We have 10 US TD’s, 1 Canadian, and 1 Australian. 1 other seems to have disappeared after registering for it.
A second generation Priest is also following in dad’s footsteps (Allen participated in the first even Internet Arbiter seminar)… a lot of other known directors are participating - Matt Phelps, Mike Hoffpauir, Enrique Huerta, and Ankit Gupta…
Off to a great start… we’ve covered the lionshare of the material this weekend with a lot of interaction from the attendees.
Next Saturday we’ll cover the last two topics of Title Regulations and Rating Regulations, along with a Q&A on open questions from this week and then on Sunday the attendees will take their exams.
You guys are cranking right along! I think you’re farther along at this point than my group was last year when the internet-based seminar was held the first time.
Have you noticed any improvements in the process, or maybe kinks/bugs worked out? Is Takis perhaps more comfortable with the format now that he’s had experience with it? Or maybe this group is just smarter than we were
Different web-conferencing package we’re using this time around so a few kinks with that but we don’t have to worry about using Skype like we did last time and the challenges we had. Now you can only chat if you’re not Takis or myself so that holds down background noise, etc.
The two groups (last year and this year) I would say are approximately the same in terms of skill level. It just happens that we were able to plug along this year.
I beg to differ! The lack of Ken alone increases our skill level dramatically.
Seriously, the seminar is going very smoothly. The conferencing software is perfect for this type of thing. It even runs on my Linux laptop with no issues. Not having to run Windows makes me a very happy learner. The material is clear, and Takis is doing a great job presenting while answering questions from the chat window. It’s working very well.
So Sevan, these seminars are being run yearly basically? If so I’ll look very forward to participating in the future. Gotta get several more tournaments under my belt first!
Well it is done now… we’ve completed all 3 days of the seminar and tomorrow the victims, I mean participants, will take their examination. 1 Canadian, 1 Australian, and 8 American’s is what the composition is.
They will take their test tomorrow and within 2 weeks have their grades provided to them.
Good luck to them all and I hope they found the seminar to be a good one…
Out of the 10 people that sat for the arbiter exam the following7 people have passed the exam:
Matt Phelps - USA
Ankit Gupta - USA
Andrew Thall - USA
Payam Afkham-Ebrahimi - IRI
Rene Preotu - CAN
Thomas Priest - USA
William Broich - USA
Congrats to those that passed. This will be published on the FIDE website sometime this week and will be recorded officially after the next Congress in October.
Thanks to Takis and Sevan! I’m very happy I passed! Wasn’t sure when I wizzed through the last five or six questions really fast. I guess I CAN pair quickly by hand