44th Olympiad, Chennai 28 July to 10 August 2022

[Roger de Coverly]

Interested readers may also like to read a Chessdom interview with Margaret Murphy

Apparantly the reason why the player challenged for eligibility by Nigel was eligible is because he is the team trainer and their rules (not FIDE's) say he can play.

Robert Bellin was Guernsey's coach for a while and even accompanied them to Olympiads as non-playing captain. Perhaps the smaller British federations should change their rules to be able to import any number of English titled players into their teams as coaches.

The other matter that springs out of the interview is as to why FIDE was spending sizeable sums to finance a beginner's "get me a rating" tournament ?

[David Sedgwick]

Thank you Angus. I said that I didn't wish to comment further, but I feel it would be appropriate for me to respond to some of your points.

Interested readers may also like to read a Chessdom interview with Margaret Murphy: part 1, part 2.

I hadn't seen those interviews. I fully accept that it is important to hear both sides of any argument.

Murphy refers to a tournament in the USVI for which the Planning and Development Commission provided a $5000 grant but which was subsequently excluded from FIDE rating on the instructions of the Fair Play Commission. I didn't mention this as I was unsure whether the information was in the public domain. To the best of my knowledge the FPL Report has not been published.

In the interests of fairness, I should mention that the PDC Chairperson had no complaints about the conduct of the tournament and objected to the cancellation of the FIDE rating.

1.Admitting to membership of the USVI players who have no connection to the territory.

I've seen a claim to this effect made by Nigel Short on Twitter. In my view it's not enough in itself. I wonder if David has seen more?

Murphy states in one of the interviews that other FIDE officials besides Short had alleged that that was the case.

2. Effectively declining to admit to membership of the USVI players who are resident in the territory and have formed an alternative Federation in protest at their exclusion.

Again, I think this needs to be substantiated.

I chose my words about this with some care. My reference to "effectively declining to admit" was based on the comments about this aspect in the second FIDE report. I had forgotten about the earlier publication of that report.

I leave it to interested readers to decide for themselves ... whether Margaret Murphy is deserving of support.

That remains for interested readers to judge.

[JustinHorton]

Whoops

[David Sedgwick]

The other matter that springs out of the interview is as to why FIDE was spending sizeable sums to finance a beginner's "get me a rating" tournament ?

Thai is easy to answer. It is an important policy objective of FIDE to enable players in all Federations to get FIDE ratings. In a geographically diverse territory such as the USVI that cannot be done cheaply at first.

Obviously you wish to see the tournament conducted properly. The PDC consider that it was; the FPL consider that it was not.

[JustinHorton]

Perhaps the smaller British federations should change their rules to be able to import any number of English titled players into their teams as coaches.

Surely this is neither here nor there? The allegation was that this federation was breaking the rules, and if the idea instead is that we disagree with their rules, that is surely a different matter.

[Roger de Coverly]

The allegation was that this federation was breaking the rules, and if the idea instead is that we disagree with their rules, that is surely a different matter.

They were exploiting a loophole only available to dependent territories without separate citizenship such as the Channel Isles and the USVI. Eyebrows would certainly be raised if Guernsey or Jersey employed this ruse to send an England second team in their name.

[JustinHorton]

Has a second team been sent in someone's name?

[JustinHorton]

Conor Murphy seems to have passed up a chance to beat Bluebaum

[Matt Mackenzie]

Apparently Black had a medical emergency here so White offered a draw

If the position given by Chess24 is correct then White is straightforwardly lost.

Clearly a resignation was more appropriate.

The etiquette of this is interesting isn't it.

Where is the line drawn - assuming it should be - between the non-stricken player offering a draw and resigning?

Indeed, could they actually claim a win if they are much better anyway??

[Roger de Coverly]

Has a second team been sent in someone's name?

The point is that if the Welsh and Irish federations weren't totally opposed to the idea, they could probably look into the ancestry of English titled players and put together teams that were a good deal stronger than their current ones. Scotland perhaps less so, in the past anyway. That's within the existing FIDE rules, which I uderstand are similar to the FIFA ones used by Jack Charlton. That's without needing to exploit a coaches loophole which GCI and JCI would have to.

[Roger de Coverly]

Where is the line drawn - assuming it should be - between the non-stricken player offering a draw and resigning?

There was the Penrose incident in 1970 against Andorra. But hadn't he just blundered and was probably busted when he collapsed?

[JustinHorton]

Early possible shock warning

[Ian Thompson]

The etiquette of this is interesting isn't it.

Not just for illness. What should black have done in this situation? The position when the game stopped was:

Pos1.jpg

with white, the victim of the theft, to play.

[Nick Grey]

Eng open are winning

[JustinHorton]

Conor Murphy seems to have passed up a chance to beat Bluebaum

But wait!