Wednesday 1 May 2013

Where did the ratings go?

FIDE have recently switched to monthly rating reports, which has had the side effect of creating a busier work schedule for Federations. This has already created problems in Australia, with a large number of tournaments which were to be rated on the May 2013 apparently being shifted to June 2013.
Significantly, important Australian events like the Doeberl Cup and the Sydney International Open have been affected by this change. In the case of both tournaments, the rating files for the events were submitted to the Australian Chess Federations FIDE Ratings Officer almost immediately after the completion of the events, but it appears they weren't forwarded to FIDE.
There is also the parallel problem of some events not being registered at all (eg 2013 ANU Masters), despite the information being forwarded to the ACF's FRO in a timely manner. Having exchanged emails with the Secretary of the FIDE Qualification Committee when the problems with rating Australian events first became apparent, it is not clear whether these events can now be rated at all.
I am aware that the ACF is trying to fix the problem, but I am not sure how successful they will be. Having registered and submitted events on behalf of a couple of Oceania Federations (Solomon Islands, Guam) it isn't that hard a job, as FIDE approved pairing programs normally generate a report that can be uploaded to the FIDE Ratings Service with the push of a button. Occasionally new players need to be registered, but even this is a fairly straightforward task. 
But for now players will have to wait an extra month to have their ratings updated. Of course this is what used to happen prior to this year (when list were every 2 or 3 months), but for tournament organisers this is not that satisfactory, especially as the ACF charge a service fee for processing these events (even ones where the FIDE rating charge is $0.00). I'm assuming some of the problems should be fixed by the next list, but I can only wonder if all of them will be.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought a FIDE card was forever, well until a person died anyway after being on the inactive list for up to several decades. But Cuba's Fidel Corrales Jimenez, a 2600+ GM, has been delisted altogether.

How is this possible?

- James

Shaun Press said...

Under the current FIDE Rating Regulations section 13 states

13.0 Inclusion in the Rating list.
13.1 To be included in the FRL or FIDE Rapidplay Rating list, a player must be a member of a national chess Federation which is a member of FIDE. That is, the Federation must not be temporarily or permanently excluded from membership.
13.2 It is the responsibility of national Federations to inform FIDE if players should not be included in the FRL, FRRL.
13.3 Any player excluded from either rating list because he is unable to obtain membership of a national Federation, may apply to FIDE for special dispensation to be included.

So Federations can simply request that FIDE delist players.
I am aware of this happening to a couple of players I know, and my main difficulty with this is that Federations don't have to give a reason why a player is to be delisted. (Maybe Qualification Commission assume that Federations always have good reasons for doing this). However even if a player is delisted they do not lose their rating, but tournament organisers then have to go tot he trouble of contacting the FIDE Rating Officer and request a players rating and ID (rather than looking it up online).

Kevin Bonham said...

Everything that was to be rated on the May or June lists has so far as I know now been rated.