4. Executive / Officer Reports

[Lyle Craver]

To all executive members please post your reports in this section using the lettering system given in the agenda

[Fred McKim]

4L Treasurer's Report

We finally took DGT up on it's offer of Developmental Prices on Clocks an e-Boards. There were so many moving parts that it took us months to finally get something to the Country's Organizers. I think the final numbers are perhaps in the order of $35,000 being spent. Thanks to Larry Bevand for partnering with us.

We are presently working on GoMembership. Vlad, Bob, and I have had a couple of demos so far and we are presently deciding what portion on the CFC database we will be initializing in that separate environment (that will probably run a weekly update link). This has it's own agenda item. One of the things coming out of this will be a closer relationship between us and the Chess Clubs that make up the heart of chess in Canada.

Fred McKim
CFC Treasurer

[Vladimir Drkulec]

This report is from Vadim Tsypin, our publicity officer, who is currently travelling where the internet is not reliable.

CFC Publicity Officer report, Q4 2018


Dear colleagues,

My mandate from the Board includes three principal aspects: - writing drafts of CFC press-releases and some external communications as needed, - continuing to engage Ambassadors and other appropriate officials, - posting interesting news on the CFC Forum and other Web resources.

I was privileged to write and publish a CFC press release devoted to the election of Christina Tao as the CFC Youth Coordinator. This was sent to mass media and government officials. We received some positive feedback from the Parliament Hill.

I was explaining the CFC developments in French in Quebec and tried to engage the FQE rank-and-file with our national federation. One of such examples was the DGT equipment offer.

I systematically informed the Executive, players and parents about changes in regulations and new developments related to such events as the World Youth / World Youth R&B 2018, World Women’s CH. 2018, World Cadets 2019.

I believe that this aspect remains crucial since the CFC has to react to new challenges in the near future. One example is the change in the format of the World Women’s Championship Cycle which would make it very hard to organize Canadian Women’s Zonals. As we know, the FIDE has replaced the former knockout system by the Women’s Candidates tournament, seeking to harmonize men’s and women’s cycles. For the current, transitional cycle, three of the eight players are semifinalists from the WWCC 2018 while the other five are selected by rating. Going forward, most will be selected by rating or via Women’s Grand Prix. It means that our Zonal champion will never again be qualified directly to play for the world title. Therefore, the Canadian female players would lose their principal motivation to play in the Women’s Zonal. We’ll need to find other incentives for them to keep this tournament going.

Respectfully submitted by Vadim Tsypin.

[Aris Marghetis]

I was not aware of these changes to the Womens Zonal system. Does anyone know exactly where I could find the complete changes in effect for 2020 & 2022?

Thank you, best regards, Aris.

[Pierre Dénommée]

There will be a Women Word Cup in 2020. We could reasonably assume the our Canadian Women Champion will be invited as our Canadian Champion is on the other World Cup.

The rules of the Women World Cup have not been made public yet, but if there our Zonal means nothing, we would have an excellent reason to complain at the next FIDE GA.

Vadim, you a much closer to the FIDE president then anybody in the CFC. As his advisor, I hope that you will advise him to keep our zone intact and preserve the rights that are comes with our zone.


http://fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/11265-fide-on-the-womens-world-championship-cycle.html

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Vice-president report:

Most of my work as a VP was giving my opinion on various matters. A bigger work was performed by organizing/arbitrating several tournaments (Aurora weekend open with 160 players; Oakville Rapid & Blitz with 70 players); and supervising the club with ~60 members.


You might see that it was posted by

"drkulec
CFC Vice President".

My name seems was compromised by someone...

--
Egis

[Pierre Dénommée]

My principal actions during this period have been to stay current of FIDE matters and establish an new League.

FIDE has released a wealth of information, some related to my task (future Women World Cup) other relating to various rules modifications.

The most significant rule change is that, for all norm tournaments, only one half point bye per tournament will be allowed. Consequently, all other missed games by a player will count as 0. This also applies to all FIDE rated tournament unless the organizer has announced in advance something else.

The Qualification Commission has clarified the impact of allowing a player who is playing under the FIDE flag in a norm tournament.

FID players. The effect of these players on norm applications from tournaments in which they take part was discussed. Council's view is that they do not count either as a player from the player's own federation or as a foreign player. FID itself does not count as a federation.

A Chess 960 FIDE rating will be introduced. Tournament can be sent for rating beginning November 1st, but the first Chess 960 FRL is not expected before July 1st 2019 if enough tournaments have been received. The rules for Chess 960 Rating have not been been created yet, we know neither the K Factor nor if there will be more then one Chess 960 FRL based on the time control.

No publicity has been made by the CFC about many important changes affecting all FA and IA. Everybody should be made aware of these changes, especially those concerning the retraining and re-certification of all current IA and FA. http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2018/FIDE_NEWS/Congress/Annexes/Annex_65.pdf

I have also founded a League under the NFP Act as a protest against the multiple deficiencies of the Quebec's NFP Act. It will give me greater understanding of the Act that governs the CFC. The new League did take advantage of the DGT offer.

[Christina Tao]

4F Youth Coordinator Q4 Report:

2018 Youth Tournaments Summary:
Overall we had a very successful year for Youth Chess in Canada


2018 CYCC in Montreal, QC Jul 2nd- Jul 5th
We had record high number of players, 362 players attended CYCC in Montreal.

2018 WYCC in Halkidiki, Greece Oct 16th-31st
We had 11 players from U14 to U18 Open and Girls sections competed in Greece. There were 2 on-site coaches GM Alexander Cherniaev and GM Vlad Jianu supporting the team. Onsite HoD was Wendy Matsubuchi. Offsite workload were done by Christina Tao

2018 WCCC in Santiago de Compostela, Spain Nov 3rd-16th
We had 26 players from U08 to U12 Open and Girls sections competed in Spain. There were 3 on-site coaches GM Alexander Cherniaev, GM Gergely Szabo and GM Vlad Jianu supporting the team. HoD was Anabelle Kovatcheva

2018 Pan-AM in Santiago, Chile from July 21th to 29th, 2018
We had 14 players played in PanAm. It was a very success event with the visit from the Ambassador of Canada in Chile, Madam Patricia Peña to greet players. Max Chen came home with 2nd place in U12 Open section. HoD was Christina Tao

2018 NAYCC/ NA Junior U20 in Baja California, Mexico from Nov 16th to 21st, 2018
We had 22 players played in NAYCC across from U08 to U18 Open and Girls sections and 3 players played in NA Junior U20 section. I am very proud to announce we had 10 players coming home with medals and titles. Onsite HoD was Andrei Botez. Offsite workload were done by Christina Tao

2018 Chess Olympiad in Konya Turkey, Nov 24th-Dec 3rd
Despite the disapproval from CFC, Andrei Botez still formed a team of 5 players to play in U16 Chess Olympiad at Turkey.



2019 Youth Tournaments Development:

2019 Panamerican Junior U20 Chess Championship will be in Antigua, Guatemala Jun 01-08

2019 North American Junior U20 Championships will be in Charlotte, NC, USA, Jun 26-30
NA Junior U20 Invitation link (https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7c12d5_877b136049794e78a34a64a4b4418ef9.pdf)

2019 CYCC - Regina, SK July 6-10, 2019
CYCC website link (https://saskchess.org/2019-cycc)

2019 PanAm will be in Guayaquil, Ecuador from Jul 25 to Aug 2, 2019
Official player selection deadline date : Feb 15, 2019

2019 NAYCC will be in Kingston ON, CANADA from Aug 15-20, 2019
Official player selection deadline date : March 01, 2019
Player register themselves to the NAYCC organizer.

2019 WCCC will be in Weifang, China, Aug 20-Sept 2, 2019
Still waiting for the detail information about the tournament and deadline date

2019 WYCC will be in Nagpur, India, Oct 1-13, 2019
Still waiting for the detail information about the tournament and deadline date

2019 World Junior and Girls U20 Chess Championship will be in New Delhi, India Oct 14-26


Discussion:

1. A proposal that will let additional players to go to WCCC/WYCC without going thru the qualifier tournament, CYCC with strict approval process. All official players are still selected thru the CYCC tournament.
2. Next year U16 Chess Olympiad is still in Turkey. There are many players interested to go, however there is still under "travel with high risk (https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/turkey)" warning on government advisory website. Where is CFC standing on sending a Team to Turkey in 2019 U16 Chess Olympiad
3. Currently there is no funding to PanAm or NAYCC. Both tournaments are getting more popular in recent year, the team is getting bigger. Can there be some funding support towards the HoD as the amount of workload are increasing substantially.


Conclusion:

I would like to thank all the volunteers and organisers of all the YCCs across the country for bringing organized chess to Canadian youth. I would like to express a special thank you to this year’s CYCC organisers and volunteers for hugely successful tournament in Montreal. Last but not least I would to thank all the parents and families of the youth chess players for their support and encouragement of their children’s passion in chess. I hope the enthusiasm for international events by players and their parent continues.

Christina
Youth Coordinator

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

The most significant rule change is that, for all norm tournaments, only one half point bye per tournament will be allowed. Consequently, all other missed games by a player will count as 0. This also applies to all FIDE rated tournament unless the organizer has announced in advance something else.

As I read it, L2 (norm) and L3 (rated) can have more 1/2 byes than one. "Unless the rules of a competition specify otherwise: ...."

[Hal Bond]

FIDE Report

The 43rd Olympiad and 89th FIDE Congress took place in Batumi Georgia from September 23 – October 6. 2018 was also an election year, and a dynastic change in leadership has occurred. Arkady Dvorkovich defeated George Markopoulos (Makro) by a score of 103 - 78. Nigel Short withdrew from the race during his speech. The next election will take place in 2022 at the Belarus Olympiad. The next Olympiad will be in Khanty Mansiysk, 2020.

Canada supported Makro, but we were pleased to see a person of Dvorkovich’s stature in the race. His campaign was well financed and very effective. The usual cries of corruption were also discernable, but this time the loudest complaints came from the incumbent team. The Ethics Commission was forced to convene during the Congress to rule on a number of complaints, and one country, Serbia, was disqualified from voting.

Three people were elected Vice Presidents on the first ballot: Ms. Martha Fierro (ECU), Mr. Michael Khodarkovsky (USA), Ms. Anastasia Sorokina (BLR). After the second ballot, two other VPs were elected: Mr. Olalekan Adeyemi (NGR), Mr. Akaki Iashvili (GEO).
Dvorkovich appointed Mr. Tahar Battikh (TUN), Mr. Nigel Short (ENG), Ms. Gulkiz Tulay (TUR) and Mr. Lukasz Turlej (POL). Mr. Jiangchuan Ye (CHN) Mr. Mohammad Jafar Kambouzia (IRI), Mr. D.V. Sundar (IND) Mr. Ian Wilkinson (JAM), and now Ms. Judit Polgar join the Presidential Board as Honorary VPs. The three elected Commissions, Ethics, Verification and Constitutional, were also sorted out. The remaining Commissions are not yet finalized.

The first Presidential Board meeting took place during the Carlsen – Caruana match in London. True to AD’s campaign promise, the 2019 budget reduces Federation fees by about 40%, it adds € 5 million (!) in sponsorship, € 3 million of which is budgeted for Development. New costs have been budgeted relative to moving the Athens Office to Lausanne Switzerland. They believe that this move will facilitate an improved relationship with the IOC. This is all ambitious and exciting. We shall see how it plays out. There may be an extraordinary GA next year because financial regulations can only be changed with the approval of the General Assembly. I have mixed feelings about this and I welcome your input.

The Olympic experience was more challenging this time around. In addition to the standard wrangling of the teams, the late withdrawal of Alex Lesiege created problems. He had been travelling via Tbilisi with Maili – Jade Ouellet, a minor, so her mom had legitimate concerns about her travelling alone. Two other players were travelling through Tbilisi but the timing did not work. The organizer’s travel group in Batumi was swift when asked, and they agreed to meet Maili-Jade at the airport and ensure that she her ground transportation from Tbilisi was in order. Mom was happy and I was relieved. Not all of the Organizer’s committees were as responsive. Despite repeated emails explaining our situation, the billing Department insisted on another €5,000 for hotel nights that we had long since cancelled. I was able to sort this out in Batumi.

Of course the Congress itself produced more that just election results. Here are some Commission hi-lights:

The Qualification Commission approved the GM title applications for IMs Raja Panjwani and Kaiqi Yang, conditional on reaching 2500. Congratulations gentlemen!

In the meeting in October 2017 in Turkey, I proposed to the Medical Commission that players should not eat at the board. In Batumi the issue was taken further, and the Medical Commission suggested the implementation of this recommendation in the Tournament Rules. The Rules Commission has implemented this recommendation in the General Regulations for Competitions.

The Technical Commission also acted on my proposal in Antalya, and re-introduced Cumulative score Tie Breaks again. This tiebreak method was removed, wrongly in my opinion, back in 2009-10. This tie break system is not worse than several other systems currently in vogue.

FIDE America: Canada’s bid for [NAYCC - VTD edit] August 16-20, 2019 in Kingston was approved after some wrangling. The USCF had a bidder who was ultimately prepared to take 2020. Unfortunately, China has changed their approved dates for the WYCC to late August so there will be a conflict.

Commonwealth Chess Association: Their flagship event – the Commonwealth Chess Championship, has been organized by India and Sri Lanka in the past few years. The event is difficult to organize because of the hosting obligations for official players, and the sheer sprawl of Commonwealth countries. Currently there is a youth division and an open tournament. Several of us objected to the hosting burden, because there are no direct titles awarded from this competition so the prospect of additional players (ie paying customers) is too uncertain. In the end, a small reduction in hosting obligations was agreed. I doubt this will be enough for Canada or the UK to consider bidding. South Africa had an option for 2019. At this writing it is not clear if they will present a formal bid.

There is no doubt that the coming year will be fascinating. The new administration is forging ahead with their vision. If the new sponsorship is indeed sustainable we should see some wonderful improvements to our global chess community.

Respectfully Submitted
Hal Bond, December 18, 2018

[Pierre Dénommée]

I have just noticed the Article 1.11 of this section has been altered by the removal of the FIDE Competition rules. Previously, the FIDE competition rules were mandatory for norms to be valid. When FIDE told us that

Play shall be governed by the FIDE Laws of Chess and FIDE Competition Rules, this would be meaningless if individual organizers were allowed to bypass those rules. The change is in the Arbiters' manual but with no grey box to attract the attention of the reader. This is a substantial change

Actual https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=198&view=article
Previous https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&view=article

The unless the rules of a competition specify otherwise will only cover the case of tournaments that currently do not offer half-point bye. Actually, nobody take a bye during a norm tournament because our tournaments usually have 9 rounds and taking a bye would ruin anyone chance to achieve a norm. If you add the usual FQE requirement that all byes must be requested before the beginning of the first round, the net result will be that there will be no real change locally.

[Paul Leblanc]

4.I. Rating Auditor Report. I am pleased to say that I have nothing to report. The rating system continues to operate satisfactorily and my audit tools indicate no inflation or deflation.
Paul Leblanc
Rating Auditor

[Paul Leblanc]

4.J. The Foundation is on track to generate about $12,000 of income for the CFC this FY.
The portfolio has changed very little since my annual report back in June.
Life memberships have been averaging about 10 per year recently. Please spread the word about life memberships.
Paul Leblanc
Treasurer
Chess Foundation of Canada

[Michael Barron]

Thank you, Christina, for your great work and for your report!

As you see, it's not the best place for Discussion about youth chess issues.
We have now CFC Youth Committee forum, where such discussions could take place.
Please post your proposals there for discussion.

I only want to stress importance of Youth Chess Olympiad.
Kudos to Andrei Botez for providing such opportunity for Canadian players!
Of course, Canada should participate in this event every year, including 2019.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

As you see, it's not the best place for Discussion about youth chess issues.
We have now CFC Youth Committee forum, where such discussions could take place.
Please post your proposals there for discussion.



Well actually this and the board of directors is the place for such discussion as it involves some considerations which the youth committee is not really equipped to deal with.

[Victor Plotkin]

I have posted my Olympiad report on CT. Major points:

1. For the first time in my career as a captain, we experienced a serious food problem in Batumi. N.Noritsyn could not play against India in round 3 and R.Preotu did not feel well at the end of the tournament. E.Hansen also had some issues. A few times I was forced to change line-up because of this.

2. We didn't play well. Very lucky pairings in last 3 rounds (I believe that I do understand well the pairing system, but pairings in round 10 were beyond my understanding) and a narrow win against Finland allowed us to avoid a much lower finishing position. It's not bad to finish 23rd, but the final position is not everything. We played just 2 good matches as a team (against Colombia 3.5-0.5 and against Georgia 2-2) and lost 28 rating points combined.

3. To summarize our performance since 2012:

2012 B (or B+)
2014 B-
2016 A+
2018 C+.

Now about the incident with A.LeSiege. As some of you know, he withdrew from the Team just 10 days before the start of the Olympiad. His explanation (health problem with his father) was ... not exactly correct. The real reason was a good opportunity to give private lesson to wealthy juniors.

We tried to contact the next in the line (R.Panjwani) - he declined. The next (A.Samsonkin) did not answer to Hal e-mail. In this time-sensitive situation, CFC executive decided to send an invitation to E.Bareev (who did not play the minimum of 20 games), and Evgeny accepted.

At the end, it was not so bad. E.Bareev was clearly out of form, but still performed above 2500. So, I could not say what this incident destroyed our tournament. At the same time, I believe that CFC needs to take some lessons from this incident. My proposals:

1. In the future in a similar situation (if somebody withdraws from the Team less than 1 month before the start) CFC sends "lucky e-mails" to next 10 players. Every player has a window of 48 (or 24) hours to respond. After this period of time, the higher-ranked player, who accepted the invitation, gets the spot. Other players (with positive respond) should be informed immediately about it. Every player who responds positively has a period of uncertainty of 48 (24) hours.

2. Before my next proposal I must say that I have no personal issues with Alex. We successfully collaborated in Baku-2016, he was a nice person, good teammate and a very important part of our success with strategy "Hansen plays white". However...

I believe that CFC should not accept this kind of behavior without penalty. If CFC executive believes that player withdrew from the Team at the very last moment without a good reason, he can:

- not consider this player for the next 1 (or 2) Olympiad or

- give him a penalty of 50 (or 100) points for his ranking for the next 1 (or 2) campaigns.

CFC makes a serious commitment to every player. Player should be reliable as well.

[Hal Bond]

Thank you for your report Victor. I also suffered throughout the Olympiad from the food and water.

Your proposal regarding player withdrawals is worthy of consideration.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Thank you, Victor, for that report and your suggestions. We should consider any modifications to Olympiad regulations for the next meeting so that we can all be on the same page for 2020. I am thinking February 17 for the start date.