Team selection policy

By Andrew Medworth, Hendon Club Captain

Sunday 10 August, 2025

Accepted by the AGM on 31st July 2025.

Eligibility to represent Hendon in team competitions is one of the key benefits of club membership. Members therefore rightly expect teams to be selected in a fair and transparent manner.

This document sets out the club’s policy on how Hendon captains should decide who plays in their team, particularly in the frequently-occurring case where the number of players who have declared themselves able and willing to play in a match exceeds the number of places available.

The aim is to explain in more detail how we fulfil paragraph 4.6 of our constitution, which states:

1: Considerations applying to all teams

1.1: ECF membership

The club does not budget for ECF game fees resulting from people playing rated games in club events without the required level of ECF membership. Game fees incurred by non-ECF members would increase club membership fees for everybody. Therefore, all players in Hendon teams in rated competitions must be ECF members at a level sufficient to cover their participation.

It is not generally possible to make exceptions to this. While ECF rules do allow people who are not ECF members to play a small number of games without incurring game fees, this is difficult for us to keep track of. Requiring ECF membership from the first game played is the simplest and most feasible position for us.

(Note that ECF membership is separate from membership of the club: neither one includes the other. We try to keep an up-to-date table of the ECF membership levels required for different club activities on our joining page.)

1.2: Club membership

It is expected that Hendon players will be members of Hendon Chess Club in the majority of cases. Captains should generally not select a person who is not a member of the club for a Hendon team if there is a member available.

Captains may deviate from this principle when they reasonably believe it is in the interests of the club to do so. Examples include:

• To offer a limited trial of 1–2 matches for players under the age of 18 who are new to the club and considering joining (such players should be expected to join the club if they wish to continue beyond this)
• To maintain a player’s links to the club during a period when they are temporarily living far away, such as university students who may only be able to attend club events during the holidays

See also the general “exceptions” section below.

A Hendon captain may select a non-member for their team if there is no member available who wants the place.

1.3: Eligibility

Hendon is committed to following the player eligibility rules of the competitions in which we participate. Competition rules may disallow a player from representing a particular team for various reasons, such as:

• Having previously played for another club in the same competition in the same season
• Having a rating outside a specified range
• Having previously played for a higher Hendon team in the same competition

These rules are outside the club’s control, and it goes without saying that captains should not under any circumstances knowingly select a player who is ineligible to play under the rules of the competition.

2: Differences between Hendon teams

Different Hendon teams may have different priorities and goals, leading to different selection policies. This section outlines those possible variations.

2.1: Teams which prioritise competitive results

Most Hendon teams aim to achieve the best possible competitive results, which almost always means fielding the strongest available players. In such teams, captains should select the available players they judge likely to maximise the team’s results (subject to the considerations in section 1).

Normally, the best indicator of a player’s strength will be their ECF standard rating, though not always. Captains should exercise reasonable judgement, for example:

• Players who are rapidly improving (such as juniors) may have a rating which lags behind their current playing strength.
• Sometimes a player’s FIDE standard rating, or their rapid or blitz ratings in the ECF system, or even a rating from an Internet chess server such as Lichess or Chess.com, may be a better guide to their strength, depending on the number (and recency) of games they have played in each system. Ratings from different systems are not directly comparable, so estimated ratings are never an “exact science”, but a rough approximation is perfectly fine, until the player has played enough ECF-rated games to have a meaningful rating in that system.
• Sometimes it may be necessary to estimate a player’s rating based on their play in club events, if no better information is available.

2.2: Teams which prioritise rotation

There is a long-standing consensus at the club that there should be at least one league team which places a lower priority on competitive results, and a higher priority on giving playing opportunities to as many different members as possible who may not be getting as many games as they want in other teams.

In rotation-priority teams, captains should aim to achieve the most equitable possible distribution of playing opportunities to interested members over the course of the whole season, even if that means fielding a weaker team than would otherwise be possible.

To do this, captains should generally select the players who have played the fewest games over the course of the current season so far, across all Hendon teams playing in comparable competitions. In the interests of treating new and renewing members equitably, prior seasons should not be taken into account.

Captains may deviate from this principle when they reasonably believe it is in the spirit of the policy to do so, for example:

• If a player declares in advance that they will be unavailable for matches during a portion of the season, a captain may choose to prioritise them during other periods.
• A player who is a member of the club for a shorter period of the season should generally be selected for this type of team fewer times than one who is a member for a longer period. For example, a player who joins the club half-way through the season should, all else being equal, be selected approximately half as many times over the course of the season as one who has been a member for the whole season.
• If, in the captain’s opinion, following the rotation policy strictly would result in very unbalanced pairings (with Hendon players being much lower- or higher-rated than their opponents) then they may choose to deviate from strict rotation, in order to give the Hendon players more evenly-matched and satisfying games.
• If the club is having difficulties raising teams for away matches (for any team), then in order to avoid penalising players for home match selection when they play away from home, the captain may choose to track home and away matches separately for rotation purposes: for each home match, they may select the players who have played the fewest home matches to date, and similarly for away matches.

See also the general exceptions section below.

2.3: Teams which prioritise demographics

The club may decide that a team should prioritise players based on demographic criteria; for example juniors under the age of 18, or female players. In such cases, captains should select players in these demographics in preference to others.

This preference should be applied in addition to one of the other criteria above (for example, in a team preferring juniors, the team should consistently use either strength or rotation to make decisions when more juniors are available).

2.4: Teams which prioritise squads

A team may have a “squad” of players composed of a subset of members who are prioritised for selection for that team. If this is done, then there should be multiple such teams, and all members should have the opportunity, if they wish, to join the squad for at least one team which gives them approximately equal chances of selection relative to the others.

2.5: Match invitations

Invitations to play for Hendon in team competitions should only be sent to people who have given their consent to receive such material from us (for example during the membership application process). This may be a requirement of modern data protection legislation, and even if not, it is certainly good practice.

Subject to that constraint, invitations to play for Hendon teams should be sent on an equitable basis to all Hendon members who meet the selection criteria for the team. Any recipient of such an invitation should be able to declare themselves available and thus be considered for selection under the criteria listed in this policy.

Captains may set deadlines for player responses (e.g. for availability requests, or for acknowledgement of team confirmations) and may disregard responses not received by those deadlines.

To avoid players receiving invitations for matches they are unlikely to be selected for, captains may limit the set of players initially invited for a match in various ways. This includes rating, even for teams not prioritising competitive results as described in section 2.1, because rotation-prioritising teams tend to accommodate lower-rated players who are not being selected for results-prioritising teams.

Limiting invitations should always be done fairly and in keeping with the spirit of this policy.

2.6: Policy decisions

The policies applying to each Hendon team may be decided by the Committee. The policies used for our current teams are:

Middlesex League

3: Exceptions

No selection policy can cover all possible contingencies. Except where otherwise indicated, captains may deviate from the policies above when they reasonably believe it is allowed by the club’s constitution, and in the interests of the club, to do so.

Examples of this include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Captains may prioritise players who have agreed to perform services for the club on the occasion of the match, such as:
  • Acting as captain
  • Opening and closing our home venue
  • Putting out or clearing away equipment
  • Assisting with transport, e.g. offering other players a lift to away matches
• Captains may prioritise a player to reward them for making themselves available for other, less popular matches, such as away matches which require more inconvenient travel arrangements. Captains should balance this with due consideration for players who are unable to play in such matches for reasons beyond their control, such as age or disability.
• Captains may prioritise a player to reward them for acting as a reserve for other matches, if they were not called upon to play.
• Captains may take competition rules into consideration: for example, they may choose not to select a player if it could make them, or some other player, ineligible to play in one or more Hendon teams, either immediately or in the future.
• Captains may refrain from selecting a player if there is good reason to believe (for example, based on past behaviour) that the player may not keep their commitment to play in the match.
• If a player withdraws from a match after having been selected, the captain should make reasonable efforts to select a substitute using the same fair criteria as the original decision; however, this may not be practicable, particularly if the replacement is needed at short notice. For example a captain may need to select the first player who confirms or re-confirms their availability.
• Except where otherwise stated above, a captain may select a player who would not normally be selected for a team if no other player is available, in order to avoid a default.

4: Transparency

Club members are welcome to ask a captain for an explanation of any decision to (or not to) invite or select them for a particular match. Captains should answer such questions where reasonably possible to do so, while respecting the privacy of other members.

However, such requests must be reasonable in frequency and detail, and must at all times respect the fact that captains and other club officers are giving their time voluntarily and are almost invariably following this policy to the best of their ability.