FIDE rule change: no phones in playing venue AT ALL

[Clive Blackburn]

It may be a "first world problem", but mobile phones give people a certain freedom and access to information that they didn't have in previous years.

Yes, they can analyse games on the internet and run chess engines!

[Richard Bates]

I seem to think it was accelerated last year as I got Richard Pert in the first round.

Top board pairing: Rogers (2061) v Gupta (2640)
Board 105 pairing (not confident boards below this are in seeding order): Steinhart (1594) v Barton (2073).

Conclusion: not accelerated.

The tournament was a bit of a disaster from a norm perspective last year, to the extent that one of the leading seeds managed to come second with 7.5 out of norm and not get a GM norm. A couple of players in the low 2400s managed to get to 7 out of 9 without playing a single player stronger than them. Basically the chances of a (GM) norm was improved the lower rated you were.

Whether that was just a consequence of the distribution of the field or whether acceleration would have improved matters is another question. I get the impression there is a bit more "depth" at the top end of the tournament this year which may make a difference.

[E Michael White]

Do our arbiters/organisers really know enough about the mathematics and structures behind grading models and accelerated pairings to come to a worthwhile conclusion ? They seem to float from one subjective decision to the next.

[Roger de Coverly]

Do our arbiters/organisers really know enough about the mathematics and structures behind grading models and accelerated pairings to come to a worthwhile conclusion ? They seem to float from one subjective decision to the next.

I doubt it. Where arbiters would prefer to get a computer program to do the work, you get non accelerated pairings as there are now programs considered sufficiently robust to be used for pairings. It has the advantage for players of making the pairings available earlier. Whilst the FFE (France) have a program that does accelerated pairings according to their rules, I don't know of a program that attempts to apply the British acceleration rules.

Something I spotted on the Australian forum
http://www.chesschat.org.au/showthread. ... post348344

Programs will or should always follow the rules as defined and if they give odd results, it's usually the fault of the rules. In the case they cite, the new Swiss rules apparently would give seed 80 from 80 who defaulted the first round, a bye in the second.

[Sean Hewitt]

I seem to think it was accelerated last year as I got Richard Pert in the first round.

Top board pairing: Rogers (2061) v Gupta (2640)
Board 105 pairing (not confident boards below this are in seeding order): Steinhart (1594) v Barton (2073).

Conclusion: not accelerated.

The tournament was a bit of a disaster from a norm perspective last year, to the extent that one of the leading seeds managed to come second with 7.5 out of norm and not get a GM norm. A couple of players in the low 2400s managed to get to 7 out of 9 without playing a single player stronger than them. Basically the chances of a (GM) norm was improved the lower rated you were.

Whether that was just a consequence of the distribution of the field or whether acceleration would have improved matters is another question. I get the impression there is a bit more "depth" at the top end of the tournament this year which may make a difference.

It's a subjective call of course. I suspect I would have been criticised whichever decision I made

However, seed 60 (the start of the 2nd quartile) is rated 2263. It's not as simple as that of course but, without going into the mathematics of it (which EMW probably wouldn't understand) I believe that accelerated pairings are unnecessary for norm purposes in this event.

[David Sedgwick]

MEW probably wouldn't understand

I won't comment on the remark itself, but I suspect you mean EMW.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I can confirm that there will be no accelerated pairings in the FIDE Open.

As a mid-ranked participant of the FIDE Open, I definitely appreciate this choice. Thank you.
I believe it results in a more interesting tournament for myself (and honestly I could not care less whether it affects norm chances or not).