The United States Chess Federation - USCF President Ruth Haring Wraps Up 82nd Fide Congress

USCF President Ruth Haring Wraps Up 82nd Fide Congress

By Ruth Haring
October 22, 2011
Friday October 21st was the final day of the 82nd FIDE Congress and Executive Board Meeting in Krakow Poland. Today's session was the second day of FIDE EB meetings and was marked by quick disposal of the remaining agenda items. At 4:00 pm we were bused to the Wieliczka Salt Mine and ventured down 360 steps through caverns, underground lakes, chapels and salt inspired sculptures all carved out of salt. Even the floor was made of salt blocks or tiles in many places. The mine is said to be 800 years old, and when we arrived at the bottom of the mine, we were served a very nice meal and visited with our colleagues from other federations over dinner. There was a short presentation and we returned to the hotels where everyone is now busy packing for the trip home tomorrow. USCF primary goal in Krakow was to introduce our new USCF Delegation to the FIDE Congress and to work to obtain more influence through participation in Commission meetings and building relationships with our counterparts in other national federations and with FIDE leadership. Our trip was a great success when measured against this goal and I would like to express my thanks and congratulations to the very talented and hardworking team members: Sophia Rohde, Tony Rich, Walter Brown, Michael Khodarkovsky, Franc Guadalupe, and Bill Hall. Ignatius Leong & Michael Khodarkovsky USCF's most important matter to address in Krakow, was to make sure that titles earned by our players be awarded by FIDE. Some of our titles were being held up because the norms were made while playing with the 5 second delay based time control and due to a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings the titles were in question. On August 16th 2011, I sent a letter to the Chairman, Secretary and Councilors of the FIDE Qualification Commission addressing all outstanding issues. The commission was delighted to get an official communication from USCF addressing this matter and a serious discussion of issues ensued. I am happy to report that in Krakow, all titles earned by players were awarded, and that going forward, USCF will engage actively in all FIDE technical commissions and ensure communication to our membership and to FIDE. Mikko Markkula Following up on the above, it has been a goal of USCF for several years to get FIDE to consider adding our most popular time controls which utilize the 5-second delay to the list of approved time controls for FIDE title tournaments. There are currently no 5-second delay time controls in the "Requirements for Titles" (FIDE Handbook section B.01.1.1.14). The qualification commission did not approve the proposal this year, and we will submit a proposal to be discussed at the 83rd FIDE Congress which will be held in Istanbul next year. We were able to discuss the pros and cons of playing with 5-second delay time controls some of the key stakeholders in FIDE and hope to have better luck getting these time controls approved next year. If you have been following the reports from Krakow you have read about a number of proposals in various commissions to impose new fees for a wide range of activities. Though some of these fee-related proposals were withdrawn or delayed for discussion at the next Congress, it is clear that there is a push by FIDE to license and regulate all aspects of chess. It seems that generation of new revenue streams is behind these ideas. I personally believe that imposition of new fees in conjunction with licensing and regulating all aspects of FIDE chess events during these exceptionally challenging economic times will result in fewer FIDE events being organized and held throughout the world. Briefly, some other key notes from todays session: IO Organizer titles approved for Bill Goichberg, Ankit Gupta, Sophia Rohde and Steve Immitt. The Constitutional Commission has created a document and will be inviting comments by the member Federations. There is a proposal to split the World Youth into two events which was heartily discussed and it was decided to vote on this matter in Turkey at the next general assembly. The reason for this suggestion was that it is felt in other parts of the world that the World Youth has grown so big it has become unmanageable, and "bigger than the Olympiad". Of course, in the US, the Supernationals has far more players than the World Youth and is held successfully and managed professionally. Another reason for this split proposal is that it was suggested that it is desirable to separate "young children" from "young adults" for social reasons. New Rules are being drafted regarding residence requirements for "Change of Federation" regulations by David Jarrett from the FIDE office in Athens. The World Amateur will be defined as Under 2000 The age categories for the World Senior will be changed to age 50 and 65 for both Men and Women There was a formal signing ceremony for the contract for the Tromso Olympiad 2014 Finally, on the political front, I am happy to report that much less time was spent on political posturing by the EB today. However there was one comment today about Garry Kasparov which promoted the very disturbing view that all of Garry's business activities related to Chess in the Schools are a politically motivated, and that such business activities should be put under the umbrella of the FIDE president. Gens Una Sumas