IA Tomasz Delega
In the previous FIDE management there was a good habit, to inform federations in advance by email about new rules or regulations, valid from 1 July, next year after the FIDE Olympiad. This important reminder has been an inspiration for federations to translate all novelties to the national languages. Then, arbiters and organizers around the world could implement new regulations in a practice. It’s a pity that new FIDE management is not following this way – rules are published in the FIDE handbook, but no reminder was sent to the federation.
I decided to write this article when I received an email form one very experienced IA arbiter:
Dear Tomek, I have heard that from 1 July 2019 new rules about eating at the chessboard should be followed. But I couldn’t find on the FIDE website the new version of the Laws of Chess, with this rule. Do you know anything about that?
The FIDE Laws of Chess is the most important, but not the only one source of the chess laws. The second one is FIDE General Regulations for Competition (old name FIDE Tournament Rules). This rules are updated every four years, with a two years separation period between them. And in 2018 was a time to update the General Regulations for Competition. So if someone is looking for novelties in the Laws of Chess, he couldn’t find anything new.
So what is new in General Regulations for Competitions?
For example:
– an article 9.5 The players should not eat at the chessboard during the game – this is what my colleague was looking for.
– an article 4.2 If smoking is completely prohibited, it shall be announced in the regulation of the event in advance.
– an article 7.1 Depending on the rules of the specific competition, the captain shall be required to deliver, at a specific time, a written list naming the players in his team participating in each round. If the list is not delivered by the appointed time, the team list for that round shall be the first named players in the list submitted by the required time before the start of the event. The captain shall communicate to his players the pairings.
– an article 7.7 … The player can also ask his captain if he may offer or accept a draw.
We have also some minor changes, for example in article 2.2 we have “new” duties of Chief Organizer, in article 7.2 obligation to the team to be present with more than 50% of the players to start the match, and some changes in article 13.1 about arbiters appointments.
All details you can find on the FIDE website http://rules.fide.com/images/stories/FIDE_General_Regulations_for_Competitions_-_final_3.pdf
From 1 July 2019 we have also new regulations in ECU TR, for example:
– regarding dress code for the teams – B.13.2 … It is strongly recommended that all teams’ players must be dressed in their corporate/club/team style costumes and all members of the team should be uniformly dressed.
– regarding dress code for the arbiters – B.13.4 … Starting with the European Team Chess Championship 2019 ECU arbiters (men/women) must be dressed in ECU branded jackets and ties/scarfs. A guide for the ECU Arbiters dress code will be published and be valid from 1st January 2020.
– money penalties (fines) for dress code violations – for whole procedure see an article B.13.5
– new pairing rules for team swiss – M.1 … For pairing of all rounds the teams are ranked in the following order: a. Match points b. Olympiad Sonnenborn-Berger c. Ranking number according to article 9.
Apart of above, we have in ECU some changes to the procedure of preparing invitation for the ECU events, for details see B.8.6
All details you can find on the ECU website
http://www.europechess.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ECU-TR-from-1-July-20191.pdf