FIDE new Title rules

[Victor Plotkin]

Recently I attended FIDE Qualification Commission (QC) meeting. The goal of the meeting was to inform FIDE members about some changes for FIDE title regulations which will likely be implemented Jan 1, 2022.

There are many minor, mostly technical changes; the main goal of them is to give the QC more power in some specific situations. The major change is that any title application must include at least one norm from an individual swiss tournament with at least 40 participants.

From what I heard during this meeting, QC is very uncomfortable with current title situation and the well-known article in NY Times about the youngest GM in history. They clearly want to stop norm/title achieving by playing exclusively in round-robin or very small swiss events, like Mishra in Budapest. Clearly, the new requirement would make this "easy title route" more difficult.

I fully support this proposal. The vast majority of Canadians who earned a title recently achieved it with 2 or all 3 norms in bid swiss events (GMs Preotu and Hambleton, IMs Kleinman, Chiku-Ratte, Thavandiran and others). So, we have nothing to worry about.

For future Canadian events, it would be important to have Canadian Zonals with 40+ players, so a norm from this event would help title seekers to meet this new requirement.

[Aris Marghetis]

Thanks Victor. At the 2019 Zonal in Kingston, we had 36 players, so at least 40 seems achievable. Offhand, was there any new rating floor to include? (of course FIDE rating, not CFC rating)

[Michael Yip]

I would like to suggest that the 3 GMs in the norm tournament played should meet the rating requirement for GM, or at least be 2480(assuming the rating requirement is 2500 as I can forgive someone for having a bad tournament at some point). I think GMs under 2400 not count towards a norm or there should be no 2402 GMs(as an example) which would make the norm a joke.

[Victor Plotkin]

Thanks Victor. At the 2019 Zonal in Kingston, we had 36 players, so at least 40 seems achievable. Offhand, was there any new rating floor to include? (of course FIDE rating, not CFC rating)

I think, it would be a logical decision if organizers allow a few players with a U2200 CFC and a relatively high FIDE to play in Closed section. Lets say if we have 35-39 participants with 2200+ CFC.

However, the most important thing is to keep the Closed as strong as possible, otherwise chances for any norm would be low.

[Aris Marghetis]

I think, it would be a logical decision if organizers allow a few players with a U2200 CFC and a relatively high FIDE to play in Closed section. Lets say if we have 35-39 participants with 2200+ CFC.

However, the most important thing is to keep the Closed as strong as possible, otherwise chances for any norm would be low.

I'm thinking EVERY player is at least 2200 of some kind. I'm just wondering if there is any new FIDE rating floor for such 40-player Swiss norms. It seems not, just practicality for norm chances.

Thanks again, kind regards, Aris.

[Frank Dixon]

Thanks so much to Victor for his report, and the discussion following.

I was one of the people, back in the 1990s, who suggested that the Canadian Closed move to a Swiss system format, with a larger field. You can blame me or thank me; there are arguments both ways; some people are happy, some are not. My idea was to see it evolve into something like the British Championship; that event, run as a Swiss since 1949, is an actual festival with several lower sections as well, at the same place and time. Aris was moving in that direction with his 2019 Kingston Zonal. He had a Master group, then several lower sections in the same room. If we can get 40 players minimum for the Master group, then we could have another FIDE-rated section for those just below that cutoff.

One of my motivations for the idea was my disappointment at seeing several very strong players excluded in 1992, when I organized the Zonal in Kingston, with only 12 players (instead of the usual 16 at that time, but that is another story). Several players who could have won, or contended, were not on hand, most notably IM Igor Ivanov (he had the norms for GM, but hadn't applied!!), IM Jean Hebert and IM Leon Piasetski. The field we had was very good: GM Kevin Spraggett, IM Lawrence Day, IM Deen Hergott, IM Bryon Nickoloff, IM Tom O'Donnell, FM Brian Hartman, FM Alex Lesiege, NM Joe Horton, NM Gregory Huber, NM Kevin Gentes, NM Gary Basanta, NM Ron Livshits. FM Lesiege won, GM Spraggett and FM Hartman tied for second. Other very strong players I would like to have seen in the field that year: IM Zvonko Vranesic, FM Jonathan Berry, FM Todd Southam, FM Francois Leveille, FM Sylvain Barbeau, FM Robert Hamilton, FM Irwin Lipnowski, FM Vinny Puri (a Queen's University graduate), NM Maher Saleh (a Queen's University graduate), and so on. Queen's University was one of the sponsors, and provided the playing site and accommodations, as part of the organizational plans.

[Aris Marghetis]

As mentioned earlier in this thread, we had 36 players in the top (Zonal) section at Kingston Easter Chess 2019, so I'm excited we should be able to get at least 40 from now on.

Then, for the other sections, we try as much as possible to replicate the conditions of the top section. That includes ratings, and all KEC sections are rated both CFC and FIDE.

[David Ottosen]

Although this generally seems like a good change, I did get a little chuckle out of:

"Recently I attended FIDE Qualification Commission (QC) meeting... the main goal of them is to give the QC more power"

Sounds like a typical FIDE meeting :D

[Victor Plotkin]

FIDE recently adopted this recommendation by QC:

"Any title application containing a norm not achieved before 30.6.2022 must include at least one norm from an individual Swiss tournament with every round containing at least forty participants whose average rating is at least 2000. For this purpose, players will be counted only if they miss at most one round ( excluding pairing allocated byes )."

[Réjean Tremblay]

The ''easy title road'' was a road for rich people or upper middle-class who sacrify every penny to help their child achieve the GM title. $270 000 US dollars was not a bill for everyone!

I'm happy with the change.

[Victor Plotkin]

I see this change as a relatively small step in right direction.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

There are small changes in time control requirements for FIDE rated events.

https://www.fide.com/news/1438

"As a result, 3-hour games (90+90) will be accepted provided that both players are rated below 2400, an increase from 2200"