Wesley So reaches 2700 ELO

Filipino GM Wesley So has breached the 2700 rating barrier on the live rating list. He is the first Filipino to reach this ELO level. Wesley is playing in the Reykjavik Open and his rating is 2701.3 after drawing the last round against GM Pavel Eljanov (in just three moves!). Both players are ensured of a tie for first place after this draw.

China's latest chess sensation, IM Wei Yi, clinched his third and final GM norm at Reykjavik. At the age of 13,  he is now the youngest grandmaster in the world

DATCC Re-opens

The centre re-opens today after renovations and a name change to DAT Chess Connections. A blitz event was held in conjunction with the opening and it was won convincingly by Yeoh Li Tian.

Congrats to Najib for a successful opening. Hope to see more good things happening in the new DATCC.

Full report here.

Its bubbly time, Jerry

Its a Friday again and time for something other than chess.

Two of the funniest comedians in my book are Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards (for those readers not fans of the Seinfeld sitcom, Richards plays Kramer on the show).

Here is a hilarious video of the two of them. Michael Richards is a comedic genius. Pay attention, there is a  chess related stuff in there :)

Here.  Don't forget to view the Spare Parts clips as well as they are funny as hell too.

More on player licensing

Here's a FIDE reply on the subject. I'm just copy pasting it here because when I started reading, I gave up before the end. It is like reading a Raymond Siew blog post. The monotonous droning on and on until you go cross-eyed and lose interest - I call this the "FGM effect".

Read the FIDE reply to Herman Hamers, FIDE Delegate of the Dutch Chess Federation below , if you can stomach it, and tell me if you actually read to the end or understood what it meant.

Dear Herman
Thank you for your email of 12th February.

There seems to have been a major misunderstanding as to the purposes of the new registration rules, which we certainly admit could have been written more clearly. The intention was that, by default, all those with already a FIDE ID number are considered already licensed and NCFs do not need to do anything other than verifying the information required. The regulations are meant only for NEW players. The idea is for them to get a FIDE ID, or be advised what their FIDE ID already is if they had played but yet to have a published rating. There is NO fee to be charged, unless a player turns up at a tournament without an ID. How that fee is to be charged is under discussion, but it is likely to be paid by the player concerned and shared between the NCF and FIDE. Passport numbers and photos are not compulsory, but we would like some form of identification for those players with the same name. To take one name, Horvath: in the latest FIDE rating list we have six Istvan, Laszlo and Zoltan, five Adam, Csaba, Gabor, Jozsef and Tamas and four Attila, Lajos and Peter Horvaths.

It has been noted that many organizers and arbiters have no means to verify the correct spelling of players entering their competitions; in particular, those who had no published ratings or a FIDE ID number. Many players also do not use the exact same name used previously; sometimes with a different spelling. There had also been numerous cases of registering under a “wrong” Federation (FED) and the subsequent need to “transfer” back to the “rightful” FED. Many NCFs have their own internal controls over registering of players and other title holders and many times, these created conflict situations which FIDE had to try mitigate. Two very common examples are:
(1) Working father (with citizenship in a NCF, say “Y”) re-located overseas due to work (say, NCF “X”), brings his family and the child goes to school in X, participates in a competition and the local organizer lists the child under NCF X. Child later wishes to participate in an official FIDE event but NCF X does not endorse. The father then requests NCF Y for his child to play under NCF Y. This would be followed by long chains of emails claiming citizenship etc etc etc … ending with Notification for Transfer and sometimes, rejection. In most of these situations, NCF Y is the “unhappy” NCF having to deal with these situations. Whereas, organizers like in NCF X happily collected entry fees from whoever wished to play.
(2) Working or studying adult or on holiday overseas – again, usually unrated or without a FIDE ID. The local organizer accepts the entry without checking exact spelling of name or country of origin and displays the player’s federation without authentication. An example – a Scot went on holiday in the United States. When asked by the organizer, the player said he is working in Belgium and the organizer submits the player’s federation as BEL. Subsequently, the player then has a published rating under BEL. BEL sees this and had to go through the process to get the player correctly registered. Why should BEL be troubled?

There has been a large growth in duplicate listings for new players as well as change of federations for new players, as well as Federations delisting and then relisting players. These have caused a lot of extra work for the Elista Office and to deal with these problems before they get out of hand, the QC Chairman reported to the PB. He suggested the various regulations which have been published on the FIDE website to try and sort out the situation.

The GA Minutes for Istanbul state under QC: “General Assembly accepts the report in general, and tasked the Commission to present the report to the next Presidential Board”, thus they gave the PB the power to take a decision regarding this report.

To answer your questions:
Just the new Regulations on Registration & Licensing of Players has been cancelled;
B.03 has been changed with only the non-contentious point 1 remaining;
The next PB will receive a rewritten proposal for the registration of players, taking into account comments received; and
The aim of all these proposals is to make the job of Federations and FIDE’s Office in Elista much easier.

I trust this answers your concerns
Best regards
Nigel

Player licencing abandoned

Just days after I posted about the FIDE player licencing, the FIDE Secretariat has issued a notice cancelling the licencing. The very terse notification follows:


"The  licensing  of  the  players has been cancelled. The new documents
about registration will be presented in due course."


However, reading the last sentence bolded by me, it looks like this will not be the end of it but will be re-entered in a different form.

New FIDE regulation: Licence to play

When I first found out about this regulation, I quickly glanced at the date. No, April 1st is still a long way off.

FIDE has approved a new regulation for licencing and registration of chess player. Soon you will need a licence to play in FIDE rated tournaments if this regulation is not opposed.

If any federation allows an unlicenced player into their tournament, the federation will need to pay a penalty of 50 Euro for every infringement.

How was such a regulation approved? MCF should have received notice of this by now. Hopefully they will join other national federations to protest this new regulation.

Think about it. Any new chess players wanting to join a FIDE rated competition will need to get licenced before the beginning of the tournament. Will MCF foot the bill or collect from it's chess players? How many players and parents will just give up before they even started?

A Scorpion's Tail

The story of the frog and the scorpion is well known to English readers. It is one of Aesop's fables and the tale is a cautionary one; man cannot change his innate nature.

I do not often point readers to that poison blog but read this and then come back here and tell me what you think. What is the nature of this man; the writer of that blog?

Blitz session in Istanbul

After the conclusion of the final round of the Istanbul olympiad, that night  all five members of the Istanbul Olympiad team (IM Mok, IM Yee Weng, IM Jimmy, Li Tian and Zhuo Ren) gathered in my room and played some blitz. Everyone is relaxed after eleven tense rounds of chess. Li Tian took on all comers. Here is a video of him playing against IM Lim Yee Weng.

Towards the end of the video (off camera), Peter Long walks in asking for food!

At 2:11 , Yee Weng makes a "mysterious" rook move which got everyone amused.

Top earners in 2012

Here is a list of the top chess players earnings in 2012. It seems quite a good occupation if you are amongst the best players in the world.