Brian Towers wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:55 am
Chris Rice wrote: ↑Mon Dec 30, 2019 12:06 pm
II should probably add that Kobylianskyi sent the results for rating himself and is also listed as the Tournament director and the only arbiter of all the games he has played.
The FIDE Arbiters Commission is strongly against this practice. In the
February 2016 edition of their
magazine for arbiters they highlight such a problematic case.
FIDE Arbiters Commission wrote:This case covers 2 mistakes. However, it is very important to note that the 2nd mistake would
probably have been caught if the 1st mistake had never occurred.
1st mistake: An Arbiter cannot be a player in the same tournament.
The Qualification Commission specifies this in their FIDE Title Regulations:
1.17 No arbiter may play in a title tournament even just as a filler.
Even if the event is not a title tournament, it is inappropriate for an arbiter to also be a player. The
arbiter-player risks missing occurrences that should be dealt with by that arbiter. In the Laws of Chess,
Article 12, “The Role of the Arbiter”, clearly documents the attention that the arbiter provides to the
games under his jurisdiction. Anything less by the arbiter does a disservice to the game.
The problem with the opinion of the Arbiters Commission is that in several small countries around the world, there would probably be no FIDE rated chess as a result of such a regulation. Take an example like Jack Rudd's club, and assume their internal Rapidplay was FIDE-rated, then they have the following options:
1. Jack would have to not play in it
2. The club would have to not rate its internal Rapidplay so that Jack could play
3. They'd just have to name some other licenced arbiter who was never present but ticks the box as far as FIDE is concerned, which is sharp practice that FIDE wants to avoid
Philosophically, would you rather have:
1. IA Jack Rudd as a player-arbiter in the event
2. Some human being who turns up and has paid 20 Euro to get a shiny NA licence but doesn't actually know the Laws of Chess
Because the advice of the Arbiters Commission is that you should do 2.
To be fair, if there was a will, an arbiter could be trained in England, but this is not necessarily the case in many FIDE member countries. I think the Arbiters Commission was overly idealistic when making that advice.