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Thread: 2. Opening Comments of Chair

  1. #1
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    Default 2. Opening Comments of Chair

    Fellow Assembly Members please welcome our president

  2. #2
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    I would like to welcome all the CFC voting members to this fall meeting. The year has been unprecedented in the way it has changed every aspect of life in reaction to a once in a hundred year pandemic, COVID-19. Chess has largely shut down with the exception of online tournaments. We had close to 150 players play in the National Youth Chess Championship put on by Juniors to Masters (Victoria Doknjas and GM Gergely Szabo). This was in part due to the last minute decision to make this tournament a qualifier to the FIDE Online World Cadets & Youth Rapid Chess Championships. The tournament tripled in size when it became the qualifier for that event. I don't want to steal any of our youth coordinator's thunder but it speaks well to the great interest in chess that so many kids wanted to play in this event and become representatives for Canada in the larger event.

    Covid has locked everyone down and an unprecedented number of Canadians have taken this as an opportunity to join the world of online chess mostly through chess.com or lichess.org. Most of these players are not CFC members but many are interested in getting better at chess. I have been getting a surprising number of inquiries from adult players interested in improving their game.

    A separate but related phenomenon has been the Netflix series, "The Queen's Gambit" which follows the adventures of the fictional female Bobby Fischer with issues of drug and alcohol dependence. I have received many questions from potential students, players, journalists wanting to discuss the series and its depiction of chess. Currently Chess.com has been the main beneficiary of the show with increases in players breaking records. At the point, when we can resume regular tournaments, I suspect that we will experience a bit of a jump in membership as players want to get the real chess tournament experience of over the board, face to face play. I suspect that this show also played at least a bit of a role in the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) contacting us about their anti-doping program. I am not aware of any drug that enhances chess performance but in reviewing the WADA guidelines which FIDE has signed on to, I was somewhat alarmed that insulin and blood pressure medication could result in a failed test which is somewhat ridiculous from the point of view of your average weekend chess player. CCES wants to set up a program of compliance with WADA which will cost us $5000 per year. More ominously they want us to set up a series of yearly renewable contracts with each and every CFC members which acknowledge their authority to conduct random tests. It seems to me that administering and keeping these contracts on file and up to date would constitute a major burden on the CFC and its members. We brought up this topic with FIDE and they are not interested in administering such a series of contracts and no other federation is being asked to do this by their anti-doping commission. We may say more on this later but I don't see how we can take this on at this time. We have informed FIDE of this contact as they did say that FIDE could be fined for WADA violations if any Federation is not compliant with FIDE's rules under WADA. FIDE does not seem worried and no other chess federation is being asked to take similar steps. I will try to talk to my member of parliament who is chess friendly about this situation. We will comply with whatever FIDE requires within reason. It was I who looked up the WADA requirements and noted that marijuana was a banned substance which players, coaches, federation officials, organizers, arbiters and everyone else would be required to refrain from. A positive test would be grounds for disqualification from competition.

    We continue to experience issues with allegations of online cheating, real and imagined. I have been involved in discussions with chess.com arising from allegations of cheating levelled against a number of players, mostly but not exclusively juniors. We had one situation where our Executive Director had his account on lichess.org suspended and then reinstated with a somewhat mealy mouthed apology about a mistake by their algorithm. Hopefully Bob can illuminate us with more about this situation but hopefully it will help him gain some empathy for others similarly afflicted by the online platforms. I did sign a non-disclosure agreement with chess.com and sat in on an explanation of their anti-cheating methods which of course I am not at liberty to disclose.

    We have been watching the situation with FIDE with great interest and some appreciation of the difficulties facing FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich trying to keep the great ship of FIDE moving forward in this pandemic. Given the circumstances, I would give our FIDE president an A+ for his performance so far. We did discuss the recent FIDE general assembly meeting among the executive. I thought Hal was being a bit hard on the FIDE leadership with respect to certain financial projections and asked him to tone it down a little. In specific, Hal was taking issue with a Greek Federation letter which was going after the Verification commission about certain aspects of budgets and financials presented. Questions of having spouses in different branches of FIDE not in a direct supervisory relationship came up in the Greek letter and frankly I found the position of the Verification Commission to be problematic. I believe we have a good relationship with FIDE and would like to keep it that way and strengthen it, if possible.

    The letter of the CFC supporting the English Federation resolution against Iran is a bit problematic. The situation had already been subject to an agreement between the English Federation and FIDE specifically the FIDE president's proposed resolution of the matter which was later ratified by the general assembly. Hal did bring up the idea of supporting England to the executive but it was a last minute discussion where the larger discussion was about the Greek Federation letter castigating the Verification Commission. I was the only one who said anything about the English proposal with some support for possible sanctions for taking liberties with FIDE rules but I was a bit surprised to read the letter to FIDE drafted by Hal. I support Israel's right to participate fully in FIDE play without having to deal with boycotts based on anti-Semitism but I have some reservations about the way this letter was put forward with insufficient thought and discussion among the executive. My fear is that this could have repercussions for our players down the road. I was asked about the legalities and specifics of our resolution and whether there were minutes and details of a vote of the executive supporting the letter sent forward and there were not.

    I have at least one success story to relate about getting involved with FIDE. I managed to get a waiver for one of our Manitoba players Gilbert "Bong" Perez to represent our federation and Canada, and transfer from the Philippines national federation without paying a transfer fee and allowing him to play in the online Olympiad for Players with Disabilities. The initial response from Hal was that there was not much we could do for Mr. Perez as the fees were from FIDE and the federation from which he was being transferred. I contacted Vadim Tsypin, CFC voting member from Quebec and Secretary to FIDE president Dvorkovich. With Vadim's help and the help of the delegate from the Philippines, we were able to get a request to the presidential board for a waiver for the fees for Mr. Perez and ask for similar treatment for every disabled player requiring such a transfer. We were successful in our request for Mr. Perez and I think the whole process took only two or three days thanks to Vadim. This is a good example of what is possible when you have a good relationship with FIDE. The rules can be bent and stretched to help deserving individuals.

    I would also like to thank Richard Berube, Voting member from Quebec and Bob Gillanders counterpart in the FQE for graciously agreeing to serve as team Captain for our team in this online Olympiad for Disabled players. He was along with Vadim Tsypin instrumental getting the possible team players organized and making it easy for me to register the players with FIDE by compiling all necessary information.

    Christina Tao, our masterful youth coordinator, also managed to show that showing appreciation and respect for organizers and officials can yield unexpected dividends as she was offered 19 spots for Canadians to play in the first leg of the FIDE Online Rapid Youth Chess Championships. This did generate some controversy with some who were upset with our allocation of some of these spots to our top rated youth players. Our picks were however largely successful with five out of the six players that qualified for the world championship stage coming from the the nine or ten kids who we seeded by rating. The only other player Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux who managed to qualify was one that we would have invited if he had not already qualified by finishing first in his section at the National event.
    Last edited by Vladimir Drkulec; 12-13-2020 at 02:30 PM.

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec View Post

    A separate but related phenomenon has been the Netflix series, "The Queen's Gambit" which follows the adventures of the fictional female Bobby Fischer with issues of drug and alcohol dependence. I have received many questions from potential students, players, journalists wanting to discuss the series and its depiction of chess. Currently Chess.com has been the main beneficiary of the show with increases in players breaking records. At the point, when we can resume regular tournaments, I suspect that we will experience a bit of a jump in membership as players want to get the real chess tournament experience of over the board, face to face play. I suspect that this show also played at least a bit of a role in the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) contacting us about their anti-doping program. I am not aware of any drug that enhances chess performance but in reviewing the WADA guidelines which FIDE has signed on to, I was somewhat alarmed that insulin and blood pressure medication could result in a failed test which is somewhat ridiculous from the point of view of your average weekend chess player. CCES wants to set up a program of compliance with WADA which will cost us $5000 per year. More ominously they want us to set up a series of yearly renewable contracts with each and every CFC members which acknowledge their authority to conduct random tests. It seems to me that administering and keeping these contracts on file and up to date would constitute a major burden on the CFC and its members. We brought up this topic with FIDE and they are not interested in administering such a series of contracts and no other federation is being asked to do this by their anti-doping commission. We may say more on this later but I don't see how we can take this on at this time. We have informed FIDE of this contact as they did say that FIDE could be fined for WADA violations if any Federation is not compliant with FIDE's rules under WADA. FIDE does not seem worried and no other chess federation is being asked to take similar steps. I will try to talk to my member of parliament who is chess friendly about this situation. We will comply with whatever FIDE requires within reason. It was I who looked up the WADA requirements and noted that marijuana was a banned substance which players, coaches, federation officials, organizers, arbiters and everyone else would be required to refrain from. A positive test would be grounds for disqualification from competition.
    There is at least one substance known to increase the playing strength of a Chess player: ritalin. It is prescribed to increase the concentration of hyperactive children, but apparently, it can increase the concentration of anybody. There is another substance used to lessen the effect of the jet-lag that is also suspected of improving chess performance.

    We should tell the CCES that, contrary to all Federations subject to WADA testing, we do not receive any Federal funding to help cover those costs. We were lucky to have been left untouched by this problem until now, but in the end, we will be compelled to comply. Unfortunately, in Canada, dope testing is considered to be an invasion of privacy to which the athletes must explicitly consent. Other Countries have a Sport Code that makes those tests mandatory, so no consent is required. One of the consent also concerns data protection because the CFC must transfer the personal information of the players. Here is the short story in 85 pages https://cces.ca/sites/default/files/...-2015-v2-e.pdf.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée View Post
    There is at least one substance known to increase the playing strength of a Chess player: ritalin. It is prescribed to increase the concentration of hyperactive children, but apparently, it can increase the concentration of anybody. There is another substance used to lessen the effect of the jet-lag that is also suspected of improving chess performance.
    I am told that there is something that they give special forces which allows them to function without sleep for periods of a few days when they are on a mission without the degradation in functioning that normally occurs with lack of sleep. I suspect that would be a performance enhancer but I am unaware of what that substance is. I understand that some people use ritalin to help them study. I understand that it has side effects. I have not heard of any study which looked at ritalin and chess. Are you aware of any such study?

    Keeping track of five thousand or more consent forms every year would require adding considerably to the duties of the CFC office. You were present when we discussed this at the FIDE privacy meeting. FIDE wants no part of maintaining records of millions of chess players. The CFC would similarly not be enthused at having to keep track of thousands of contracts which have to be updated every year and once a year. I was told that we could not make it something which was like signing the online agreement to join a website or install a piece of software. FIDE is not concerned with this and no one else has been contacted by their anti-doping agency. There is a threat of sanction against FIDE which FIDE did not seem concerned about.


    We should tell the CCES that, contrary to all Federations subject to WADA testing, we do not receive any Federal funding to help cover those costs. We were lucky to have been left untouched by this problem until now, but in the end, we will be compelled to comply. Unfortunately, in Canada, dope testing is considered to be an invasion of privacy to which the athletes must explicitly consent. Other Countries have a Sport Code that makes those tests mandatory, so no consent is required. One of the consent also concerns data protection because the CFC must transfer the personal information of the players. Here is the short story in 85 pages https://cces.ca/sites/default/files/...-2015-v2-e.pdf.
    I probably need to talk to FIDE before we take any action as the implied threat is to them and not the CFC.
    Last edited by Vladimir Drkulec; 12-13-2020 at 07:01 PM.

  5. #5

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    The FIDE Medical Commission has targeted Ritalin and other substances. https://handbook.fide.com/files/hand...0Education.pdf https://handbook.fide.com/files/hand...i%20Doping.pdf.

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    If we are compelled to assume all the fees related to drug testing, we would get all the disadvantages of being a sport without any of the advantages.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée View Post
    The FIDE Medical Commission has targeted Ritalin and other substances. https://handbook.fide.com/files/hand...0Education.pdf https://handbook.fide.com/files/hand...i%20Doping.pdf.

    The problem is that we don't get to pick and choose what we ban. Insulin and certain commonly used blood pressure medications are subject to restriction with medical exemptions available but we would have to apply to CECC to get those exemptions on an individual basis. You are right in your analysis.

  8. #8

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    If we are ever compelled to comply, we should make a list of inactive players, so that they are not required to participate and we save the trouble of having them sign a contract.

    According to CECC, their primary target are players who represent Canada in international competition and the players in our two Zonals.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée View Post
    If we are ever compelled to comply, we should make a list of inactive players, so that they are not required to participate and we save the trouble of having them sign a contract.

    According to CECC, their primary target are players who represent Canada in international competition and the players in our two Zonals.
    So far the FIDE response has been somewhat dismissive. I might start a human rights complaint if they try to ban insulin or a blood pressure medication that I am taking.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec View Post
    So far the FIDE response has been somewhat dismissive. I might start a human rights complaint if they try to ban insulin or a blood pressure medication that I am taking.
    They would never do that, they would only ask for a Therapeutic Use Exemption https://www.wada-ama.org/en/question...-exemption-tue

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