Minutes of the Arbiters’ Commission Meeting Krakow (Poland) October 16, 2011
1. Opening and welcome
Chairman P. Nikolopoulos welcomes all members and thanks Mr. Filipowicz for the organisation of the FIDE Congress in Krakow.
There will be an additional meeting on Wednesday October 19 from 17.00 until 19.00 hours, for further discussions for some of the topics.
10 from the 13 members of the Arbiters’ Commissions are present.
2. IA and FA title applications
Copies of the applications (summaries) were distributed together with the recommendations of approval. In the case of a negative approval the reason is stated.
3. FIDE Arbiters’ Seminars
Statistics from the FA titles and norms awarded since the previous FIDE Congress in Khanty-Mansiysk, as well as a complete report with the successful participants and the FA titles and norms to be awarded from all FIDE Arbiters’ Seminars after the last FIDE PB in Al Ain was presented.
Mr. Vardepatyan remarks that some of the seminars have very high numbers – up to 100% – of successful participants. However, the overall score of success of 64% is a normal number.
4. Regulations
Mr. Muradian proposes a change of article 2.2 regarding inactive arbiters.
Mr. Nikolopoulos says that re-activation depends on the period of inactivity. Mr. Deventer points out that there are no seminars for International Arbiters at the moment. According to Mr. Filipowicz the period of inactivity should start after 5 years since the Laws of Chess can only be changed every four years.
Mr. De Ridder points out the problem of national (or regional) league competitions played during a longer period at different places. Some of the competitions are registered with one chief arbiter and several deputy chief arbiters. How many norms can be accepted for FA/IA? How many deputy chief arbiters are acceptable in the final rating report? Some restrictions will have to be introduced in the 2012 Istanbul FIDE Congress, when changes in the regulations will be introduced.
5. List of Lecturers
The All Indian Chess Federation application for Prof. Rathinam Anantharam (IND) is accepted conditionally (after he will complete his third norm as an Assistant Lecturer, in the FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar in India, in January 2012).
Mr. Sevan Muradian (USA) is accepted as a FIDE Lecturer.
The following lecturers are deleted from the list of FIDE Lecturers, because they were completely inactive in the last four years: I. Bolotinsky (RUS), H. Majid (MAS) and E. Zaragoza (MEX).
6. Classification of the Arbiters
Mr. Stubenvoll gives an overview of the A’, B’, C’ and D’ Category Arbiters.
Updates of Arbiters to higher category were made, according to Federations’ requests and after checking by the Commission.
IA Hisham Al-Taher (UAE) will be promoted form B’ to A’ category.
Mr. De Ridder points out that Mr. Pots’ (NED) candidacy for promotion to category C’ is on hold, for further clarifications on his tournaments.
Husan Turdialiev (UZB) was one of three deputy arbiters in a tournament with only 70 players (Asian Individual 2011), but according to Mr. Vardepatyan he was three times deputy in World Cup so his promotion to C’ category is accepted.
7. Arbiters’ Stipends
A proposal including Arbiters’ Stipends for all Tournaments of any kind and format is still under discussion.
For FIDE events the Arbiters’ Stipends should be included in the regulations but for open tournaments the organizers may have the possibility to agree for the stipend with the Arbiters. Obviously the Arbiters’ stipend cannot be higher than the first prize, but the Arbiters’ Commission would like to offer the arbiter a basis for discussion with the organizers of private tournaments.
Mr. Filipowicz points out that there should be a different appreciation for arbiters in rapid and blitz tournaments.
8. License for the Arbiters
A proposal including license fees according to the Arbiters’ activity is still under discussion.
In return for the license fees the Arbiters Commission intends to offer more services to the licensed Arbiters. For this purpose the Arbiters’ Manual as well as an annual edition including reports of the tournaments with appeals and incidents with comments for their correct handling, will be distributed to the licensed Arbiters. These also could be published on the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission website.
Additionally it was decided to introduce a form for a Chief Arbiters’ Report and a form for the Organizer’s Report for every tournament.
9. FIDE Arbiters’ Commission site
Chairman P. Nikolopoulos showed the current status of the website.
He mentioned that the Commission has received many emails with questions regarding various cases (interpretation of the laws, incidents during the games, etc.) and has given answers. Very soon the questions and their answers will be published on the website.
10. Arbiters’ Manual Project
It was decided in Khanty-Mansiysk (2010) to start this project with several topics written by different arbiters: Franca Dapiran, Dirk De Ridder, Geurt Gijssen, Mikko Markkula, Sevan Muradian, Takis Nikolopoulos and Ashot Vardapetyan, are the working members of the subcommittee. All texts are going to be delivered until the end of October 2011.
11. Other
a. Unification of Examination Tests for Seminars
The Arbiters Commission has the opinion that all exams shall have the same level of difficulty. The format of the questions (multiple choice, open questions) should be taken into consideration.
Mr. Gijssen indicates that this commission should also check that all lecturers are using the same kind of material.
Chairman P. Nikolopoulos proposes to install a subcommittee to work on this issue: Stephen Boyd, Dirk De Ridder, Klaus Deventer, Andrzej Filipowicz, Geurt Gijssen, Werner Stubenvoll, Ashot Vardepatyan and Takis Nikolopoulos will be the members. All examinations’ tests used by the Lecturers will be collected and a pool of questions will be formed. Decisions on the kind and number of the exercises, the format and other issues regarding the examination tests will be taken.
Mr. Gijssen points out that there are countries with several translations of the English version in other languages. An official translation in all FIDE languages is necessary.
b. Reuben’s proposal
Stewart Reuben presents the Multiple Choice Test for Arbiters, used by the English Chess Federation. There are 105 questions in the database, each having 5 possible answers. Such a testing system has to be maintained when the Laws of Chess are changing.
Stewart Reuben also points out that Romania is organizing a refreshing test for their arbiters every five years. Mikko Markkula adds that such a test is obligated every four years in Finland.
Sevan Muradian proposes to split the exam into two parts: the first being a multiple choice test. If a candidate is successful he is allowed to participate in the second part where the questions are in essay format. This final format of the examination test of the FIDE Arbiters’ Seminars will be discussed by the subcommittee dealing with the unification of examination tests.
c. Vereshagin’s proposals
The proposal to delete article 3.10 of the Regulations for the titles of Arbiters (awarding directly the FA title in a FIDE Arbiters seminar) is not supported by the Arbiters Commission. However Franca Dapiran points out that the situation in which federations are creating several arbiters whereas there are only two tournaments per year in such federation cannot be accepted.
The proposal to delete the two last columns in the category list of the article 5.2 of the Regulations for the classification of the Arbiters is not supported by the Arbiters Commission since this is an indication for the quality of the arbiter in Continental events.
The proposal to delete the last row in the above category list is not supported by the Arbiters Commission since this row might be necessary in tie-breaks in for example a World Cup.
The proposal to delete article 1.1.6 of the Regulations for the titles of Arbiters is supported by the Arbiters Commission and will be introduced at the Istanbul FIDE Congress 2012.
When a federation puts a request to revoke an Arbiters title this can only be done after informing and hearing the arbiter in question.
Regarding the way of checking the level of the Lecturers in FIDE Arbiters’ Seminars, the Commission believes that the quality of a lecturer can be estimated from the material he is using, the percentage of applicants passing the seminar and eventual complaints received after a seminar. A system of observing the Seminars will be introduced as well as the Commission’s budget will be increased.
d. Glek proposals
These are not discussed since he was not present
e. Proposals for the Istanbul FIDE Congress 2012
The Arbiters Commission invites everyone to send any proposal regarding Arbiters issues before the 1st of April 2012.
Panagiotis Nikolopoulos Dirk De Ridder
Chairman Secretary
