English Chess Forum

We took the mick out of Kirsan when he proposed a chess license.

Entering an English Congress, the entry form tells me

NOTE: To play in a FIDE rated event you must have a FIDE Identification Number (FIN) and be licensed to play over the board chess. Players not previously registered with FIDE will be registered as (ENG) English as we are not able to register players under another country

(my bold)

So where does this supposed license come from?

It has been around for at least a decade, and you didn't notice?

You can get a FIDE ID and not be licenced to play OTB chess by, for example, using FIDE Online Arena. Should these players then enter my OTB tournament, I usually just ignore their FOA ID, and make a new ENG one from scratch. The fact that you never noticed it suggests that this practice may be quite extensive here, or there are so few people signing up to FOA that it is a very small problem. It is, however, a very irritating problem when it happens.

I tell online arena individuals to contact the IRO and ask it to be updated to ENG - always worked so far. Us mere mortals don't have the ability to "...just ignore their FOA ID, and make a new ENG one from scratch." If we put it through as if they don't have a FIN the IRO tells us they do when they rate it and that generates some form of penalty payment.

Derrick Walker wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 16, 2026 10:23 am

I tell online arena individuals to contact the IRO and ask it to be updated to ENG - always worked so far.

This is not always an option available behind the scenes, and the response times to such queries are not exactly punctual.

FIDE was warned about these problems when it created this system, all those years ago, but it didn't matter. I don't feel any particular need to sanitise their database for them, given that they didn't feel any need to preserve its integrity themselves when they introduced this system.