Fide Arbiters Commission

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Chris Rice
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Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Chris Rice » Thu May 11, 2017 4:01 pm

The FIDE Arbiters Commission met during the Reykjavik Open tournament and here is their report. As you'll see when you click on the link that despite this being the age of gender equality and that there are 154 (W)IAs and 258 (W)FAs that could have been in the picture there are in fact, none. Is our sport lagging behind golf in this respect?

David Sedgwick
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by David Sedgwick » Thu May 11, 2017 4:42 pm

Thank you for alerting me to the publication of the minutes of the meeting.

It was a meeting of the Arbiters' Commission Councillors, not of the full Commission. The latter includes three women members. Please see https://ratings.fide.com/fide_directory ... content=10.

The issue which you have raised is being actively addressed. The European Chess Union have recently announced that the ECU Tournament Regulations are to be amended to stipulate that a minimum of 25% of the arbiters at official ECU events must be female. I imagine that FIDE will follow suit.

The recent World Senior Team Championships in Crete exceeded that target comfortably: five of the eleven arbiters were women.

As yet, not many Federations have a female Chief Arbiter, but I am very pleased that England are one of the few which do.

Tim Harding
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Tim Harding » Thu May 11, 2017 6:18 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
The recent World Senior Team Championships in Crete exceeded that target comfortably: five of the eleven arbiters were women.
The Greeks are pretty good at that. At the 2014 World Senior individuals there were more than 50% women working with chief arbiter Sotiris Logothetis. If I recall correctly he was the only male.

I am struggling to recall if there were any female arbiters last year at the World Senior Teams (Dresden) or World Senior individuals (Marianske Lazne) which probably means there were none at either.
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 11, 2017 7:10 pm

Tim Harding wrote:The Greeks are pretty good at that. At the 2014 World Senior individuals there were more than 50% women working with chief arbiter Sotiris Logothetis. If I recall correctly he was the only male.
In Greece, to quote a Greek arbiter who worked at the London Chess Classic last year, "everyone's an arbiter". One of the reasons is that they host a significant number of World and European events, and so there is a constant demand for local arbiters to help at those events. There is a willing supply, because those who work there are paid more than expenses to be there. Contrast this with the Tromso Olympiad, where they had to get extra overseas arbiters because there weren't enough qualified domestic arbiters available. And contrast that with England, where arbiters are deemed not necessary for most of our chess.

But numbers aren't everything.

The vast majority of their experiences are at events where everyday things don't go wrong. For example, the idea of someone turning up 20 minutes late in a panic because he was stuck on the underground just isn't a thing that happens. Furthermore, they're mostly a pair of eyes due to the hierarchical structure of FIDE events, where you've got an Arbiter, Sector Arbiter, Deputy Arbiter and Chief Arbiter. They're often at step 1 or step 2 of those 4 steps, whereas in England, we mostly operate with 2 steps, and possibly 3. So the idea that they're actually allowed to make decisions, like investigate draw by repetition claims, or kill the liveboards, or that you can put up a box that says "results" and people put their scoresheets in them, are completely alien concepts.

So yes, the Greeks are good at generating numbers of arbiters - of both sexes! - but there is a bigger picture...

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu May 11, 2017 7:22 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: Contrast this with the Tromso Olympiad, where they had to get extra overseas arbiters because there weren't enough qualified domestic arbiters available.
It's a long standing historic precedent that the Olympiad has guest arbiters, little to do with the availability or otherwise of Norwegian arbiters. Not least it helps with the coverage of languages available to organisers.
Alex Holowczak wrote:
And contrast that with England, where arbiters are deemed not necessary for most of our chess.
And long may that remain so. Take out manual pairings and remove Appendix G claims by using increments, what actually is the specialist knowledge needed by arbiters, that's not possessed by experienced players and match captains?

Alex Holowczak
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu May 11, 2017 7:44 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:It's a long standing historic precedent that the Olympiad has guest arbiters, little to do with the availability or otherwise of Norwegian arbiters.
The Norway Olympiad organisers invited supplementary overseas arbiters due to the shortage.
Alex Holowczak wrote:
And contrast that with England, where arbiters are deemed not necessary for most of our chess.
Roger de Coverly wrote:And long may that remain so. Take out manual pairings and remove Appendix G claims by using increments, what actually is the specialist knowledge needed by arbiters, that's not possessed by experienced players and match captains?
Knowledge of the Laws of Chess
Knowledge of the rules of the competition (e.g. board order compliance)
Independence, when something does happen

No match captains meet these, and not all match captains are experienced or know the rules. In fact, most of the disputes I've had to handle after an event (e.g. local league, County Championship) could have been resolved if someone who met those requirements was present, or even consulted at the end of a phone. I've had three phone calls between 10:15pm and 10:30pm this season to provide advice during a dispute...

Ian Thompson
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Re: Fide Arbiters Commission

Post by Ian Thompson » Thu May 11, 2017 9:34 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:So the idea that they're actually allowed to make decisions, like investigate draw by repetition claims, or kill the liveboards, or that you can put up a box that says "results" and people put their scoresheets in them, are completely alien concepts.
I've seen that in Thailand as well. My opponent didn't turn up. After an hour the local arbiter decided he needed to call the Chief Arbiter to award the default win. The Chief Arbiter told him he should be dealing with this sort of thing himself.