REGULATIONS ON REGISTRATION & LICENSING OF PLAYERS

[NickFaulks]

Isn't the FIDE Registration scheme another attempt to get those federations like Scotland or Australia who don't have mandatory individual membership, to introduce it?

I don't know. Perhaps Nick Faulks can answer that?

For some reason I've only just found this. Better late than never.

Even though this is nominally a QC matter, I was not involved in the planning of this scheme, and saw the announcement at the same time as everyone else. Once I got to all FIDE rated players needing passport numbers I gave up. I was told that such details could be sorted out later, but why not get it right in the first place? I was relieved when it was, inevitably, withdrawn.

I shall now fast forward to the current problems.

[Sean Hewitt]

My point - not yet acknowledged - was that I think it would have been a good idea for the ECF statement to have included text such as "The ECF response will be discussed at next week's board meeting"; something to tell readers of the statement that the ECF wasn't just acquiesing in following FIDE's instruction.

Given that the communication told organisers and licensed arbiters that they were free to contact the ECF if they had further questions or concerns, and that none have done so thus far, I'm content that the communication was comprehensive and achieved what it set out to do.

[Roger de Coverly]

Sorry to disappoint you, but the ECF didn't wait a fortnight. The ECF contacted organisers of imminent events straight away. Simultaneously, it sought additional information from FIDE which, once received, allowed wider communication to all organisers and licensed arbiters.

Adam Raoof went public on August 25th, wording it as if he had only just been notified. This was the first time most readers of the forum would have known about it, although an enhanced version of the proposal had already appeared as a Agenda item on August 23rd for the FIDE Congress in September.

Don't players deserve to be told? The impact on English players is that if you decide to enter a FIDE rated event abroad and you don't have a FIDE code, your entry might well be declined by the foreign organiser. "Abroad" in this context also includes Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Equally an English resident and possibly already an ECF member could run into difficulties in an English tournament if they wanted to use a non ENG designation.

(edit) No doubt some in the ECF are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of being able to decline to issue a FIDE id unless a Gold membership has previously been purchased. (/edit)

[Adam Raoof]

Here is the advice from Chess Scotland, posted to their Forum on 14 August;

FIDE sent this information to federations on August 12 2013 with regard to FIDE IDs - the equivalent of our domestic pnums.

"FIDE receives a big number of mainly open tournaments where organizers welcome participants from their country or foreigners who have never played in FIDE rated tournaments before; that is players without a FIDE ID number. National rating officers create ID numbers for their own Nationals but the foreigners are submitted without IDs.

QC believes that FIDE should not take responsibility to register new players as it is not possible to confirm the players' details provided by organisers. It is also not possible for FIDE to contact all Federations and request them to confirm details and create ID numbers.
QC has instructed the Elista Office to reject tournaments which are submitted without ID numbers.

We kindly request the national rating officers who cannot submit their tournaments for the reason mention above, to contact the Federations and request that they create ID numbers for the players who do not have one.

It should be noted that if a player is declared with a wrong Federation and wishes to change Federation, the Registration, Transfer & Rules of Eligibility for Player will be applied."

The key point here is that a national federation can only create IDs for their own nationals ie SCO.

Previously you could generate IDs and request the player was changed from SCO to their requested federation - now the intention is that will no longer be possible.

***********

For several years CS has suggested that anyone who does not possess a FIDE ID and is about to play in a FIDE rated tournament outside Scotland supply their year of birth to [email protected] and a FIDE ID will be created. Now it looks possible that if you dont already have an ID your entry to an event abroad could be declined until such time as CS generate your FIDE ID.

You can check FIDE IDs of all SCO registered players - both rated and unrated at this link.

http://ratings.fide.com/advaction.phtml ... e&line=asc

Check if the name appears under any nationality code by consulting the main database here http://ratings.fide.com/

******

There are now implications for the Scottish Championships and any other domestic event which is FIDE rated.

FIDE state that a rating officer should request foreign players get an ID but will all federations answer this request instantly - probably not. And if not it would mean transfer fees would be imposed.

Therefore any event which intends to be FIDE rated by CS should defer the acceptance of any entrant who does not currently have a FIDE ID. The player would be asked to get an ID from his national federation and only then when the player was visible in the online FIDE system could the entry be approved.

[MartinCarpenter]

I'm sure that Stewart's fourth group is the largest It isn't a big thing but I'd definitely prefer not to get one. No genuine upside and a potential downside of it being notably out of kilter (due to only being based on a few games) and so messing with stuff like 4NCL board orders.

Certainly an argument for running the board order rules for division 3(N) in the 4NCL off ECF rather than FIDE. Just somewhat more accurate at that level. Like they're already allowing for juniors. Shrug.

[Roger de Coverly]

Here is the advice from Chess Scotland, posted to their Forum on 14 August;

For their own bizarre reasons, Chess Scotland require registration with their official forum not just to comment on it, but also to read most of it. I'd imagine very few people read their comments which seem to sum up the effects of FIDE's change.

FIDE now regard the smooth running of a rating system as more important than encouraging entry to internationally rated events. But we probably knew that they aren't interested in chess promotion from other rules they've tried to impose like zero time defaults.

[Matt Fletcher]

If the problem with elo ratings of people in my rating bracket was that we tend to play too few games, wouldn't there be plenty of guys who were absurdly over-rated based on an unrepresentative small sample? I never meet those guys.

They do exist (although I suspect less common than the other way round). Here's a club colleague of mine - playing strength about 170. He hasn't played rated chess in Britain as far as I'm aware though:

ECF 162

FIDE 2177

[Roger de Coverly]

The USCF appear to have accepted the exclusion of foreign players without FIDE ids as a matter of fact and appear to be advising tournament organisers to exclude them.

http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12330/721

However, foreign players participating in FIDE-rated events in the U.S. must have a FIDE ID prior to the start of the event. Those who do not have one must be registered, before the event, by their National Federations.

[MartinCarpenter]

Mostly just randomness rather than a systemic under/over grading problem. If you look into extreme cases like people just playing 4NCL North its a tiny bit scary.

The Jorvik 4NCL team say. 200, 2116; 179, 2054; 172, 2081; 150, 2044; 159, 1854; 162, 1787. Also likely to be some converted players in there, so 160 to ~1900, 170 to 2010 etc.

The ECF grades here are mostly sensible. The 200 grade has played a few games outside 4NCL North but not many recently and is basically a classic case of the same phenomonen as the modern junior style grading lag.

The rest are just down to having to give people grades based on not remotely enough games to do other than guess. Conceptually reasonable of course as they're meant to be initial grades but with the way things are they'll basically never play enough games to overwrite them.

[Adam Raoof]

Having thought about this a little more, the requirement seems to be reasonable - FIDE is passing the work of ensuring that players are registered correctly back to the Federations, who might choose to pass that work back further up the line to organisers. I remember the IRO of the Welsh Chess Union contacting me recently to identify a player who had suddenly appeared on their lists, and had been registered as Welsh through one of my events - in this case he was happy to have them play under the Welsh flag, but I can see where problems might arise.

The only problem might be with the occasional FIDE rated blitz or rapidplay where a player slips through with the wrong registration (i.e. SCO not ENG) because of a mistake by the organiser and wants to change in order to play in a standard FIDE event. As far as I know, it won't affect many players at either Hendon or Golders Green - but it could, easily, since we get a lot of 'tourists' from Federations whose IROs may not be as diligent as our own!

[Roger de Coverly]

Having thought about this a little more, the requirement seems to be reasonable - FIDE is passing the work of ensuring that players are registered correctly back to the Federations, who might choose to pass that work back further up the line to organisers.

What's unreasonable is the € 250 penalty for getting it wrong. If an organiser or prospective player runs into an unresponsive Federation, does the organiser have much choice other than to decline the entry? What about entries the night before or on the day where there wouldn't be enough time to pursue a third party for a FIDE id?

[Jonathan Bryant]

If the problem with elo ratings of people in my rating bracket was that we tend to play too few games, wouldn't there be plenty of guys who were absurdly over-rated based on an unrepresentative small sample? I never meet those guys.

They do exist (although I suspect less common than the other way round). Here's a club colleague of mine - playing strength about 170. He hasn't played rated chess in Britain as far as I'm aware though:

....

Perhaps there you have your reason. About 50% of my first elo rating was games played abroad. Perhaps no coincidence that it was also my highest by far.

Mostly just randomness rather than a systemic under/over grading problem.

Not in my experience. I've played 15 rated games in the last month or so. In 10 of those 15 games I had opponents with both an elo rating and an ECF grade. Of those 10, 9 had Elos considerably lower than they'd have had by converting their grade. The average difference is something likely 80 points.

Similar story last year at Tywford and Penarth.

Which is not to say that my experience is typical nationally. It does seem to be typical of the pool of opponents that I meet (I suppose we're talking South of England and Wales but not 4NCL).

[MartinCarpenter]

Well it is, I suppose, quite possible that the average is considerably out too It'd be a surprise if the juniors weren't depressing it at least a bit.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Oh I forgot to say: three of the nine were juniors and there was one who has only just stopped being a junior ... but that still leaves five adults.

My biggest problem from those games is not juniors or adults though. It's FIDE's practice of not counting games against unrated opposition. 4 of my 15 games in the last few weeks were against unrated fellows and I scored 3.5/4 from those games.

I'm wondering now if my experience would be notably different if I played 4NCL rather than tournaments.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm wondering now if my experience would be notably different if I played 4NCL rather than tournaments.

Which division and where you play in a team can come into it. Minimum playing standard for a regular place in a division 2 squad is around 2000. In the south at least, nearly every player of that standard already has a FIDE rating from years back, so most of them are reasonably reliable to within a 100 points. The third division has a lower standard and it's arguably pot luck as to whether you meet rated opposition. Being on one of the top three boards probably helps because other than juniors, it can be difficult to meet players with a high ECF and much lower FIDE. Third division north seems to have more unrated players because of the slower growth of players in that area taking part in FIDE rated events and the historic lack of events.