ACP Grand Survey 2016

[E Michael White]

Where does that leave 6.2b?

"A player must press his clock with the same hand with which he made his move"?

According to what is written in the FIDE Laws, in the case of castling the player has to press the clock with the hand with which he made the rook move. In Roger's vid Maurice Ashley infringes that law but the movement of the pieces does not.

Of course this is poor Law drafting and players should not copy Ashley. Until the final Law versions are written by professional writers there will always be many ambiguities and errors.

[NickFaulks]

I am interested to see that the number of Members registered with home Federations are:
ENG (27), SCO (6), IRE (1)

And WLS (2). You might have thought that they would have resigned following the ACP President's sickening comments about John Cooper, but they didn't. USA (59) don't seem to care much either, but that is less surprising.

[Brian Towers]

Q 53 is "Do you think the FIDE Tournament Rules and the Competition Rules of the FIDE Laws of Chess for professional and for amateur events should be the same?" If the answer is no, how can they guess what the respondent thinks the difference should be? Where do you draw the line anyway, eg which side is the 4NCL or the Gibraltar Masters?

Well, where to start?

A good precursor question would have been "Are you familiar with the FIDE Tournament Rules and the Competition Rules of the FIDE Laws of Chess?".
I'll bet the majority of arbiters, ACP officials and ACP survey writers are unfamiliar with the details. I'm not just parroting Nigel Short here and how far even his knowledge extends beyond 8.3 (3) [about which he has previously demonstrated rare familiarity ] I'm not sure.

What the "Competition Rules of the FIDE Laws of Chess" are is fairly straightforward. They are Articles 6 through 12 of the FIDE Laws of Chess.

But what exactly are the "FIDE Tournament Rules"?

I would suggest that if you go to the "FIDE Handbook" section of the FIDE website they are the bit referred to as "C. General Rules and Recommendations for Tournaments". There, confusingly, you have the option to download the "Competition Rules" !?!? Let's assume for the sake of argument that these "Competition Rules" are what the question is calling "the FIDE Tournament Rules". The FIDE website, not for the first time, is rather confusing here.
The preface is fairly clear:

All chess competitions shall be played according to the FIDE Laws of Chess (E.I.01A). The FIDE Competition Rules shall be used in conjunction with the Laws of Chess and shall apply to all official FIDE competitions. These Rules shall also be applied to all FIDE-rated competitions, amended where appropriate. The organisers, competitors and arbiters involved in any competition are expected to be acquainted with these Rules before the start of the competition.

As an aside, note this bit:

The organisers, competitors and arbiters involved in any competition are expected to be acquainted with these Rules before the start of the competition.

I'll buy the majority of organisers being familiar but I bet with arbiters it is a minority and with competitors it is not far off zero.

Note also the "amended where appropriate" bit of " These Rules shall also be applied to all FIDE-rated competitions, amended where appropriate."

Where do you draw the line anyway, eg which side is the 4NCL or the Gibraltar Masters?

The "Scope" section of what we are calling the FIDE Tournament Rules answers this question:

1.1 Where an event has a situation not covered by internal rules, these Rules shall be considered to be definitive.
1.2 These Rules apply to the following levels of competition.
L1: Official FIDE events as defined by the FIDE Events Commission (D.IV.01.1) or FIDE World Championship and Olympiad Commission (D.I, D.II)
L2: Competitions where FIDE titles and title norms can be earned
L3: FIDE Rated Competitions
L4: All other competitions
Rules that apply to specific types of competitions shall have the competition level indicated.
Otherwise the rules shall apply to all levels of competitions.

Note that we also have the Addendum to Law 11.3b (sorry, it is well hidden on the FIDE website so you'll have to find a link yourself) regarding mobile phones, the last sentence of which is
"This possibility will not be valid for the World and Continental FIDE events"

So, the rules are already not exactly the same for "professional" and "amateur" events and the differences are spelt out in the FIDE documents. I suspect that whoever wrote the question didn't have much of a clue himself.

As Nick says, the really interesting question is "What should be different?"

[Roger de Coverly]

L2: Competitions where FIDE titles and title norms can be earned

L2 needs to be split into two parts. Events like the Wijk B section, where the majority, if not all players are titled, being different from events such as the London Classic FIDE Open, Gibraltar or Hastings where a majority of players do not have titles.

Invitational Opens such as Qatar with a high ratings cutoff for eligibility to enter are likely the only ones to present a categorisation difficulty.

[NickFaulks]

There, confusingly, you have the option to download the "Competition Rules" !?!?

The prospect of any of this confusion being sorted out soon has just taken a tragic dive with the very untimely death of Rules Commission's hard working Secretary Sevan Muradian. While everyone's first thoughts must be with his family, and then with his friends and colleagues in the US, the gap this leaves in FIDE will have to be addressed quickly, with a major review of the rules due to be finalised in Baku. The Presidential Board must not be given any excuse to hijack the process as they did four years ago.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The FIDE notice relating to Sevan Muradian's death:

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... n-rip.html
https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2039010

He was only 40.

More details here:

http://www.il-chess.org/index.php/news/ ... asses-away

[NickFaulks]

Events like the Wijk B section, where the majority, if not all players are titled, being different from events such as the London Classic FIDE Open, Gibraltar or Hastings where a majority of players do not have titles.

I don't understand this at all. If the top ten boards, containing all of the big prospective prizewinners, are GM-only, then the tournament must be regarded as professional ( whatever that means ). It makes no difference at all that two 1700 hackers are playing down on board 87.

If lower rated players wish to play alongside GMs, they should expect to play by the same rules. In fact, they should welcome that.

[Roger de Coverly]

If lower rated players wish to play alongside GMs, they should expect to play by the same rules. In fact, they should welcome that.

For many events it's the other way round. GMs playing alongside lower rated players. It's often the lower rated players who are partly or wholly financing the tournament.

The obvious sticking point for an "amateur" tournament is the need to accommodate the presence of switched off mobile devices. Given the rules applied in Baku for the World Cup, you could add watches and pens.

[LawrenceCooper]

There are questions about cheating but nothing about false accusations of cheating - perhaps a topic the ACP prefers to avoid.

Emil Sutovsky was very vocal on Facebook supporting Natalia Zhukova's actions at the Women's European Individual and whilst not quite as rude as Mr Eljanov towards Mihaela Sandu made it clear where his loyalties were. Supporting an ACP member against a non member maybe but not comfortable reading.

For the record Emil Sutovsky has contacted me on Facebook to deny ever being vocally supportive of Natalia Zhukova, whilst making it clear that he wasn't supportive of Mihaela Sandu. He disagrees with me in expressing outrage at the treatment of Mihaela Sandu and the majority of professionals allegedly agree with him.

[NickFaulks]

and the majority of professionals allegedly agree with him.

He's doing the counting...

[Mick Norris]

The FIDE notice relating to Sevan Muradian's death:

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... n-rip.html
https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=2039010

He was only 40.

More details here:

http://www.il-chess.org/index.php/news/ ... asses-away

Chess Mind

[Ian Thompson]

... then the tournament must be regarded as professional ( whatever that means ).

That's the problem, isn't it? Without a definition of what "professional" means, how can you have a sensible discussion of how professional and amateur events should differ?

Better questions might have been:

1. Do you think invitational only events should have different rules from open events?
2. Do you think events with high prize money should have different rules from those with low prize money?

[Brian Towers]

Without a definition of what "professional" means, how can you have a sensible discussion of how professional and amateur events should differ?

The ACP (Association of Chess Professionals), I would suggest, has a very clear definition. You are a professional if you've paid them your subs.

The ACP is clear about one of its aims in posting the survey:

the answers of the ACP members will serve us as the very important indication for our further actions. It is not just a questionnaire, we need to know your opinion in order to represent the professional chess community in the best possible way in our discussions with FIDE, continental and national institutions and tournament organizers. Please, take your time to answer these questions. Make your voice heard - it is really important!

Of course "Everybody is invited to participate" which along with the first page of questions tells you what is probably the main reason for the survey. They are harvesting personal and contact details of non member chess players for the distribution list for their marketing department.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Without a definition of what "professional" means, how can you have a sensible discussion of how professional and amateur events should differ?

The ACP (Association of Chess Professionals), I would suggest, has a very clear definition. You are a professional if you've paid them your subs.

That's a definition of a professional player. What we're looking for is a definition of a professional event.

[Stewart Reuben]

E Michael White >Most chess players of all playing levels that speak to me would like the laws to be clear that only one hand may be used when playing a castling or any other move.<

Laws of Chess 4.1. Each move must be made with one hand only.
3.8b. by 'castling'. This is a move of the king and either rook... {It is NOT two moves}
6.2b. A player must press his clock with the same hand with which he made his move.

I think this is unambiguous. Please explain. I am always willing to help with re-drafting a Law where desirable.
The problem arises in the US because they do NOT necessarily play according to the FIDE Laws in their non-FIDE-Rated events. This works to the disadvantage of people playing in the US. Until quite recently thy did not even play according to the FIDE Laws in their FIDE-Rated events.