QC Councillors Meeting (30-31 May 2019)
Qualification Commission Councillors Meeting
St. John’s Hotel, Solihull, England, 30-31 May
Minutes
In attendance:
Nick Faulks (BER) Chairman
Werner Stubenvoll (AUT) Honorary Chairman
Alex Holowczak (ENG) Secretary
Casto Abundo (PHI) Councillor
Walter Brown (USA) Councillor
Ilya Filippov (RUS) Councillor
Gunther van den Bergh (RSA) Councillor
1. QC business 2018-2021
1. New QC website
NF has asked the Elista Office to set up a new website ready for the end of the meeting, similar to the other Commissions. It has not been created due to workload issues in the Elista Office. It is hoped that this will be ready for launch as soon as possible after the meeting, and will be used as the primary method of communication for QC.
2. New ideas/projects
Various new things were discussed for future consideration:
- Weekly rating lists for rapid and blitz
New titles for rapid and blitz
New titles for juniors in cases where they don’t meet the conditional rating for direct titles
2. Rating
1. Review of the Rating Regulations
The existing regulations were discussed, and various amendments were made to them that would be taken forward. In addition, it was noted that the changes made in Batumi had not been incorporated into the currently published regulations, and should be added.
2. Open tournaments with a game duration of shorter than 4 hours
Elista has not yet been able to make the necessary program changes to ensure that tournaments with games shorter than 4 hours are correctly rated, about which there have been many complaints.
Regarding changing this regulation in principle from 2020, a survey inviting responses from players on this will be created.
3. Late and Altered Registration of Tournaments
Various tournaments are submitting their registrations late; it is believed the changes in item 1 should “solve” the problem going forward. NF will suggest that FIDE adds financial penalties for late registration, to help encourage tournaments to be registered on time. There were a number of modifications that QC thought would help with doing this, and this list will be sent to Elista after the meeting.
4. Tournaments being registered outside that Federation’s jurisdiction (i.e. not from that country)
Argentina has been registering tournaments taking place in the Falkland Islands, which is an area under the jurisdiction of the English Chess Federation. The regulations don’t say that there is anything wrong with this, although it was agreed that the regulations should be amended to say that it should be the responsibility of the host Federation to submit the registration and rating reports.
5. FIDE rating website and GDPR
Provisions relating to GDPR were approved in Batumi but the necessary changes to the Handbook were never made. NF will ensure this is done.
6. Rapidplay and Blitz ratings compared with Standardplay ratings
An increasing problem has been the rate at which players’ Rapidplay and Blitz ratings have fallen behind Standardplay ratings, mostly due to their inactivity at Rapidplay and Blitz compared to Standardplay. This will be considered at a future date.
7. Periodic Review of the FIDE rating system
Jeff Sonas is ready to do his periodic review of the rating system. Unfortunately, the relevant data regarding the effect of time controls on the predictive ability of results is not available. He will also be asked about
Initial ratings, for which data is available
The “health” of the Rapidplay and Blitz rating system
The questions raised in 2.6 above.
8. Hiding player profiles after a player’s death
It was decided to mark such players as deceased, and not to hide/remove their profiles from the website.
9. Non-publication of newly approved Rapid and Blitz rating regulations
Regulations governing Rapid play and Blitz have been approved and must be added to the Handbook.
10. Publishing additional statistics on player profiles
Top lists for each age group
The profiles don’t show ages down to Under 10 or Under 8
Age groups in the Advanced Search, rather than individual years
Under 16 seems to mean only 15 or 16, is this intentional?
These items will be added to the list for Elista.
11. Chess960 ratings
QC was asked to produce plans for a Chess960 rating system, which was done. However, no one has submitted a rating file.
12. Reducing the time in advance tournaments need to be registered
This was resolved under 2.1 above.
13. Tournament data being changed after the tournament is rated
Issues relating to data being changed on tournament registrations, due to information changing between registration and the event (e.g. arbiters changing or format changing), were discussed. It was decided to refer the matter of arbiters changing to the Arbiters Commission, and others with similar cases are encouraged to report them directly to the Arbiters Commissions. Elista will be asked if Federations can have access to edit old data (i.e. arbiters), plus a number of other related data issues on the tournament registration form.
3. Titles/Norms
1. Review of the Title Regulations
The existing regulations were discussed, and various amendments were made to them that would be taken forward. In particular, the direct titles for the Arabian Championships will be moved from Sub-Continental Individual to the same level as Commonwealth, Francophone etc.
2. Amalgamation of Sections
This will be considered in time for the regulation changes from 1st July, 2021.
3. Titles for Disabled Players
Should it be for the overall disabled tournament with all disabled categories, or for all of the disabled categories (e.g. blind)? QC decided that only the overall disabled tournament should have the direct titles, on recommendation from the Disabled Commission.
4. Narcis Tournaments
QC thanked Serbia for some analysis they had made on norm tournaments in Serbia. We did not find sufficient evidence to find that the tournaments should not be rated, and will request that Serbia submits the tournament for rating. The general matter will be referred to the Fair Play Commission.
5. Direct Titles from Zonal Tournaments that are not part of the World Championship cycle
NF explained that there have been African zonal tournaments for Open and women. There are direct titles from the Open tournaments but not the women’s titles, because the Open tournaments qualify for the World Cup, but the Women’s tournaments don’t because there are 4 zones and 3 qualifying places. In addition, there is no Women’s World Cup in 2019. The main issue arising from this is that there appears to be no Commission responsible for these Zonal tournaments, given they are not part of the World Championship.
6. New tournament formats (i.e. Schiller Tournaments)
This will be considered in time for the regulation changes from 1st July, 2021. NF reported that some tournaments of this type are being approved to give norms on an individual basis.
7. Requirement for PGNs from norm tournaments
The existing 1.93 was thought to be satisfactory to cover the needs of QC.
8. Requirement for signatures on norm certificates
This was resolved under 3.1 above.
9. Disallowing direct titles and direct norms which were achieved before 01/01/2005
This was resolved under 3.1 above.
10. ASEAN titles
The issue of ASEAN’s direct titles having been removed before 2016 but reinstated in 2018 by the FIDE Executive. The regulations didn’t provide for titles in any of these years. QC was asked to consider awarding titles retroactively. QC decided to award the direct titles in 2018 that were promised, and 2019 that was about to happen would also have direct titles awarded; but 2020 and beyond would not.
11. National Championship Concessions
Some countries, for norm purposes, would like to be able to designate one tournament as a National Championship even if it isn’t. Specifically, Israel holds their National Championship every two years. It was decided that the specific case will not be permitted, on the basis that it doesn’t appear to be necessary based on the current entry list.
4. Transfers
1. Review of the Transfer Regulations
The existing regulations were discussed, and various amendments were made to them that would be taken forward.
2. Transfers of Leinier Dominguez and Dariusz Swiercz
Issues relating to these transfers were discussed and there were no outstanding items.
5. Player Registration & Licencing
1. Review of the Player Licencing regulations
The existing regulations were discussed, and various amendments were made to them that would be taken forward.
2. Creation of FIDE IDs in the Chess in Schools Online Portal, and FIDE Online Arena
This was resolved under 5.1 above.
3. Delisting and re-listing of players; the Indian announcement on the FIDE website
Players whose ratings and profile have been hidden by the Indian Federation in accordance with the regulations, and FIDE published an announcement on Monday. NF presented a statement in response to the proposal that was agreed unanimously by the meeting. It was agreed that the ideal solution was that they should be unhidden, showing as IND on the rating list rather than FID, and that the issue of all 827 hidden players from around the world would be posed back to the Presidential Board.
6. Any Other Business
1. David Sedgwick proposals from July 2016 regarding the process for submitting norms
QC accepted the proposals, and factored them into their revision of the regulations.
2. Financial Regulations
QC discussed the Financial Regulations, insofar as charges relating to players’ titles and rated tournaments are concerned.
3. David Sedgwick’s Late Proposal regarding Unplayed Games
QC accepted the principle of the proposal, and factored it into their revision of the regulations.
4. David Sedgwick’s Even Later Proposal regarding Omolabake Coker
QC investigated the case, and subject to confirmation, she will be awarded the WIM title.
- Involvement of other Commission Members
We need to designate
A group of people who do the survey of people, monitor responses and analyse results
A group of people who help with norm checking
A group of people to comment on the draft regulations from this meeting
Closed at 1830.
