From 14th to 18th November 2021, a FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar was organized in Terme Catez, Slovenia, by the European Chess Union, under the auspices of FIDE.
The Lecturer was IA Prokopova, Jirina (CZE), FIDE Lecturer and the Assistant Lecturer was IA Karali, Tania (GRE).
The language of the Seminar was English.
Sixteen (16) participants from nine (9) Federations (BLR, ENG, FIN, GRE, IRQ, ITA, POL, RUS, and SLO) participated in the Seminar and twelve (12) of them participated in the examination test, held after the end of the lectures.
The following succeeded in the test and they will be awarded a norm for the title of the FIDE Arbiter, after the approval of the next FIDE Council:
FIDE ID
NAME (AS ON FIDE PROFILE)
FED
508314
Kumpulainen, Kalle
FIN
496553
Gaekwad, Satish
ENG
Online Arbiter and National Online Arbiter Certification Courses
Online Arbiter Certification Courses
In early January 2021, the FIDE Online Chess Regulations and the ECU Annex for Online Chess Competitions were published and the ECU Arbiters’ Council had a new responsibility: To train arbiters who would work as officers in online events.
Three Certification Courses for Online Arbiters designated for IAs/FAs were organised. Each course included 6 hours of theory and practice and a 2-hour exam.
The courses contained specific topics and addressed attendants who fulfilled certain criteria.
The exam consisted of two parts:
a) Theoretical questions
b) Practical tasks, such as setting up a zoom call or importing the participants of a tournament on a platform
During the Courses, the participants gained knowledge that is necessary for running an online event, such as monitoring the players through a Video Conferencing Call and interpreting a Fair Play report, and were introduced to the possibilities offered by each one of the major platforms, as well as ZOOM. A 2-hour practice event was dedicated to tornelo, where the attendants alternated in players’ and arbiters’ roles.
The lecturers were Marco Biagioli, Jirina Prokopova, Tania Karali and Alex Holowczak. Each course was presented and supervised by the Chairman of the Council, Tomasz Delega, who also prepared the topics of the exam.
After three courses, 66 arbiters from 26 federations affiliated to ECU were certified (+5 arbiters from other federations).
Only arbiters with OA certification are proposed by the ECU AC to work as online arbiters during European online and hybrid events.
National Online Arbiter Certification Courses
Following the demand of national arbiters to be introduced to online chess, a National Online Arbiter Certification Course was organised on April 12-13, 2021, with 25 attendants (5 IAs, 4 FAs and 16 NAs) from 13 European federations.
To be certified, the participants needed to fulfill certain criteria.
The lecturers were the members of the Council, Geert Bailleul, Marco Biagioli, Tania Karali and Jirina Prokopova.
Conclusion:
After many months of organising Certification Courses and appointing arbiters in online events, we believe that European arbiters have a high level of training and can run online events successfully.
Refreshing courses
ECU Arbiters’ Council firmly believes that refreshing courses and workshops are very important for the quality of the arbiters. For that reason we would like to built a system of nominations for ECU events based on qualifications of arbiters, evaluations of their work and with some preferences for those who are attending courses.
Educational online workshops
FIDE Arbiters’ Commission organized two educational workshops for arbiters, both were managed by the Commission chairman IA Laurent Freyd. First one was for Arbiters in online chess events in cooperation with the ECU Arbiter’s Council chairman IA Tomasz Delega. The second workshop was dedicated to Arbiters’ title applications.
The Arbiters in online chess events workshop was quite successfull as there were over 450 people watching online. And to this date it has almost 5 thousand views on YouTube. You can watch it here and learn about what it means to be an Online Arbiter, what are the new challenges in this area and hear about some experience of both speakers.
A member of ECU Arbiters Council IA Jiřina Prokopová, who is also in charge of titles in FIDE Arbiters Commission delivered a presentation at the Arbiters’ title applications workshop, with an explanation of the Regulations and advice to federation officials as well as applicants, with the invaluable support of the Chairmen IA Laurent Freyd and Secretary IA Nebojsa Baralic. You can find the link here.
74th Internet based FIDE Arbiters Seminar organized by the ECU Arbiters’ Council
From Monday May 4th until Thursday May 7th, the ECU Arbiters’ Council organized an internet based FA Seminar, in cooperation with the Education Team of the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission.
The lecturer was IA Jirina Prokopova (CZE), FIDE lecturer, member of the ECU Arbiters’ Council and member of the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission.
The assistant lecturers were IA Marco Biagioli (ITA), member of the ECU Arbiters’ Council and IA Geert Bailleul (BEL), secretary of the ECU Arbiters’ Council. The observer was IA Tomasz Delega (POL), chairman of the ECU Arbiters’ Council.The language of the seminar was in English.
Prior to the FA seminar, on Sunday May 3rd , there was also a workshop for all ECU arbiters, organized by the ECU Arbiters’ Council with the same lecturers as for the FA seminar.
During this workshop the members of the ECU Arbiters’ Council explained what they have been doing during the years since they have been appointed. The large number of participants (77!) shows that there was a need to organize such a workshop.
The attending arbiters received a clear overview of the system of appointment, the evaluation of arbiters during ECU Events, an extensive chapter about GDPR, the reporting procedure, all kind of reports etc…
Also the necessary information was given about the ECU Arbiters’ Council website; what can be found on the website and were this information can be found.
There was a possibility for the attendees the ask questions which they did in large numbers.
After the workshop the ECU Arbiters’ Council received many positive reactions.
The actual FA seminar started on Monday May 4th with 41 participants out of 27 federations.
On Monday and Tuesday the participants were extensively informed about the Laws of Chess and all the changes which has been made during the previous years.
Many questions were asked upon which a clear answer was given by the lecturer.
Also anti-cheating was discussed in detail.
Based on the number of questions, it can be concluded that anti-cheating is considered as being a very important subject for chess arbiters.
On Wednesday May 6th and Thursday May 7th the following topics were discussed:
standards of Chess equipment, general regulations for competitions, system of games, tie-break systems, Swiss pairings, pairing rules and electronic clocks.
At the end of the seminar a test was held.
For the first time the test which was used, was a standardized test which should be a norm in the future for other FA Seminars.
The attendees had just over 2 hours to answer all the questions.
A score of 80% is needed to pass the test and receive the FA norm.
9 participants passed the test.
2 participants had a score above 90%; the highest score was 95.5% (!).
1
Andre Harding
USA
2008335
2
Claudia Muenstermann
GER
12928240
3
Dan Peinador
ESP
2218895
4
De Noose Daniel
BEL
203998
5
Douglas Vleeshhouwer
ENG
439061
6
Luc Cornet
BEL
205494
7
Ruben Gonzalez Diez
ESP
2251213
8
Scaillet Timothé
BEL
220574
9
Stjepan Gudelj
CRO
14536994
On Monday May 18th in an additional Zoom call the right answers were discussed together with the participants.
Geert Bailleul Secretary of the ECU Arbiters’ Council.
IA-Workshop, IO-Seminar and FA-Seminar in Trieste
During 7 day Triest (Italy) was the centre of everything which has to do with arbiters and organizers in chess.
The Arbiters Workshop took place on the 3rd and 4th of September.
The workshop was organized by the ECU Arbiters’ Council in cooperation with the Italian Chess Federation Arbiters’ Commission and FIDE. 18 very experienced IA’s attended, among them 5 IA A’ Cat., 2 IA B’ Cat., 4 IA C’ Cat. and 7 IA D’ Cat.
The workshop was led by IA Takis Nikolopoulos, Honorary Chairman of FIDE Arbiters’ Commission, and by IA Tomasz Delega, Chairman of ECU Arbiters’ Council.
The first part of the workshop consisted in a refreshment of the latest changes in the Laws of Chess which are in effect from January 1st 2018, with emphasis to the new illegal moves and the new Rapid and Blitz rules, followed by a summary of the recent changes in tournament regulations. Also FIDE Anti Cheating guidelines were discussed.
The main part of the workshop was spend in the discussion on case studies. It was very interesting to ascertain that, despite the fact that the attendees were all experienced arbiters, in certain cases they sometimes disagreed with each other.
However, everyone agreed that objectivity and common sense should always be used in order to resolve potential issues during tournaments.
After the workshop everyone was very satisfied. The exams for the Arbiters Workshop took place on the 4th of September
The FA Seminar was attended by 15 participants from 8 different federations.
The lecturers of the FA Seminar were IA Franca Dapiran from Italy and IA Takis Nikolopoulos. They were assisted by IA Marco Biagioli and Mario Held, both IA’s from Italy.
The seminar was supported by the FIDE Development Fund. The exam of the FA Seminar took place on September 5th.
Finally, there was the IO Seminar.
The seminar was held from 4th to 7th of September organized by the Italian Chess Federation in cooperation with the European Chess Union and also supported by the FIDE Development Fund.
The main lecturer of the seminar was IO Mr. Tomasz Delega with cooperation of IA Takis Nikolopoulos.
Other lectures were IO Mrs. Eva Repkova, ECU Vice President and FIDE Chairperson of the Commission for Women’s Chess; IA Franca Dapiran; IA Marco Biagioli and Ismini Tzegka.
Tomasz Delega shared personal examples. He wanted to involve the participants as much as possible by also discussing their personal experiences.
Eva Repkova gave to the participants important insights about organising tournaments with a large number of participants.
Franca Dapiran explained the Tie-Break criteria and discussed with the participants the technical details concerning the playing hall and the staff of the tournament.
Also the GDPR (general data protection regulations) and anti cheating regulations within ECU were discussed.
Other topics were:
bid procedure, events management, calendar regulations, rating regulations, title regulations, identity manual & sponsorship guidelines, protocol for events, as well as other FIDE regulations important for organizers like guidelines for organisers, general regulations for competition, transfer regulations, registration of players, financial regulations and Code of Ethics.
For the first time the seminar also contained a workshop activity. This gave the chance to the participants to work in groups.
The groups had the chance to get hands-on a case study, to cooperate and exchange ideas, while preparing the bid, the budget, the people management sheet, problem solving strategies, marketing ideas.
The seminar was attended by 20 participants from 13 federations.
There is absolutely no doubt that this kind of workshops and seminars have an added value to the experience and the quality of all the attendees as well as to the lectures.
I am sure that all the attendees appreciated being able to share their experience with top level lecturers.
It is highly recommended that this kind of seminars and workshops would be organized again in the near future.
Every arbiter in ECU would appreciate this very much.
I would like that thank the organizers, the lecturers and their assistants, and of course also the attendees for seven great days of close cooperation and friendship.
Italy was great, Trieste was great, the venue was great, the weather was great, the food was great… I am sure that everyone went home with the greatest satisfaction.
Special thanks to Ismini Tzegka for her articles on the ECU website!
Online Video Workshop during the EWICC 2019 in Antalya
During the Women Individual Chess Championship in Antalya (April 2019, Turkey) the ECU Arbiters’ Council organized an online video workshop for all the arbiters of the tournament, together with all arbiters who were interested.
Lecturer of the workshop was IA Tomasz Delega, Chairman of the ECU Arbiters’ Council.
The following topics were discussed: the functioning and the working plan of the ECU Arbiters’ Council; the New Rules of Chess valid from July 1st 2019; discussion on anti-cheating and anti-cheating measures.
ECU Arbiters refreshing course took place on 26th and 27th of March in Skopje.
The course was held simultaneously with European Individual Chess Championship 2019 and the lecturer was the chairman of the ECU Arbiters Council, Mr. Tomasz Delega.
Participants discussed and were informed about the activities of ECU Arbiters Council, Tie-break system of the events, General Regulations for Competitions 2019. They have also watched case studies from chess tournaments and spoke about anti-cheating measures which are being applied and developed.
