My response to content in this group

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ThomasJEvans

It is upsetting to me that fellow league admins have been talking about me behind my back. I would have been fine if problems were taken straight to me, because then we can actually have a constructive discussion about any issues.


I'll start with my decision with the Czech Republic-Venezuela match. The match was opened 15 minutes before the start time, and this was the fault of both teams, as neither made an attempt to set up the match before. While CZE were able to make the minimum, Venezuela were only able to raise 2 players in the 15 minutes they had. It would not be unrealistic to say that if Venezuela had the full hour to raise players, the minimum would have been reached.

I chose to contact only the two other SA's in the group (excluding @Dale00007 as his team was directly involved), because this happened Sunday evening, when the next round pairings were due to be announced. If I had contacted everyone, I would have had to wait for a reply from all before making a decision, thus delaying the start of round 3.

Both @bumiputra and myself thought that asking them to re-play the game was the best option (@adriano81 proposed to award the forfeit to CZE), and so the match was replayed. Please do not accuse me of making decisions myself, when you both know that I asked you for your opinion.

(for those that are unaware, the match was re-played with Czech Republic winning 7½-2½)


Now for the Costa Rica decision. It should be clear to everyone that they are simply incapable of playing these matches with the minimum players (in 4 attempts; the first they failed to even set up the match, the next 3 they only achieved one player). They have never successfully played a live match inside or outside of the LCWL; and with the benefit of hindsight, it is my opinion that they should not have been allowed to compete in the league to begin with, and I take full responsibility for that.

If you were running an OTB tournament, and one player failed to show up for the first 3 rounds, would you pair them in the 4th round, and make an opponent travel to the match for likely nothing? Most organisers wouldn't even pair them for the second round (as did happen in an OTB tournament I played 2 weeks ago when a player failed to show up).

Making a team negotiate a match time, making one of their admins go online at a specific time to set up the match, and then making potentially over a dozen players wait up to an hour to play a match that is not going to happen, is both unfair, and unacceptable.

While I may have been a bit hasty in my decision, it was done with the intention of trying to get a replacement team into the league for the last 6 rounds, in an attempt to avoid one team having a bye in each round.


Regarding my decision to have each match negotiated in a separate thread, I proposed this in the Rules, and this was not commented on by anyone (and I am sure I drew attention to this area, I may be wrong though). I have also re-iterated this in every news post announcing pairings. Why all the controversy now?


I am disappointed that I am the one being accused of not interacting with other admins, and yet this group was set up over a week ago and I only found out about it today (and it seems to me that this was deliberate too). This was also set up before I made either of those two decisions above; maybe if I had been invited here, we wouldn't be having these discussions now?

I seem to remember that a HQ group was discussed before the start of Season 1, and it was decided that it was not necessary. It seems that this assumption was incorrect.


Anyway, here we are. Let's stop whining and whinging, and get on with organising. And if there are still any questions about decisions that anyone has made, let's discuss them in a constructive manner, instead of saying "oh, this was wrong" or complaining to others. How are we supposed to move the league forward if we don't find ways to improve what we are doing currently?

Dale00007

Good idea is to have this kind of HQ group for tournament admins, just if Thomas was not aware of it is quite strange.

 

If there is this group - access should be limited only to admins organizing the event and not all admins - it seems that this is not the case now. So my proposal is to keep here only tournament managers.

 

It would be good to have some agreed process of decision making ... if there are 3 (or 5) tournament admins, you can open topic for each critical decision and just vote. But then there should be really main admin (Thomas?) who can do quick decision if needed - for example, VEN-CZE match decision was critical to do immediately as it was impacting schedule of Week 3, so it should be in his power to decide and others should accept it (although it would not be possibly good).

But not urgent decision like Costa Rica should be voted.

cortmore

I thank @Thomas for sharing his points of view here. This was really important.

Even when not all of us agree with every decision he made, I think he acted in a reasonable way, given the circumstances of each issue.

I thank @bumiputra for letting me be part of this group. However, I respect @Dale00007 opinion: you have the right to claim that HQ group should be for league admins only. So, I accept if you decide to remove me from this group. No problem. 

robert8867

1- Thomas I proposed the idea of HQ to Stefan much much earlier and he disagreed and he said let's run the league like that..!!! I didn't want to insist on that, and that's where we are now...!!!!

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2- This group must be limited to ONLY those who want to take part in organizational thing...

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3- Regarding the Czech and Venezuela. I had see the admin of Czech 10000 times getting online everyday and hoping for Venezuela admin to get online to make the match... Czech must have been won by default. No doubt on that...!!! 

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4- Costa Rica: At 1st place, I am still (as before) against 18 teams in Swiss format. The history of teams were known. The friendly matches were there and it was very easy to have 2 groups..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But u all ended up with 18 ?? teams (even we didn't have 18 at that time) in Swiss format. and NOW u simply removed them..!!!!!

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5- Thomas is trying his best, he works hard and he tries to help. I do acknowledge that and many thanks to him. BUT as someone who has not been involved in running a league like Asian League, European League, World League or even a national team, I do not see him a suitable person to be the head making fast decision making

(sorry that I am very straightforward, please don't get offended by my words, being straightforward is the fastest way to get to conclusion).

He can still be the one organizing the LCWL but by taking advise and being open to consultations with those experienced guys like Andriy (Team Ukraine and WL admin for few years (I don't know if he is involved in running EL), at least since 2011 that I took responsibility of Team Iran, he was there), Bumiputra (As an active admin of Italia who is well-aware of WL and EL, I don't know if he is also doing administrative works in EL). And I don't consider myself to get involve in any decision makings as for sure after all these huge discussions we had, perhaps many admins as I can see here will be against me, so I don't really want to go to that direction. Let me look like to be the bad guy here, that's fine to me as long as the league can improve and move in a nice, smooth and well-organized way... But I will only share what I think based on all these years that I have actively involved in chess.com in running Asian League since 2011 up to now and being involved in WL administrative works since 2013 till now and running Team Iran in 2011 and 2013. So, basically what I share or if I criticize someone it is simply based on the little experienced I gained being involved in these activities, nothing more than that. And I do admit that I also will do mistakes and if I do, I do accept it.

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Hope we can get to conclusion ASAP

Regards

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P/S: No one talks behind your back... We have been saying all these right into the public group, but when you don't speak out by messaging us or by saying a single word, then don't expect that the important issue like that not be discussed

Dale00007

add 1) I don't know history and haven't seen it this discussion before - so let's close it ... we have the group now

add 2) agreed - now let's agree who would like to participate ... I am busy with running other leagues, but I can do some minor things, so I can stay here if others are fine

add 3) I haven't agreed with decision but accepted it as it had to be done quickly - main admin still should be able to do urgent decisions by himself, but voting should be done for any other not urgent decisions - are all ok with this?

add 4) I believe it was long-term plan to have more groups, but how would you separate teams in the season 1. I was not able to assess by myself, how many players I can encourage to play on my team ... I am now positively surprised with the response at the end ... now lets finish this season, but clearly, agree structure of the next season and promotion criteria for the top group. I am opening the forum on this now.

add 5) - related to 2 - I still feel we need one main admin

I support Thomas to have this role.

Who are the other admins running the league? I really don't have clue now :-) ... I am SA in the group, but I don't remember agreeing on this earlier :-)

Dale00007, robert8867, bumiputra, adriano81 ??

ThomasJEvans
  1. What @Dale00007 said; we're here now, let's make the most of it.
  2. It should be for national team administrators at the very most; but I would suggest only those that are interested in helping organise (and also those contributing here and there).
  3. I went on what was posted in the negotiation thread, and there was nothing to do with trying to organise a time or complaining that the other admin was not online, until about an hour before the match. Simply being online and waiting isn't enough, especially if they are two countries in relatively different time zones. But this issue is finished now (and CZE won, so you could argue the point went to the right side anyway). This very incident should show why I asked for teams to negotiate in the forum.
  4. I agree that a divisional structure is best; however it was difficult to organise that in a way that ensured the top teams were in the 1st division, and the rest in the 2nd division. We're here now, and next season we will definitely be using a divisional structure.
  5. I feel that a group of people running it is definitely best (we have the admins all here now?), maybe some board structure where we vote on certain controversial topics (with an assigned TD that has a casting vote), and then they all have particular areas that they focus on (e.g. fixtures/results, forums, rules etc.). Also, please do not accuse me of having no experience when you have no proof of that; I was an admin for Team England for 2 years (making me one of the longest serving), and I have organised OTB and online events previously to this.
adriano81

Cheers! (finally read this topic) wink.png