Chess
By PHILIDOR No. 123. C. MANSFIELD (Special Prize, B.C.F. Tourney No. 83)
BI.ACK (6 men) Will ( LO men)
WHITE to play and mate in two moves: solution next week.
Solution to last week's problem by Heathcote: Kt--Q 4, threat R-Kt 4. 1 . . . K x Kt; 2 Q-Kt 4.
1 Q x Kt; 2 Q x RP. I ...P x Kt; 2 Q x Q P. 1 . . . B x Kt; 2 Q-Kt I. Excellent example of-multi- sacrifice key: deceptive problem, which looks like a 'waiter' but is in fact a threat problem.
THE SWISS SYSTEM In the last article I gave a set of conditions which I thought an ideal championship. should satisfy: this week 1 shall try to see how far the Swiss system succeeds in satisfying them. First, however, I had better de- scribe what the system is.
The 'Swiss' is a compromise between a knockout and an 'all-play-all' (American) tournament. In it a player 'A' meets in a given round the player '13' whose score is nearest to his own subject to the following conditions: (I) that he has not played 'B' before; (2) that no other player has a better (or perhaps equal) claim to play either 'A' or 'B' ; when there are a number of equally valid ways of pairing, the actual draw is decided by chance (thus, in the first round, the pairings are entirely random). The effect of this is that the better players tend to rise to the top of the tournament and play each other and the worse players corres- pondingly sink to the bottom and struggle for last place. Played as we do here (11 rounds for 32 competitors) the system sorts out the best and worst players quite well; the medium-strength player tends however to make much the same score, however he plays—if he plays well he starts to meet the best competitors and gets knocked down, if he plays badly he meets the worst and gets kicked upstairs again.
Having described the system, we can now try to answer the questions put last time: (1) Does the championship contain all the leading players? Yes, it nearly always contains all those who are able to play: the total (32) enables some places to be reserved for selection as well as those filled by qualifying, and the half-dozen best players can always get in if they want to. (2) It is a fair test? Yes, sufficiently so. There has only been one real surprise as regards the champion in the eight years of its operation and the best players regu- larly finish at or near the top. It is not quite as good as the American system but not sufficiently inferior to., matter a great deal. (3) Can any player earn a Placer Yes, and this is an enormous advantage of a sYslein which allows thirty-two players to compete. system of qualifying competitions is a less eflIcle1,1 method of finding the best players than is a process °I selection. When the championship was confined.t° twelve players it was impracticable to run qualifY114
competitions because of the risk of spoiling the tourna' ers ment through excluding one_ or more likely winn
in the
and including weaker players who were lucky
qualifying rounds. Now, however, we can afford tot. run qualifying competitions and fill a large number ° the thirty-two places in this way, thus getting th° best of both worlds. (4) Does it have a good effect cin, chess in the country? Yes, for two reasons. 'Jelin!' players are encouraged by finding they can force their way into the championship very early in their ch careers if they are good enough. Secondly, in the el° days of selection, there was constant ill-feeling arising. from inevitable criticism of the selection comnittleeid. London players were favoured, it was ,a hacks were selected, young jackanapes were put Jfl all the usual cries. These complaints have now els' appeared; incidentally, results following the chattg° showed (as might be expected) the criticisms of 111.e, selection to have been quite unfounded. FinallY, the system seen to achieve its aims? Yes, and in so 1.3.ri as it isn't, I hope this article will help to see that it
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