Friday 13 February 2009

New rules ready to go

The proposed changes to the FIDE Laws of Chess that were agreed upon at the last meeting of the FIDE Rules and Tournament Regulations Committee (RTRC) meeting, are about to go to the FIDE Presidential Board for approval.
On the contentious 'instant default' rule, there are two proposals to be submitted. The first is the one agreed to by the RTRC, which allows the organisers to set a forfeit time for players arriving after the scheduled starting time (although sadly the proposed default time is still 0 minutes), while the other proposal is no discretion for the organisers and an instant loss for all late arriving players.
The other issue that was left up in the air at the meeting was whether rules for Chess 960 should be incorporated in the FIDE Laws of Chess. At this stage the comments from some members of the committee have been against including Chess 960 (as no other chess variants are included), with not comments in favour. I have suggested that there be a sub-committee of the RTRC which can deal with chess variants, publishing the rules as a separate document to the official lawns of chess (FIDE Laws of Chess Variants).

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