Does anyone know if it’s permitted to simply drop from the FIDE rating report any games that aren’t ratable for a specific player (based upon rating/time control)? We already can drop any games which are too fast for general rating, e.g. if you have a 3-day schedule where all games are slow enough and a 2-day schedule where rounds 1-2 are too fast, the players in the 2-day schedule will be shown with “byes” (of proper value) for rounds 1 and 2, while players in the 3-day will have all five rounds.
You’re saying that if a player has more than the allowable number of hours of play in a day, drop a game? Which one? The first round of that day, the last round of that day?
I don’t think the FIDE rules officially prohibit cherry-picking like that, but when I was in Turin for the Olympiad, it was definitely frowned upon. A well-know FIDE official told me more than once that FIDE should come down hard on the US for selecting which games to rate. He didn’t call it cherry-picking, that’s probably not an idiom in his native country. Other FIDE officials said pretty much the same thing.
They were interested in our rerating process, though.
I think Tom was asking something along the following lines. If a tournament has a time control of say G/90;d10, and there is one player with a rating of 2400 or higher playing, can you submit the tournament for FIDE rating with the 2400+ players games excluded?
Boy, I hope not.
Alex Relyea
Excluding the games of one player would not be permitted in a US Chess rated event, though I suspect it happens. I’m not sure why it should be permitted by FIDE. The mathematical reasons why it is a bad idea still apply.
There have been times I’ve had a relatively new organizer make that request of me but they cancel that request very quickly once I explain the facts of life.
This certainly sounds like it’s written with the expectation that some games might be ratable, and some not, based upon the ratings of the players involved.
Wording like “where at least one of the players has a rating XXXX or higher, each player must have a minimum of MMM minutes” certainly sounds as though FIDE is expecting that some games may be cherry-picked out.
But that’s atrocious. Organizers of FIDE-rated events ought to synchronize their allowable rating ranges with their time controls.
If a time control in any given section is unacceptable for players over any given rating, the organizer should simply not allow players over that rating to play in that section. Different sections can have different allowable time controls, and different allowable rating ranges to match. For that matter, different sections could have different schedules, as well.
Bill Smythe
I wonder how lower rated players who win against a 2400+ player would feel about knowing their game won’t be rated by FIDE because the time control was too fast?
Well, if the alternative is that the whole section isn’t FIDE rated, then it wouldn’t matter anyway.
You’re going to tell people that they’re too good to play in an “open” section? The wording in the FIDE regs do seem to indicate that they are anticipating the possibility of tournaments where high rated players are rare, but allowed.
All of this is (kind of) my whole point.
To avoid the strange and unfair consequences apparently permitted by FIDE – banning highly rated players without advance notice, not FIDE-rating certain games, etc – USA organizers of FIDE-rated sections would do well, IMHO, to adopt the following policies:
- If a FIDE-rated section is advertised as “open” – or if it is “open” by default, due to the lack of any announced rating restrictions – then the total time control (mm + ss) must be at least 150 minutes per player for everybody in that section.
- If mm + ss in a FIDE-rated section is at least 120, but short of 150, then the section must be advertised as open only to those under 2400.
- If mm + ss in a FIDE-rated section is at least 90, but short of 120, then the section must be advertised as open only to those under 2200.
- Et cetera – whatever else is necessary.
(Please, somebody correct me if I have made math errors in any of the above.)
In other words, it would be best if USA organizers of FIDE-rated sections followed what the FIDE regs should have said, to avoid the possibility of players being turned away or having their games not FIDE-rated.
Bill Smythe
Your numbers are all off Bill. Look at the rating regulations document at the begin of this thread.
I’m confused as to where 150 and 2200 came from.
If you mean 120 where you say 150, 90 where you say 120, and 60 where you say 90, and 1800 where you say 2200 then I’m on board. It should be noted, though, that these are FIDE ratings only. There is no issue with experts playing G/30;+30 as long as their FIDE ratings, if any are in the 1700s.
Alex Relyea
By the way, 9.2 in the Rating document that Mr. Mark links to in the initial post seems to suggest that both what Mr. Smith has suggested and the idea of omitting games are not allowed. Keep in mind that the loss of Sevan Muradian has made changes to the regulations be more implicit and less explicit than we are comfortable with in this country (not just chess).
Alex Relyea
OK, thank you for the corrections.
True. The A player who defeats a 2450 would still have that game count towards his U.S. Chess rating, just not to his FIDE rating. Plus, if the opponent’s U.S. Chess rating is 2450 but his FIDE rating is 2350, the game would still count in both rating systems.
(Again, please make adjustments in those figures as necessary. The idea remains intact, regardless.)
True. It seems FIDE has both theoretical people and practical people writing rules, so we end up with contradictions. The theoretical people want to keep their rating system pure, while the practical people are fond of having all those USA tournaments FIDE-rated, so the latter keep creating loopholes.
Indeed. When Sevan was around, we saw a period of gradually improving clarity within the FIDE rules. Since his unfortunate departure, we have seen a gradual decline back into ambiguity.
Bill Smythe
Cherry picking which games are not FIDE rated would seem plausible if the games are picked as a section and done before it any entries are even taken (i.e. the short time control first games of a 2-day schedule getting merged into a 3-day schedule). It seems to be dubiously gaming the system to cherry pick games after the pairings are done and with the risk of board 2 not being rated while boards 1 and 3 are rated. I’m not on our federation’s internal FIDE events committee but I would anticipate they would take a dim view of it and I would more strongly anticipate that FIDE’s own committees would not accept it.
What about the case in this thread? Would it be possible (and/or should it be encouraged) for an organizer to state, in pre-event publicity, something like “Games played in this section by players with FIDE ratings 2400 and up will not be FIDE-rated, but they will still be U.S. Chess rated, and they will still count for eligibility, score, pairing, and prize purposes.”?
Bill Smythe
This is essentially saying that if games cannot be rated for a player then the player can still play and win money with the games not reported.
In US Chess play if games cannot be rated for a player (non-membership, not able to attend) then either the player does not play or the organizer changes the conditions so that the player can play (pays for membership, arranges and publicizes a multi-site event with TDs at all sites). A TD deliberately excluding games from one player to make a tournament easier (or cheaper) to rate will face TDCC consequences if even one player complains (somebody who beat the ratings-skipped player or somebody who received a lesser prize because of a draw or loss to the ratings-skipped player or even any player in the event that didn’t like having a ratings-skipped player).
I guess if somebody wants to be a test case and does this without letting US Chess know then THE TD may be willing to face the consequences, but they would not be the only one facing those consequences. FIDE may end up taking actions that have adverse effects on the US Chess Federation because the tournament would have been submitted to FIDE through our Federation and we did not stop it (well if it is submitted through an entity other than our Federation then that may not be an issue, but it seems likely that entity would not end up particularly happy). My personal preference for any such test case is that the submission be done through a different FIDE federation or FIDE academy that bypasses US Chess and that the submitting entity be informed as to what is going on. In the unlikely event that a submitting entity is willing, then we can see what FIDE’s decision is. If the submitting entity is not willing to actually submit the event then the organizer has wrongly advertised an event to be FIDE rated.
The federation does not want FIDE to have a reason to question or reject events it submits and even something as apparently trivial as submitting a round robin with the rounds not played in the order given (and not letting USCF know) has resulted in significant penalties against the TD (while placing all US events under a greater level of suspicion by FIDE).
Not reported to FIDE, but they would still be reported to (and rated by) U.S. Chess.
Would such a player have the standing to complain? His opponent would be only FIDE ratings-skipped, not U.S. Chess ratings-skipped, and the player would still have that delicious U.S. Chess rating gain, not to mention the prize money. And, if the opponent had been banned by the organizer, the player never would have had the opportunity for all that.
Now that player might have a slightly more legitimate complaint, but he would still be up against the fact that the opponent was, according to the advance publicity, still eligible to play.
Again, the opponent would be only FIDE ratings-skipped.
It seems to me it might be a dubious call for TDCC to take action against a TD who is disobeying FIDE’s right hand while following its left.
Bill Smythe