FIDE Representative Report

2017 AGM FIDE Report:

I am standing for re-election as FIDE Delegate and FIDE Zone 2.2 President. I shall be grateful for your support. The past year has been busy enough.

Titles

Congratulations to Canada’s newest IA, Danny Goldenburg.

Player titles earned this past year came from the PanAm Youth and NAYCC as noted further on.

Federation Transfers

Apart from serving on the Executive in general, this is probably the most time consuming part of the job. I have worked on 9 Federation transfers this year. Four of them are still in process. These applications are not trivial, and there are often several rush requests centering around the CYCC, when new Canadians who are registered under another flag qualify to play in the Worlds. In all cases it is important to remember that the old Federation has 90 days to object before the transfer takes effect. Some Federations are more co-operative than others.

2017 Zonal Championship

Congratulations to GM Bator Sambuev for his victory at the Zonal Championship in Montreal, held from June 27 – July 1 2017. The spectacle of the final blitz game with Nikolay Noritsyn was equally informative and unfortunate. I have nothing to add to the discussion or the NAC decision, but one action item emerged for me. The organizers, believing they were following FIDE regulations, disbanded the tournament Appeals Committee prior to any playoff games.

From Annex 3 of FIDE Competition Rules, Tie Break Regulations , 12.1.1,i

Each game shall be supervised by an arbiter. If there is a dispute, the matter shall be referred to the Chief Arbiter. His decision shall be final.

I showed the article to FIDE and they disagreed, stating that many high level tournaments have a Closing Ceremony to consider so tie break games may be decided finally by the Chief Arbiter but the Appeals Committee is not necessarily precluded. I believe the FQE acted correctly based on the rules as they are written and I will seek to amend the wording at the next Congress.

2017 Pan Am Youth

This event was held in Costa Rica from July 1-6. Thanks to Anabelle Kovatcheva for serving as HoD. Congratulations to our medalists.

Wang, Constance, CAN, ID 2615657 - WIM norm and WFM title, cond. rtg 1900 for silver medal
He, Emma, CAN, ID 2627299 - WFM title, cond. rtg 1900, for gold medal
Qu, Greta, CAN, ID 2627221 - WCM title, cond. rtg 1800, for bronze medal

2017 NAYCC

The conflicts with international youth events and Canada’s national championships are not going away. We may wish to revisit our own schedules. The USCF hosted this year’s event in New Jersey, immediately following the CYCC and concurrent with the Canadian Open. The negative impact on attendance at the CO was overshadowed before our kids could make their first move. I have filed an official complaint with FIDE America about this tournament.

The organizers refused to provide conditions for the HoD or any food allowance for official players. They also refused to provide clocks for the tournament. The clock issue may have precipitated an extraordinary attempt to change the time control prior to the first round. This would have invalidated the titles which the players were there to earn. Congratulations to HoD Victoria Doknjas for holding her ground at the Technical meeting. The original time control remained in force.

Two more issues followed. Two sections experienced a restart of the first round after about 30 minutes of play. This was done to accommodate additional players. Finally, the playing venue was not secure and players were allowed to visit with non participants during play. This led to an incident regarding peanut allergies and one of our players withdrawing from the tournament. A separate complaint has been filed about the Chief Arbiter in this connection.

Congratulations to our title winners:

Qu, Greta, CAN, ID 2627221 - WCM title, cond. rtg 1800, for bronze medal
Zhong, Kevon, CAN, ID 2624907 - CM title, cond. rtg 2000, for silver medal
Huang, Qiuyu, CAN, ID 2619903 - FM title, cond. rtg 2100, for gold medal

2017 World Cup

We are fortunate to have 2 players in the World Cup this year. Anton Kovalyov qualified last year at the Continental. He will face Varuzhan Akobian (USA) in the first round. 2017 Canadian Champion Bator Sambuev will square off against the Chinese prodigy Yi Wei.

Canadian Seniors

Congratulations to our 2017 Senior Champions, namely 65+ Champ William Doubleday and 50+ winner Sergey Malakhovets. Bill and Sergey have each earned a spot in the Pan Am Seniors, scheduled for Columbia in October 11-16.

Surprisingly, the 2018 Pan Am Seniors will take place from January 31 - February 8 in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. If anyone is interested in holding the next Canadian Senior in time for St. Croix, please let us know.

2017 FIDE Congress in Turkey

The FIDE Executive Board will meet in Antalya, Turkey from October 7-15. I look forward to some first hand contact with my FIDE Colleagues. Budgets have been slashed so most of the Committees have not met face to face since Baku last year. The forecast surpluses for 2016 and 2017 were €416K and € 550K respectively. If achieved they will wipe out the €955 deficit of 2015. (Late note: FIDE Executive Director Nigel Freeman has advised me that the surplus in 2016 was over € 800K. That is a relief!)
2018 Olympiad

The 43rd Chess Olympiad is scheduled for September 23 – October 7 in Batumi Georgia. Fundraising for this event remains a daunting challenge. As previously noted, the lapsed FQE agreement has been an important component of the Olympic funding, and hopefully it will be again soon. One way or another, we will need to find over $20,000 to send our delegation. Whether you can make a donation, solicit donations or have a fundraising idea, please feel free to contact us.


Respectfully submitted
Hal Bond
August 19, 2017

Thank you, Hal, for detailed report!

I have a question regarding 2018 Pan Am Seniors which will take place from January 31 - February 8 in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.
If we can't hold the next Canadian Senior in time for St. Croix, could we still send a Canadian representative?
If so, what would be a procedure to select the Canadian representative?
I would like to express my willingness to represent Canada at 2018 Pan Am Seniors.
Your clarification of this issue would be appreciated!

The usual procedure is to send the highest rated player who wants to go when there hasn't been a qualifier for any tournament that is not on our list of designated tournaments that are mentioned in the old handbook.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hal Bond

2017 NAYCC

The conflicts with international youth events and Canada’s national championships are not going away. We may wish to revisit our own schedules. The USCF hosted this year’s event in New Jersey, immediately following the CYCC and concurrent with the Canadian Open. The negative impact on attendance at the CO was overshadowed before our kids could make their first move. I have filed an official complaint with FIDE America about this tournament.

The organizers refused to provide conditions for the HoD or any food allowance for official players. They also refused to provide clocks for the tournament. The clock issue may have precipitated an extraordinary attempt to change the time control prior to the first round. This would have invalidated the titles which the players were there to earn. Congratulations to HoD Victoria Doknjas for holding her ground at the Technical meeting. The original time control remained in force.

Two more issues followed. Two sections experienced a restart of the first round after about 30 minutes of play. This was done to accommodate additional players. Finally, the playing venue was not secure and players were allowed to visit with non participants during play. This led to an incident regarding peanut allergies and one of our players withdrawing from the tournament. A separate complaint has been filed about the Chief Arbiter in this connection.

Congratulations to our title winners:

Qu, Greta, CAN, ID 2627221 - WCM title, cond. rtg 1800, for bronze medal
Zhong, Kevon, CAN, ID 2624907 - CM title, cond. rtg 2000, for silver medal
Huang, Qiuyu, CAN, ID 2619903 - FM title, cond. rtg 2100, for gold medal

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What I found appalling was that the organizer/arbiter also aimed a string of profanities against the parent that protested about the opponent eating peanuts. He also threatened the player with the peanut allergy with banishment from USCF tournaments and at one point threatened to call the police. He backed down on that threat when the optics of the situation probably came home to him when the parent told him fine, call the police. I am also told that this was not the first time that this opponent had eaten peanuts while playing a Canadian who had a peanut allergy so these actions seem willful and intentional with potentially fatal consequences.

Further there was no effort made by the organizers to prevent cell phone use during the tournament nor was there enough supervision or enough arbiters to manage four very large rooms of players.

We often have to worry about players going to tournaments in some worrisome parts of the world but I never thought that the U.S.A. would be a location that we would have to worry about sending our kids to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Michael Barron

Thank you, Hal, for detailed report!

I have a question regarding 2018 Pan Am Seniors which will take place from January 31 - February 8 in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.
If we can't hold the next Canadian Senior in time for St. Croix, could we still send a Canadian representative?
If so, what would be a procedure to select the Canadian representative?
I would like to express my willingness to represent Canada at 2018 Pan Am Seniors.
Your clarification of this issue would be appreciated!

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Thank you Michael - yes we can send players to St. Croix without a qualifying tournament. Your interest is noted and shared by a number of players. I hope a tournament is held, otherwise we shall have to take the highest rated willing player as our official rep.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec

What I found appalling was that the organizer/arbiter also aimed a string of profanities against the parent that protested about the opponent eating peanuts. He also threatened the player with the peanut allergy with banishment from USCF tournaments and at one point threatened to call the police. He backed down on that threat when the optics of the situation probably came home to him when the parent told him fine, call the police. I am also told that this was not the first time that this opponent had eaten peanuts while playing a Canadian who had a peanut allergy so these actions seem willful and intentional with potentially fatal consequences.

Further there was no effort made by the organizers to prevent cell phone use during the tournament nor was there enough supervision or enough arbiters to manage four very large rooms of players.

We often have to worry about players going to tournaments in some worrisome parts of the world but I never thought that the U.S.A. would be a location that we would have to worry about sending our kids to.

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Are we going to formally complain to FIDE about all that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée

Are we going to formally complain to FIDE about all that?

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Yes, we are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec

Yes, we are.

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Nice!

It looks like a complaint to the FIDE Arbiters' Commission disciplinary subcommittee would be in order.

I just want to take a moment to tip my hat to Hal. The amount of work that he accomplishes behind the scenes for Canada is unbelievable, and without his seasoned experience, geez, I don't know where our little zone would be. I encourage everyone to appreciate that Hal makes challenging look easy, as he works the issues hard.