In my past discussions on planning events, I’ve always been told it is a limit on the games allowed in one day.
Okay, suppose I have quads in the morning and two rounds at 40/2 starting at 1 p.m. Do the three games in the morning mean that the two slow games can’t be FIDE-rated? How does this differ from having a fast schedule followed by a merge?
The real point, though, is that as far as I know the rule has never been applied as you suggest. If FIDE and USCF want to get together and come up with a new interpretation, fine, but they had better consider the practical problems of determining exactly which games will be ratable.
The difference is that those quads are a SEPARATE EVENT, not early rounds in the SAME EVENT.
I suspect FIDE’s perspective on this (and almost certainly Stewart Ruben’s perspective) is that they do not want situations in which a player can be required to play more than 3 rounds in a day in an event.
The argument that such a requirement may only be the case if someone chooses to play in a ‘fast’ schedule is probably, as far as FIDE is concerned, irrelevant (as well as abhorrent.)
Any organizer running multiple schedule events should consider just how big a can of worms he or she may be opening.
Consider an event like this:
‘Slow’ schedule: 1 round every evening at G/90 + 30 seconds increment for 9 rounds (Saturday-Sunday)
‘Fast’ schedule: 4 rounds at G/45 during the day on Wednesday, with round 5 merged into the slow schedule on Wednesday evening.
Suppose that in round 5 a player in the ‘slow’ schedule gets his first FIDE rated opponent, someone who came in from the ‘fast’ schedule, and suppose he defeats that FIDE rated opponent.
Under a strict interpretation of the ‘no more than 3 games/day’ rule, that game would not be FIDE ratable. However, the player from the ‘slow’ schedule may not be aware of the nuances of the ‘3 rounds/day’ rule and may think this game will count towards his getting a FIDE rating. If it turns out that he only plays 2 other FIDE rated opponents, this is not a FIDE ratable event for him.
Until this is clarified, it sounds like a bit more caution is needed with the scheduling. For instance, in Mike’s example the fast schedule could be 3 rounds Wed. afternoon and evening, 2 rounds Thu. morning and afternoon, and merging Thu. evening. That would make all games rateable. An alternative of 5 games Wed. and merging Thu. evening would keep all slow schedule games and post-merge games ratable while no pre-merge fast schedule games are ratable.
I have a question that has been answered with an implied no, but which I don’t think has been explicitly answered. I think FIDE is now requiring the date that a round is played. Does that mean that FIDE might be checking that and that a player that plays in a FIDE-rated one-day 3-round quad in the morning and afternoon and then goes across town to play in a different organizer’s one-round-per-evening FIDE-rated event would have all games for that day considered unrateable even though both organizers were careful to make a FIDE-ratable schedule?
I was told by Casto Abundo and Christian Krause in Torino last year that the primary reason FIDE is now requiring round dates is so that they can check for bogus events, where a player appears to be in two events at the same time (generally in different cities.) Apparently they’ve had some problems with this from certain organizers in Europe.
I don’t think the ‘3 games per day’ limit would get invoked, since they’re separate events, but I think overlapping events with non-conflicting day/night schedules might get flagged by their ‘bogus event’ checks and require some explanation.
Walter Brown, the USCF’s FIDE Ratings Officer, is checking with the FIDE office on the original question. My general impression is that the FIDE office has been a bit more tolerant of tournament practices in the USA than some people within FIDE might lead you to believe.
I’ve also found that while it may take some time to get the issues fully resolved, the FIDE office, like the USCF office, really does care about resolving ratings problems. For example, Walter has been in contact with FIDE recently over several players who received FIDE IDs that had already been assigned to someone else. (The most recent example turned out to be the FIDE ID assigned to the late GM Arnold Denker.)