REGULATIONS ON REGISTRATION & LICENSING OF PLAYERS

[David Shepherd]

The ECF is short of funds and many people help them by giving time freely so they need to limit time and resources spent where possible. Surely what has happened here is that FIDE have communicated something to National Federations who have then individually communicated it to FIDE arbiters registered through their own Federation. I cannot see why this is a problem, the ECF had enough confidence in Chess Scotland to know that they would inform Alex. Surely each federation informing their own FIDE arbiters is the way to avoid duplication and wasted resources. I have no doubt that if Alex had been a FIDE registered arbiter through England than he would have been informed.

One idea I did have however was whether the ECF communicated the matter to the CAA and if not whether communicating with the CAA may be a way of filtering down messages.

[Phil Neatherway]

... regarding the decision not to send membership reminders to inform by post to those ECF members who prefer not to use email or do not have access to the internet does to me highlight an attitude of "I am all right, Jack".

Ordinary members have a right to be treated with more respect by those they elect to Office.

Perhaps there was an element of trying to save money in the light of the loss of the Goverment grant. 1000 first-class stamps (I expect the ECF would be accused of disrespect if they used second-class) costs £600.

I also notice that according to the Arbiter's page on the ECF website, not all Arbiters are members of the CAA. So maybe that route would also not have been 100% effective.

[NickFaulks]

Of course, the comparison is not helped by the fact that the current "official" ECF / FIDE conversion function is mathematically gibberish.

The "official" conversion is now 8*ECF + 650 = FIDE. There's a case that the 8 could be reduced slightly because of the non-linear nature of the Elo formula. The 650 is the original 600 plus an extra 50 when the ECF graders convinced themselves that all the grades were wrong except for the top players. As they added about 5 or 6 points to players around 175, that can justify 2000 no longer being equivalent to 175. You might be thinking of 5*ECF + 1250 = FIDE which was nonsense as you suggest and caused by someone running amok with a least squares fit on ECF v FIDE. This was dropped in 2009. The recent Sonas graphs published on chessbase showing under performance at the extremities are equivalent to what caused the ECF graders to embark on a revaluation exercise, supposedly to correct for deflation.

Oops, sorry. I was of course thinking that 2008 conversion was still in force, and thought I had done my homework to check, but stumbled on something out of date. I shall be more careful in future.

[Angus French]

... Surely what has happened here is that FIDE have communicated something to National Federations who have then individually communicated it to FIDE arbiters registered through their own Federation. I cannot see why this is a problem, the ECF had enough confidence in Chess Scotland to know that they would inform Alex. Surely each federation informing their own FIDE arbiters is the way to avoid duplication and wasted resources. I have no doubt that if Alex had been a FIDE registered arbiter through England than he would have been informed.

The point - as I see it - is that Alex does and has done a great deal work for English chess and the ECF/BCF - through organising and arbiting at various events, not least the British Championships (there's also Scarborough and I'm sure others - perhaps someone can provide a list). If the ECF is to take a stance - or even, to consider taking a stance - on the FIDE edict then I think Alex really ought to be consulted - in fact, given his involvement and experience, I think he ought to be near the top of the list of people to be consulted and I think any views he expresses on the matter should be given careful consideration.

[David Shepherd]

Angus, I thought the complaint raised was over the lack of Alex being informed and not the lack of him being consulted in reference to formulating a response (which is a different issue, but may be relevant). The lack of him being informed in the first place I can understand as that was done by the Federation under which he is registered and there was no sense in duplication.

[Angus French]

Angus, I thought the complaint raised was over the lack of Alex being informed and not the lack of him being consulted in reference to formulating a response (which is a different issue, but may be relevant). The lack of him being informed in the first place I can understand as that was done by the Federation under which he is registered and there was no sense in duplication.

David, yes, perhaps - though I'm not sure I'd distinguish so clearly between the two activities - certainly one should follow on from the other and by dint of that you'd want to correspond with the same groups of people, wouldn't you? In any case, I think that, as an organiser/arbiter of FIDE-rated events in England and/or under the auspices of the ECF, Alex should still have been involved at the informing stage.