an indication of the geographical location. Let's not exaggerate with the nationalistic approach.

@ Skand

The rule is very simple and very good: one member - one team - one seasson. I see no reason to allow any player to play for two teams in the same time. This will open up the Pandora box, since there will be many members wanting to play for two or three teams.

hsbgowd and kavin are Indians.. hsbgowd is a student from Bangaluru and studying in USA. Kavin is a young boy . There flags can be changed any time but as they are inactive as admins they will be removed from admin list soon. While we have had cases of other admins accepting members , we have removed any non-Indians as soon as they find entry by error. Recent case is of one Mr. Channet.

@ vijaykulkarni

There is really no problem in having members with another "flag". Please do not remove any player according to the "flag". I'll post bellow my corespondance with chess.com staff regarding the "flag" and hope that this will be self-explanatory

Hello DxN,

The flag is indicative of the location the member has said they live in. If you say you live in France, it will show the flag for France.

Blackenne
Support Staff

Message History

DxN (Member) 17 Oct 2011 01:10 AM

Under any user name you can see the country flag. I am curious, is the flag an indication of origin or nationality or an indication of the geographical location ?

Thanks DxN.. I am clear in my mind that they are Indians but inactive as admins. We donot remove Indians from IM but definitely reprimand members for indiscipline etc and ban if necessary as many in TI know including Mr. Bhargava (Skand). Should I list some prominent ones here along with details?

The World League Directors will discuss the matter and will announce the decision.

I was forced to bring the issue of nationality into discussion as Mr.Kulkarni often claims that "IM is the only group by Indians and for Indians". It sends wrong implications to many out there. I have no issue with the nationality of IM. I believe IM is made up of all Indians and similarly Mr.Kulkarni also must respect the fact that TI is also made up of all Indians and stop making false comments.

Technically DxN is right that flag is associated with location. But most of us use it to show their nationality. In Team India, at least we do. We so not accpet anyone with another flag. I believe IM also believes in this otherwise they would not "encourage" members to fly Indian flag.

I have pointed our this design weakness of chess.com earlier and hopefully it will be remedied one day. But till then for us "Location" is the "location of your country", which is bad English but serves the purpose.

While playing with me, does anyone care where I am today - in UAE or India ? But one does care whether I am an Emirati or Indian. So obviously the flag should have been linked to nationality right from design stage of chess.com. Unfortunately it is not. But in a slightly round about way most of us manage to associate it with our nationality.

 @DxN, just as we have found an exception to the rule of "one country - one team" for India, so can we find it for players in a round so that we can play with full stregnth. Since the two teams are in different divisions, it really does not matter.

I'd like to clarify a few points related to the World League history and rules.  It has always been the case that a player could only play for (i.e. join, appear in the roster for) one team at a time in World League matches.  That rule was discussed and decided in the run up to creating the World League, and implemented by the tournament director Masterful_Forfeit when he started the first season in 2009.  Players have always been allowed to belong to more than one team, and fly any flag that they wish.  The only restriction is that they not sign up for World League matches for 2 different teams.

Early in 2009, Baseballfan sat as an admin on many of the World League's teams to help with the sending and accepting of challenges, but I believe that it may have been after he left the site that Team India started defaulting all of their matches.  When kokino became active in running the WL late in 2009, he made numerous tries to contact Team India's players to try to find someone who would be willing to serve as an admin, but unfortunately, he was unable to find anyone to do the job.  The admins of Indian Marauders had always been very reliable about sending and receiving challenges, so the decision was made to replace Team India with Indian Marauders for the 2010 season.  In the 2010 season, the Marauders were in Division B, I believe.

Ko7 took the initiative to bring Team India back into the World League at the end of 2010, but it was decided to put the two teams into seperate Divisions, so that they would not have to play against one another.

In general, I would encourage admins to accept all applicants who have some connection to your country, re. were born there, have lived there, or are diaspora hoping some day to return to your country.  The World League is supposed to be an inclusive group which gives every player on chess.com a chance to play in the World League matches.

Seriously why can't this be put to rest and both teams play?

Team India was abandoned by the person who created it and baseballfan, who was the only other super admin at that time, didn't appoint any other member as a super admin. It should be obvious that a team without an active adminstration can not respond. On top of that TI was kicked out even before the deadline given by kokino has passed. After that Skand and others took up the administration. It all happened two years ago and we discussed all this elsewhere.

After that appointment of active administration, TI has quickly surpassed IM in all aspects and that is why kokino brought TI back into WL last year.

But how long ago was that? Why can't you let the dust settle? This is a recurring issue that gets brought up almost every year and I REALLY can't see why not just let both teams play.

Both teams are not in the same Division so what is the problem?

My understanding was that in late 2009, kokino approached some of the more active players of Team India, and asked them to become an admin, but no one seemed interested.  Baseballfan had already left the site at that point (although his account remained open, so you could still see his name).

As I mentioned above, Ko7 took the initiative in bringing Team India back in, first in the Asian League, and then in December of 2010 in the WL.

No that is not true. Members like Shajian were actively trying to gather support in the group to make Skand as super admin. A certain deadline was given and before it was met, it was announced that IM is replacing TI.

You yourself said baseballfan was not active. Since he was the only super admin capable of appointing another super admin, it was impossible to establish active adminstration at such quick notice.