This thread is for discussion of the NAC appeal to the executive.
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This thread is for discussion of the NAC appeal to the executive.
It is my duty to inform you that the board of directors of the Chess Federation of Canada considered the Nikolay Noritsyn appeal of the National Appeal Committee (NAC) decision with respect to the result of the final blitz playoff game for the 2017 Canadian Closed title and have decided by a margin of three votes to one with three abstentions to uphold the NAC decision and deny the appeal.
Nikolay asked that Lyle Craver and Mark Dutton recuse themselves because they were members of the NAC. He also asked that Vlad Drkulec be recused for bias. Since Vlad Drkulec did not read Nikolay's postings on Chesstalk he was not aware of the claimed characteristics which would lead to alleged bias. Though Lyle Craver and Mark Dutton did abstain from voting these requests were denied. If Vlad Drkulec had any bias against Nikolay Noritsyn it would have been exhibited in 2014 when Nikolay was allowed to join the coach staff of the team to the WYCC in South Africa very late in the process. Frank Lee the youth coordinator and Vlad Drkulec made the decision to allow Nikolay to join the team which allowed his brother Sergey to go as the official player. The player who would have benefited from Sergey not going was the son of friends of Vladimir Drkulec who had tied with Sergey for first place but lost on tie break. Vladimir not voting on the NAC appeal would have opened the vote up to the possibility of a tie which would not be desirable.
In the case of the three votes against the new appeal, the sentiment was that there was no new information in Nikolay's appeal to the executive that was not available to the National Appeals Committee. The rationale for allowing an appeal to the executive, was that NIkolai was misinformed by a member of the executive that the NAC would be contacting him. Nikolay stated that he had more information which he wanted the committee to consider. In order to accomodate FIDE's schedule and extension the NAC had expedited the appeal and had rendered its decision already based on the video and Nikolay's posts on Chesstalk. The decision had been forwarded to FIDE just before the extended deadline given to Canada for naming its representative to the world cup. Nikolay filed an appeal to the executive (board of directors) on or about August 3rd, 2017. Since several members of the executive were at a tournament in Kitchener as players or as an arbiter in the case of Hal Bond we began consideration of the submission from Mr. Noritsyn on Tuesday August 8th. After some discussion the decision was reached on August 12th and Nikolay was informed shortly after the decision was made.
The substance of this case was based on the rules of chess and by that measure the upside down rook was a rook and not a queen. While there were some unfortunate series of occurrences (no extra queens), the opponent Bator Sambuev holding the queen (which is not against the rules) the remedy which would have cut through all circumstances would have been knowing the rule to stop the clock and summon the arbiter to assist with promotion to the desired piece.
Nikolay indicated that Bator Sambuev was guilty of disturbing and or annoying his opponent by holding the queen, the absence of which disturbed Nikolay at the key moment and caused him to lose his state of being in the zone. The disturbance seems to have occurred after the game was over upon Nikolay observing the video of the game. Nikolay made several assertions that Bator's actions were illegal and should be penalized but the majority did not accept this argument. Bator's actions were in all likelihood unintentional or absent minded. Bator did stop the clock when the arbiter had difficulty doing so and prevented Nikolay from losing on time.
Gary Hua, Hal Bond and Vladimir Drkulec voted to uphold the NAC decision and deny Nikolay's appeal.
Ken Craft voted to accept Nikolay's appeal.
Lyle Craver, Mark Dutton and Fred McKim abstained.
In my view it was totally inappropriate for the executive to have even considered the appeal. It sets a precedent for others who are dissatisified with the NAC decision. I was the person who set up the original rules for the National Appeals Commission which were passed by the governors many years ago. I appreciate that there have been changes in the constitution but I do not believe that the executive has the right to overide a decision by the governors.
Les Bunning
There is nothing in the handbook which would allow this reconsideration but there are things in the NFP act which would allow it the most notable being that the authority of committees delegates from the board according to one clause. This was a very unique situation where the appellant was misinformed by the CFC's employee and a member of the board that the NAC would be in touch with him which was not the case. This is the most fractious issue that the board has dealt with in all my time at the CFC and that includes the FIDE election of 2014. Members of the board got very mad at each other over the course of the discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Les Bunning
We have really just kicked the handbook issue down the road and hopefully we can make some concerted effort to put it on a more formal basis over the course of the next 12 months at which point it might be safe for me to turn over the CFC to some other president without concern for the grey areas that we have to operate within due to the NFP act and the aftermath of the continuation process.
A slightly edited version of an email I sent to my fellow executive members on August 11: As an executive we have the video evidence to review. Mr. Sambuev held Mr. Noritsyn's Queen for over 3 minutes. The presence of the Queen in Mr. Sambuev's hand, rather than in the captured piece pile, led directly to Mr. Noritsyn promoting to an upside down rook. Mr. Noritsyn had every reasonable expectation that his captured Queen would be available for promotion in the captured piece pile. If we are having a straight up and down vote on the appeal, I will be casting my vote to accept Mr. Noritsyn's appeal.
Cheers,
Ken
The NAC is a Committee of members, not a Committee of directors. Any further appeals should go there http://www.crdsc-sdrcc.ca/eng/home in order to avoid the very costly courts of Law.
The arbiter's duty is to see that the Laws of Chess are observed and the duty of the directors is to act in the best interest of the Corporation. Both standards of review will not always lead to the same result.
The point has been raised as to Sambuev holding a queen - that's irrelevant as the rules make it quite clear there is no reasonable expectation that a queened pawn will be replaced by the specific piece that originated on d1 (or d8) As such what is 'in the captured piece pile' doesn't matter. As this is at the core of Ken's argument I have to reject his point and therefore his opinion and did when writing my NAC decision.
I've made this point repeatedly and Voting Members are encouraged to review the NAC's report. Pierre is correct - there are rules and there are best practices. Best practices aren't rules but if consistently applied by the director or arbiter will avoid most of the controversial situations before they blow up.
Specifically with respect to the National Appeals Committee nearly anything it does will be controversial by the nature of what it exists to do. The non-controversial issues are resolved without NAC. A busy year for NAC means we as a chess community have work to do.
Members of NAC are expected by their peers to be experts in the rules and in the conduct of tournaments. Both are important and I am highly skeptical that the rules and the "best practices" come into conflict nearly as often as Pierre believes. Organize your event well and conduct it well and most potential problems are resolved without acrimony. But for sure foreseeing and dealing with possible problematic situations BEFORE there's a row is a big part of what separates the average director from a top director and nearly all average directors improve their skills with practice just like anything else in life.
(Just for the record, the safest way for a player to queen a pawn when he/she doesn't immediately see the queen (or other piece) close by is to move the pawn to the 8th rank, leave it on the 8th, stop the clock and say "Queen please!" - this is one of the few cases a player is allowed to stop his/her clock while the game is in progress but it's definitely allowed in the rules!)