ECF Council Meeting 12 April 2014

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't think its just 2200+ players who want to keep FIDE grades for relatively 'special' games, it'll be anyone who's thought about what the list actually means in the UK context.

Given the number of weak players awarded the CM and FM titles as prizes, these titles lack a certain credibility. Would it be lessened further if you could acquire the title just by being that little bit better in the last five minutes of a G/75 or G/90 equivalent? How about a potential IM massaging his or her rating to the magic 2400 purely in Leagues or Congresses.

But certainly there's a perceived quality element to the FIDE rating, notwithstanding FIDE's devaluation of it in pursuit of a world rating standard. Rightly or wrongly, FIDE addressed the problem of countries without a rating system by supplying its own.

[Roger de Coverly]

4. G/60 with a 30" increment is acceptable in events where all players are <2200, which sounds like your target audience when getting people rated. Go for it.

Clubs with amateur players rated or potentially rated 2201 or above would not be in favour. But it might work in London as an option given the wide choice of leagues.

[NickFaulks]

Lack of arbiters in both cases iirc? Very little prospect of being able to fix that.
(Of course trying to force gold membership for the Yorkshire league would be 'interesting'......).

Where does this idea that you must have an arbiter in the room come from? I've never come across this except in England.

The point about gold membership is taken, but not my place to comment.

[NickFaulks]

What is a slight shame is that a fair few competitions that actually meet the criteria of being relatively long, serious games not played just after work can't be FIDE rated for various reasons. County chess of course,

Forgive me if I'm being dim, but county chess seems an obvious case for FIDE rating. Is it the gold membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

Where does this idea that you must have an arbiter in the room come from? I've never come across this except in England.

I thought there was a recent FIDE rule that said you had to have a licensed arbiter as a condition of games being FIDE rated. Somewhere along the line, there was a further interpretation that it wasn't enough for the licensed arbiter to be at the end of a phone line. Of course this could just be the CAA making it up, or gold plating the FIDE requirements, but licensing of arbiters is a FIDE diktat as far as anyone is aware.

It was certainly suggested that if you had assistants who didn't hold licenses, it would be better not to mention them on the FIDE rating report, lest it be rejected.

The senior Dutch arbiter is vaguely incredulous that we run league matches in the UK without the presence of neutral or near neutral arbiters or persons acting as arbiters.

[Roger de Coverly]

Forgive me if I'm being dim, but county chess seems an obvious case for FIDE rating. Is it the gold membership?

It goes back before that, when the BCF (it was that long ago) chose to misinterpret the FIDE regulations about membership as a necessary condition for rating. It was eventually pointed out that FIDE itself, or at least those responsible for running the rating systems, interpreted "membership of" to mean "registered with". They had little choice given the number of FIDE Federations who don't operate individual membership schemes.

This clarification came from two sources, one being Chess Scotland who asked the direct question, the other being Sean Hewitt who asked how his tournaments could be required by the ECF to insist on membership of the foreign Federation when that Federation didn't allow individuals to become members.

[NickFaulks]

Somewhere along the line, there was a further interpretation that it wasn't enough for the licensed arbiter to be at the end of a phone line.

That's the bit nobody has told me about. For norm tournaments it's certainly true, and norms have been turned down on that basis.

It is true that any arbiters working at a rated tournament must be licenced. That is just a restrictive practice imposed by the Arbiters Commission, their trade union. It annoys me greatly that it is in a QC regulation.

[NickFaulks]

Shortly before the scheme started, when there was genuine confusion, I asked the AC Chairman whether a federation's rating officer, having got himself licensed, could simply insert his own name whenever he registered a tournament where there would be no onsite arbiter. His reply was that this was not what they had in mind, but would work.

[John McKenna]

John McKenna wrote

A budget announcement calculated to show that the ECF's hand is in its increasingly-bulging pocket and its golden heart is in the right place when it comes to the international stage? Or the start of a deficit-spending regime?

The vote by Council to support the International Director's request to be able to utilise up to £5,500 towards the Olympiad teams out a forecast surplus of £21,324 for 2013/14 could hardly be described as deficit spending.

My thanks to John Philpott for his reply to my questions.

The forecast surplus looks a healthy one, so allocating £5,500 to cover a 'shortfall' in the ECF's Olympiad budget looks quite manageable. However, if the surplus realised was in the order of £10,000 or only £5,000 would the allocation still be made in full, or pro rata? (I do not necessarily expect John P, or the ECF, to have a ready answer. Hopefully it will remain a hypothetical question.)

[Alex McFarlane]

Hi Nick.

I think the following email makes it clear that what you suggest is not allowed.

From: FIDE.com <[email protected]>
To: Chess Scotland Grading <[email protected]>
Cc: Takis Nikolopoulos <>
Sent: Sunday, August 4, 2013 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: Licensed arbiters only for FIDE rating
Dear Mr. Bryson


Please note that according to current regulations we cannot accept tournaments with non licensed Arbiters for rating.
I'm also forwarding your email to Mr. Takis Nikolopoulos for his information.

The following was given as the solution to the Chess Scotland IRO

Dear Mr. Bryson,

I believe that as a solution could be accepted that the Captains will be appointed by your Federation as National Arbiters,
but they need to be licensed. It means that your Federation has to register them to FIDE, by paying the license fee of 20 euros per National Arbiter.
The registration could be made by sending an email to FIDE ( to FIDE Office and to Arbiters' Commission ) and asking for licenses, including the names
of the National Arbiters that will get the License. The invoice will be sent by FIDE to the Federation later.

With best regards
Takis Nikolopoulos
Chairman
FIDE Arbiters' Commission

[Sean Hewitt]

Hi Nick.

I think the following email makes it clear that what you suggest is not allowed.

From: FIDE.com <[email protected]>
To: Chess Scotland Grading <[email protected]>
Cc: Takis Nikolopoulos <>
Sent: Sunday, August 4, 2013 1:14 PM
Subject: Re: Licensed arbiters only for FIDE rating
Dear Mr. Bryson


Please note that according to current regulations we cannot accept tournaments with non licensed Arbiters for rating.
I'm also forwarding your email to Mr. Takis Nikolopoulos for his information.

It is absolutely true that events cannot be accepted with non licensed arbiters. But that's not the question being asked on this forum. The actual question is whether those licensed arbiters need to be physically on site. As Nick says, the answer is yes if it is a norm event, but no otherwise. The ECF have an email from the Ratings and Qualifications Commission which says exactly that and it's interesting that the quoted email from the FIDE office does not contradict it. Therefore events in England can and are rated with no arbiter physically present.

If the Yorkshire league or the County Championships wanted to be FIDE rated, they could be.

Perhaps a more pertinent question is why aren't more weekend events FIDE rated?

[Roger de Coverly]

The following was given as the solution to the Chess Scotland IRO

Dear Mr. Bryson,

I believe that as a solution could be accepted that the Captains will be appointed by your Federation as National Arbiters,
but they need to be licensed.

Is there an assumption in this that the Captains are non-playing? If it's a playing captain and there's no increment, the deemed presence of an arbiter brings 10.2 or its successor into action, which isn't going to work if the Captain is still playing, let alone if it's his own game.

In any event, the ECF intend to withdraw the facility for just anyone to be appointed a National Arbiter.

[Sean Hewitt]

Please let us have your ideas. In Tallinn we passed an amendment known as the "Sean Hewitt proposal", so it can be done.

Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me!

[Sean Hewitt]

In any event, the ECF intend to withdraw the facility for just anyone to be appointed a National Arbiter.

At the instigation of the CAA.

[Roger de Coverly]

Perhaps a more pertinent question is why aren't more weekend events FIDE rated?

One very obvious reason is that if you don't want to start until 10 am, and finish by 10 pm, you only have time for 105 minute sessions when you are playing three rounds on Saturday and two on Sunday. The e2e4 model of rounds on Friday evenings is all very well when you are treating it as a weekend away, but rush hour traffic can make the easy local journey into a nightmare, as I've found myself in practice getting to Sunningdale. In some cases it's a similar journey to that for weekday league games, but traffic always seems worse on Fridays.

The solution of excluding players rated above 2201 isn't really on, as the strongest local players will exceed this and many of them will have supported a local Congress for many years.

At the risk of stating the other obvious points, the organisers didn't want to be required to demand compulsory membership for English players and exclude non-English players without FINs.