FIDE just released its list of tournaments registered for the April list. Only two American events made the cut, both from last December. However, the USCF website lists 14 FIDE rated tournaments in 2007 that should have been submitted. In addition, several big tournaments from the end of 2006 should be rated, e.g. North American Open.
Since the submission deadline for the April list was two weeks ago, I wonder what happened? If the USCF office submitted the tournaments, then FIDE doesn’t appear to know about it. If the USCF office didn’t submit the tournaments, then the organization will be on the hook for more fines.
If the moderator(s) feel this topic is important enough for the USCF Issues Forum, then please move it. I posted in the Tournament Organization Forum because the FIDE submission problem has been addressed here in the past.
FIDE changed the procedures for submitting ratings reports as of January 1st.
A program to prepare ratings reports in the new electronic format (sometimes called the Krause format after its author, Christian Krause) was made available to the USCF ratings staff in January, but apparently the only way to use it is to first register the event using the new FIDE Ratings Server and then use that server to upload the formatted rating report file.
However, FIDE did not get around to sending the USCF’s Ratings Officer (Walter Brown) a password for the FIDE Ratings Server site until mid-February (at which time Walter was out of the office for a few days), and the reports that the USCF has submitted since then (which we think are in the proper format) have come back with an error message that does not help us to figure out what the problem is.
There do not appear to be any instructions or documentation for the FIDE Ratings Server site.
Bill Hall sent an email to the FIDE Executive Director asking how we should get technical assistance last week. According to Bill, his response was not helpful.
I will be in Crossville in a week, I’ll try to get the problems ironed out then.
Part of the problem appears to be that the new FIDE reporting format requires color information. I did get the USCF a temporary exemption from that requirement.
I’ve been in contact with the Elista FIDE office on this, here’s Casto Abundo’s response:
I have been working on a revised reporting format, it sounds like we will need FIDE events reported in this new format fairly soon (possibly by the end of 2007 if not before then.)
I will try to complete this format and the programming for it within the next 2-3 weeks.
I will also notify Tom Doan and That Suits of this, they will need to get working on updating their pairing programs. Once updated versions of those programs are ready, any TDs submitting FIDE events will have to either update their pairing programs to a version that can send the new reporting format or they will have to MANUALLY update the crosstables for the FIDE rated sections to add color information.
I will also nofity the Board of this, they may want to set a hard deadline for when the reporting of FIDE events must have color information.
Followup: Tom Doan has reported that he can have an updated version of WinTD ready within a couple of weeks of when the new upload format is finalized.
I will look at the data dictionary again between now and Sunday (when I go to Crossville) and will try to get it completed and an implementation guide written ASAP.
The initial (and possibly only) implementation will be an XML type format, ie, the formatted output will look something like this:
10339324
XYZ Open
2007-02-01
2007-02-02
etc.
(I may try to write a similar XML format for submitting memberships.)
Thanks to good and quick work by Mike Nolan and others in the USCF office, FIDE now lists 20 USA tournaments registered for the April FIDE list. The list includes North American Open, Amateur Team East and the NAO event in Oklahoma.
Walter Brown and Chuck Lovingood deserve most of the credit on the USCF’s end, as they worked well into the evening on Wednesday trying to get caught up and then Walter spent most of the next day fixing a few problems.
Casto Abundo of the Elista FIDE office was also very willing to help us out.
It looks like the only event that was submitted that didn’t make the FIDE list yet is the Liberty Bell. Walter says that one was among the group that were sent in twice (due to formatting problems with the first one), we’re not sure why it isn’t on their list.
Agreed, but I don’t know why it didn’t get included, though I’ve asked the FIDE office about it. (There’s still an outside chance it will get in, I suppose, or possibly in a mid-cycle update.)
