Clarification for Quitting the Online Olympiad

[Victor Plotkin]

I always pushed towards using FIDE rating only for our Open Olympic qualifications. It was one of the main changes which was proposed by me and accepted by CFC in 2016 (the CFC used average CFC-FIDE rating before). My opinion was that for 2400+ players, only FIDE rating is important.

However, in this specific case, I could not trust very high FIDE rating achieved by Kaiqi during his round robin tournaments in Hungary and Serbia. If I made no mistake, he played 11 round-robin tournaments in Hungary and Serbia and gained a total of 102 points. Before his first tournament of this kind, his rating was 2430 which was in my opinion absolutely fair number for this player at that time. After that, he gained 102 points in Europe and lost almost 50 (!) points in Canada. His CFC rating of 2475 reflects FIDE rating of around 2360-2380 because for most Ontario players of this level, the CFC-FIDE gap is between 100 and 120 points.

For example:

N. Noritsyn: CFC rating 2615 FIDE rating 2512. The gap is 103 points.

R. Preotu: CFC rating 2629 FIDE rating 2487. The gap is 142 points.

A. Samsonkin: CFC rating 2534 FIDE rating 2428. The gap is 106 points.

M. Plotkin: CFC rating 2549 FIDE rating 2435. The gap is 114 points.

R. Panjwani: CFC rating 2524 FIDE rating 2448. The gap is 76 points (Raja did not play any tournaments in Canada in the past few years and during that time, he gained some FIDE points in United States and Europe).

Even if I give Kaiqi benefit of the doubt that for some reason he plays worse in Canada than out of the country, the gap should be 60 points at least. That means FIDE of 2415 reflects his real strength. Which is pretty close or slightly lower than FIDE of both Raja and Mark.

Every 2500+ Canadian player knows about this artificial inflation of Kaiqi's FIDE rating. I spoke about it with many of them and we have very similar opinion.

I'm not going to say that Kaiqi's GM title was not made in accordance with official FIDE regulations. However, these 11 tournaments could not change my opinion about his normal strength.

[Kaiqi Yang]

Now you perfectly verified that your whole arrangement towards me is personal.

Again, you just played around here without admitting your simple intention.

The team was formed based on FIDE rating, there is no point arguing about CFC ratings when they are not the criteria. You re-defined the definition of "reserve players" in your own dictionary.

Since you seem so confident about your calculation, you should show it to the team before the tournament not after everything happened already. Now It is just excuse and deception.

You are so disrespectful of the whole FIDE system, ironically you are even here as the captain for a FIDE event.

[Lucas Davies]

I would like to see a grudge match between the players involved here streamed LIVE on national Twitch.tv. I think that this would bring in some good viewership and boost interest in chess in Canada.

[Kaiqi Yang]

Victor,

I don’t know why my personal experience relates to your captain's statement.

I have played international chess tournaments in at least 14 countries, but since you are having a problem with my trip to Serbia, even I don’t have to share my privacy with you, let me share it here.

I was holding a Chinese passport, Serbia was the only European destination where I didn't need to apply for a visa, so I could save myself from visa waiting time and paperwork to fit my time frame. I went there in 2018 and 2019, spent 3 months in total, over 100 days, played 99 games including both round-robin and Swiss tournaments. I got two GM norms there plus the first norm where I got in Philippine, 2009, to apply for my GM title.

Since you keep mentioning the round-robin system, let me remind you that your son also attended three round-robin tournaments recently to help him get his final IM norm.

Again, I don’t think any of this relates to your unprofessionalism and arrogance as a captain in this 2020 Online Olympiad.

[Kaiqi Yang]

Also, if you really use your calculation for the good of Team Canada, why not take credit and use USCF rating into your calculation since one of our teammates is residence in US and didn’t play in Canada for years?

So here is the calculation with USCF rating. I couldn’t find Nicolay’s USCF so I didn’t include him here.

	USCF	FIDE	Average
Kaiqi	2544	2481	2,512.50
Raja	2549	2448	2,498.50
Mark	2398	2435	2,416.50

See, the result was quite different. It doesn't mean anything, but that is why FIDE rating is used as a universal and comparable standard for all players in international events.

I guess you just want to get the result for what you want.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Mr .Yang, what is your definition of the team's captain? Same thing regarding the national team and its players responsibilities during the tournament?


My short investigation of ratings charts:

The "normal" FIDE rating trends show that 3 players are comparable strength, and NN rating higher than others average. Thus, the team's order gets into a hand's of the captain experience, knowledge of players, and the vision. The same goes for a team composition for individual teams matches.


In any situation I remember the final scene from Burn after Reading: "I guess we learned not to do it again." Thus there should be more communications both ways in the team, especially with new members.

[Victor Plotkin]

Why should I use the USCF rating? Canada is an independent country.

Nikolay never played a tournament in USA. Your last tournament in America was back in 2017.

Mark played a few tournaments in USA in recent years, gained a lot of USCF rating points, but still not enough games to reflect his improvement (his FIDE jumped from 2169 to 2435 in less than 2 years). His USCF rating reflects something like 2320 FIDE - a very low number for him now. At least his last many tournaments (including 2/5 in the online Olympiad) show an absolutely different picture.

For Raja USCF rating indeed is pretty reliable, since he was playing mostly in States. His USCF-FIDE gap (2549-2448=101 points) looks slightly higher than the average gap, but nothing special here.

Again, I always say that FIDE rating is the best one to compare for 2400+ players... Until somebody takes advantage of some loopholes in the system.

[Kaiqi Yang]

It is ok you have your judgement. Everyone has their own judgement. But it cannot save Victor from being negligent of his responsibility.

As a responsible captain, one should fully acknowledge and communicate with the players regarding their strategy and judgement ahead of time properly, especially when their strategy and
judgement is against how the team was initially formed, the official team line-up, also considering since family tie involved in the team this time, in order to avoid any possible misunderstandings among the players, for the well-being of the team as a whole.

Unfortunately, Victor let the judgement and strong bias lead his decisions, and treated player unfairly and arrogantly with zero respect and acknowledgement.

When the basic rights as a player can not be protected, how can we even discuss other responsibilities further.

[Vlad Drkulec]

If we are going to have a very public airing of grievances, I would prefer that it occurs on the CFC forum where we can be assured that it won't descend into the type of troll fest that often occurs on chesstalk. Victor Plotkin has done a lot for Canadian chess. He is a good man. He is a very logical man. He bases his actions and decisions based on mathematical calculations in many cases.

Kaiqi Yang is also a good man. He has stepped forward and volunteered and performed admirably as a coach for the CFC. I have met him a few times and corresponded with him. He has coached a few of my students and former students and they all say wonderful things about him. I am not happy with his decision to leave the team without at least letting me know that there was a problem. I can understand how this can happen. The player feels hurt and offended and unfairly treated and it doesn't seem to be any way to resolve the situation and so he removes himself from the situation.

This is however in the past. There is nothing that can be done to resolve what happened. What can we do going forward? What lessons can we take from this situation?

Chess in Canada is often a house divided which as a result cannot prosper because we are too busy fighting each other instead of doing the things which will help us move the ball towards the goal at the other end of the field. Lets stop fighting each other and fight the issues which are holding us back.

[Victor Plotkin]

If we are going to have a very public airing of grievances, I would prefer that it occurs on the CFC forum where we can be assured that it won't descend into the type of troll fest that often occurs on chesstalk. Victor Plotkin has done a lot for Canadian chess. He is a good man. He is a very logical man. He bases his actions and decisions based on mathematical calculations in many cases.

Kaiqi Yang is also a good man. He has stepped forward and volunteered and performed admirably as a coach for the CFC. I have met him a few times and corresponded with him. He has coached a few of my students and former students and they all say wonderful things about him. I am not happy with his decision to leave the team without at least letting me know that there was a problem. I can understand how this can happen. The player feels hurt and offended and unfairly treated and it doesn't seem to be any way to resolve the situation and so he removes himself from the situation.

This is however in the past. There is nothing that can be done to resolve what happened. What can we do going forward? What lessons can we take from this situation?

Chess in Canada is often a house divided which as a result cannot prosper because we are too busy fighting each other instead of doing the things which will help us move the ball towards the goal at the other end of the field. Lets stop fighting each other and fight the issues which are holding us back.

So far I see only one troll here -- the person who started this thread. His mention of Nikolay's younger brother was absolutely unnecessary, and in my opinion, is an example of trolling and bullying. However, if you want to move this discussion to CFC forum, I don't mind doing this.

You asked about lessons, what can we learn from this conflict? For the next CFC voting members meeting, I am going to propose a motion which allows CFC executives to adjust a certain player's FIDE and/or CFC rating for qualification matters, following the recommendations of CFC rating auditor and CFC master representative. Also, I am going to support a motion which penalizes a player for leaving Canadian team in the middle of a tournament.

Many people here mentioned communication issues between captain and players. Before and during the tournament, I exchanged emails with many team players, including players on the men's boards -- Nikolay and Raja. A few days before the start of the tournament I provided my phone number to the team with the words: "from 7 am to midnight, any problem, any time." A few players used this number to call me and we had good discussions about their questions, which I answered. After first tournament day, I sent an email to every player with an analysis of our play, tournament situation, chances, and our next opponent(s). There is always more that can be done, but I don't see a lack of communication from my side.

[Aman Hambleton]

Actually, both of my decisions that Kaiqi did not like, placing Mark instead of him in Round 1 and Raja instead of him in Round 4, were both successful and significantly improved our tournament situation. Thanks to Mark's win in round 1 we won against Argentina and thanks to Raja's win in round 4, we won our match against very strong Cuban team.

To be continued...

It begs the question: was the participation goal from Kaiqi to play as many games as possible, or win as many matches as possible? Why even have an argument about captain decisions when they are working? Personally, I would happily sit out every game if the team is winning, even if i deem myself equally or more capable than my 'replacement'

Extremely entertaining thread thus far

[Victor Itkine]

Victor Plotkin has done a lot for Canadian chess. He is a good man.

Kaiqi Yang is also a good man.

And Vlad Drkulec is also a good man and good CFC President trying to reconcile two other good men.

But the point here is not who is a good man, but whose actions in this situation were legitimate, and whose actions were not.
Paragraph 2.6 of the Regulations for the FIDE Online Olympiad clearly states: “Each team captain decides on his/her team composition for each match.”
https://www.fide.com/docs/regulation...iad%202020.pdf

Therefore, Victor Plotkin had a legitimate right to pick the players for each match on his sole discretion. One may argue whether Victor's decisions were successful or not. As per my opinion, they were successful, because of Victor's clarifications on his reasons, and because they brought the result. But someone may have a different opinion.

From the other side, GM Kaiqi have quieted the Olympiad in the middle, and this his action was not legitimate, because he entered into Contract with CFC to play at Olympiad under Victor Plotkin's captaincy, and have violated this Contract. Nikolay Noritsyn mentioned in this thread that in case of this online Olympiad there were no written Contracts signed. However, GM Kaiqi has accepted the invitation to play, which is tantamount to signing the Contract. According to Canadian law, an oral contract has the same effect as a written one, even if the case is being tried in court.

Conclusion: Victor Plotkin's action in this situation was legitimate, while GM Kaiqi's action was not.

The only question here is: will there be any punishment for this not legitimate action, or due to imperfection of CFC regulations, GM Kaiqi will be lucky enough to get out of this situation with impunity.

[Kerry Liles]

If we are going to have a very public airing of grievances, I would prefer that it occurs on the CFC forum where we can be assured that it won't descend into the type of troll fest that often occurs on chesstalk.
...

Although this thread is somewhat distressing to read through, I don't see a lot of trolling here other than by the 3(?) major persona in the dispute (Victor, Kaiqi & Nickolai)
Of course, there are the inevitable posts from outsiders voicing their 'opinions' and so on.
The CFC forums are not regularly monitored by most of the chess players in Canada (at least that is the impression I have) and moving this to that platform pretty much
will end the discussion. Perhaps that is the idea?
Motions can be proposed, possibly debated and refined, in any context - getting them to pass in the CFC universe is a separate matter entirely.
Chess players have egos - many are quite large and expanding. I think that is just a fact of life and makes a lot of rule-making very difficult.

[Vlad Drkulec]

I am not a lawyer but I did have a class in business law and for there to be a contract, there has to be consideration (some form of payment). That is why sometimes you are asked to make a down payment of as little as $1. This is only an aside.

[Brad Thomson]

The more things change the more they remain the same.