This announcement was posted yesterday:
Can you (or somebody) amplify? What is this intended to address?
Alex Relyea
EITHER US Chess has objected to hybrid tournaments where some FIDE arbiters are not USCF certified directors OR US Chess flat out refuses to submit any hybrid tournaments to FIDE going forward. I am not quite sure which one.
The short second paragraph adds to the confusion. Doesn’t it simply quote longtime US Chess policy?
I am personally opposed to hybrid tournaments as they are currently being run, but I know they have become rather popular of late.
Michael Aigner
I think at least part of this is ancient history.
A decade or two ago someone wanted the various U.S. Amateur Team (USAT) annual events – North, South, East, and Midwest/West – to culminate in a championship playoff for the team champions from the four regions. This was when online play was in its infancy, if you could even call it that, and well before U.S. Chess began to rate online play.
It was deemed impractical to hold the combined championship games OTB, because nobody wanted to travel that far from home. So the concept of holding the event by remote control was developed. The moves may even have been transmitted by phone (or modem) to a central (but separate) location, and there were TD’s at each of the four “directional” sites to monitor play, watch for time forfeits, etc. The games were then rated within the U.S. Chess OTB rating systems.
Once “real” online play became more practical, disagreements developed between the proponents of “classical” play and online play as we now know it, so we ended up with a hodge-podge “compromise”, which I guess is now called “hybrid”. It tries to fix all problems from all points of view, and people are beginning to simply throw up their hands and say, “What’s the big deal?” But apparently it remains a big deal in the minds of some.
Bill Smythe
Brian Yang addressed this topic underneath the announcement.