Arbi ng Ma ers Too - Chess Arbiters` Association
Contents
1. Newsletter of the Chess Arbiters Association July 2015 Issue 9 Editorial The Women s European Championship dominated the chess columns when accusa tions of cheating were made against one of the participants In this case there does not seem to be any evidence to back up the claims It will be interesting to see if any action is taken against those who appear to have made false accusations A FIDE Commission is about to investigate Accelerated Pairing methods It has been given a copy of the CAA method My thanks to Gerry Jepps for his evaluation of the Vega pairing program VEGA Pairing Software 1 Introduction Issue 6 of Arbiting Matters contained a useful comparison of pairing programs by Alex Holowczak This summarised the capabilities of Swiss Master Swiss Manager and Tournament Director UTU Swiss Missing from the comparison was the Italian program Vega http www vegachess com This was a significant omission alt hough Vega is relatively little known in the UK This report aims to correct that omission and to evaluate its performance based on recent use at the May 2015 Frome Congress This report does not aim to be comprehensive or to describe all of Vega s capabili ties In particular no attempt has been made to evaluate Vega s use for team tour naments or to exercise all the alternative pairing methods available There is a much more complete description in the Vega User Manual http www vegachess com tl tl_fil2. Reshevsky eventually won the 1942 U S Championship but only after some further adventures including a tie breaking match with Kashdan As for poor Denker he finshed tied with Pinkus in 3 Ath place 2 points behind Reshevsky and Kashdan Denker refers to the incident in his book My Best Games 1929 1976 Toward the end of the time control the maddest time scramble in which have ever participat ed took place In the excitement the Tournament Director forfeited me by mistake On being informed of his error he replied tartly Does Kenesaw Mountain Landis ever reverse himself So my hopes of the title went glimmering drew two morals from this outcome One is the realization that important tourna 11 ments should be fully staffed so that officials are not handicapped in the perfor mance of their duties Second was a determination to avoid time trouble in the future The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak HOW TO BEAT TOP 10 EXCUSES GIVEN TO ARBITERS FOR LOSING BOBBY FISCHER By Edmar Mednils The batteries died in my hidden receiver K got lost on my way back from the hotel genuine S Lost too much time hiking to the smoking area genuine but said as a joke 4 Lost too much time pondering over the latest ECF CAS legal case Br After making a move punched my opponent instead of the clock 6 Studied How to Beat Bobby Fischer but was un prepared for other opponents 7 The WC cubicle wit
3. Edwards Notation or as it is more commonly recognised FEN This is an integral part of Portable Game Notation files pgn Only in the U S of A 1 believe the following to be factual A potential player contacted an organiser in Kentucky asking for confirmation that it was OK for an open weapon i e a gun which was visible to anyone to be present at a chess tournament The player himself was not going to have it but it would be in 16 THE SHORTHAND METHOD OF NOTING CHESS POSITIONS We beg to direct attention to Mr Forsyth s sug gestion as to the notation of positions We have clready foucd it useful Ho bas ei clearly cox plained the boeibod himself that itis usuccessary for us to enlarge upon it further Wo will only say that so fpr as we are aware it ia theroughly original andy it is the cose that any position may La takea d en ona picce of paper tho size of a postage shap To the Chen Editor of the Glarzow Week y Herald Buck Wheo a game at Chess requires to be adjourned or when au otcrostivg posi ons tion occurs Which ooe would Like Co pro x serve for d reg Gesten air be octed n citer of two waya j o E re Vewk disgram of 70 dy statiog with RORGP reference to the squares ou the board the v zx position of each ftudividual pice cand OROPPS pawn The litter method bre tedivus moras anu the former is only avellabie when gt yYKOPPO hank deren are as baud Siuce be KE winnlog to learo Chesa I baro wal a 7P sye
4. a player exceeding the time limit forfeited the game This was relatively novel at the time but thereafter gained in popularity 15 British Arbiters Abroad Both Lara Barnes and Alex McFarlane have been invited to officiate at the World Youth Under 16 Olympiad in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia Alex has been appointed as the Chief Arbiter and will also conduct a FIDE Arbiter course when there Forsyth Notation A draw has been claimed in this position You have to move the players some distance to check the claim It is therefore necessary to note down the position There is no dia gram blank readily available so what do you do The simple answer is to use Forsyth notation to make a note of the position Starting at a8 we record as follows with up per case for White and lower case for the Black pieces Empty squares are numbers This gives 3r2k1 5ppp p1b5 Pp6 1P6 2P5 2B3PP 5RK1 The originator of this concept was David Forsyth 1854 1909 He showed his idea to friends who persuaded him that it deserved a wider audience so an explanation was given in the Glasgow Weekly Herald of 10th February 1883 A copy of the column is given on the next page When Forsyth was Treasurer of the Scottish Chess Associa tion he would give players a chess problem to solve on the back of their receipts of membership The positions were of course given in his notation Steven J Edwards extended this to be supported in use by computers This is Forsyth
5. and my impression of its fitness for purpose The program was used at Frome for managing four sections one of which was FIDE rated The tournaments were set up so that FIDE ratings were used for the Open and ECF ratings used for the other three sections As this was the first time the Con gress had used Vega and it was to some extent a trial Vega s automatic pairings were used for the Open but checked manually whilst manual pairings were re tained for the other sections but the results management handled by Vega All the player data pairings and results were input into Vega for display on the Congress web site and to generate the required grading rating files 4 2 Tournament Set Up amp Player Input Initially setting up the tournament number of rounds pairing system and tie break methods etc was quite simple and straightforward Inputting the players as the entries came in was also quite simple The program comes ready configured to use the grading database that can be downloaded in csv format from the ECF web site This database can be used as is without any modifi cation but is more limited than the graders master list However there is an option in Vega to use any other customised database of choice Since the graders master list was available this was converted from Excel to csv format and used as the input database To use the master list It was only necessary to define a filter to tell Vega that for ex
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7. ample the national ID was field 0 player name field 1 ECF grade field 5 etc which was simple and straightforward to do using the interface Vega provides for this purpose The filter was set up to read in player name ECF and FIDE codes ECF grade and club code The filter is a simple text file which copied back to the pro gram s author and it has now been incorporated into the library of national filters supplied with the program The Federation field in Vega was used to display club name for the non FIDE rated sections whereas for the Open this field was necessarily the 3 character FIDE feder ation code Dates of birth were read from the grading database in ECF format mm yyyy but necessarily had to be converted manually to FIDE format yyyy mm dd for the Open section Any of the data fields in the input player list can 4 be manually edited In particular FIDE ratings and FIDE titles had to be input by a manual edit as these are not contained in the ECF database The option to use any customised database would be especially useful when there is an existing set of players to be imported en bloc One not so obvious wrinkle is that a customised database has to use the semi colon character as the field separator and not the comma as is standard in the UK Fortunately the standard separator is customisable in the Windows control pan el using the regional differences tab and with that set appropriately Exce
8. case for some time and though FIDE have recommended pairing systems they have not insisted that these be used It has been acceptable to indicate which pairing system was used However in future it may be that FIDE will insist that in norm events the draws can be checked by computer If this does come to pass then the CAA pairing system would need to be submitted to FIDE for approval if it were to be used This would almost certainly require it to be written as a software program Is there anyone willing to attempt this not incon siderable task FIDE is also looking at producing software to do accelerated pairings The appropri ate FIDE Commission will consider the CAA method towards the end of this year This system would not necessarily be restricted to the British system but would work equally with the current Dutch Pairing System which is favoured by many Accelerated pairing systems do come under considerable criticism some more so than others believe FIDE are trying to remove acceptability from some of these systems 13 Targeting the Arbiters American GM Grigory Serper produced a column on Chess com entitled Do Arbi ters Know The Rules Of Chess In it he complains about the number of arbiters he has encountered who have made mistakes This he says is particularly prevalent in scholastic tournaments in the United States The situation in the States is made more complicated by using either the FIDE Laws and the USCF Law
9. ce Championships In South Africa there was a failure by the organisers to pay Guest speaker to be confirmed 10 the arbiters Should the CAA have an minute presentation agreed rate for English events e Minutes of the previous AGM Attached 7 Should the CAA have basic fees e Matters Arising which should be recommended to event organisers i e Hotel accommo Subjects for discussion dation 0 45p mileage and 25 00 day 1 Should all arbiters to become rec subsistence ognised by FIDE e Chairperson s Report Lara Barnes 2 Has the CAA outlived its usefulness Secretary s Report Alan Ruffle and if so should it continue e Treasurer s Report Tony Corfe e Election of Officers 3 Should there be revision courses for e Date of next meeting experienced arbiters 4 Should there be seminars on the Items for inclusion in future issues should be sent to Alex McFarlane ahmcfarlane yahoo co uk 20
10. d not make a profit from the event a Governance meeting being held with it would ensure that there was no surplus Quote Unquote Vladimir Kramnik I believe that it is necessary to introduce a rule if there are not some kind of anti cheating measures the tournament is simply not counted So if it is an open people come and play for money without any rating gains or losses and that s that FIDE Arbiter Title Currently an arbiter can be licenced with FIDE from the age of 18 but you cannot become a FIDE Arbiter FA until the age of 21 The Welsh Chess Union have put a proposal to FIDE that it should be possible to become an FA at the age of 18 This proposal is supported by the ECF and Chess Scotland To gain the title an arbiter must obtain three norms from tournaments and a 4th norm from successfully completing a course British arbiters recognised by FIDE to conduct these courses are Alex McFarlane Stuart Reuben David Sedgwick and David Welch Times Past Attached is part of an entry form from the 1975 Birmingham Weekend Chess Festi val The prizes have not changed much in the following 40 years but the entry fee was only 5 The event was held at the Royal Angus Hotel from Friday 21 to Sunday 23 March 1975 The arbiters or controllers as they were referred to were W Ritson Morry FIDE J H Baines and D D Collman The Tournament Secretary was K G Humphreys The closing date for entries was 12 March The support
11. en he made the call the decision of the ManComm was that it was a claim rather than an offer and the draw was awarded NE England Megafinal The regional heats of this schools tournament through up an interesting little prob lem In round 5 of one of the Girls sections one player had already scored the 4 points needed to progress her schoolmate opponent was on 3 The player on 3 points won with Fools Mate White s time 6 seconds Black s time O seconds On being told that the result of prearranged games was 0 0 the players argued that it had not been pre arranged The arbiter then said that they could be accused of bringing the game into disrepute and that the result of that would also be 0 0 It was agreed that a proper game should be played which Black eventually won ARBITING MISTAKES Almost every arbiter will admit to either having made a mistake or of wishing they had handled a situation differently Here is one where the arbiter s decision affected the outcome of the US Champion ship The game in question was played in New York April 17 1942 between Samuel Reshevsky and Arnold Denker Chess Review reports When Tournament Director L Walter Stephens forfeited Denker for overstepping the time limit in the game from the sixth round the crowd demonstrated its disapproval with boos and jeers Another player Kashdan described it as a near riot Tournament Director is the American term for arbiter The st
12. es music academy distrib vega_ en pdf which also has plenty of screenshots of the user interface which have not reproduced in this report 2 Vega Vega is the work of Luigi Forlano a FIDE Arbiter and is a FIDE endorsed tournament management program http pairings fide com approved programs html It is widely used in Italy obviously but also in a number of other countries as diverse as Spain and New Zealand where the national federation insists that it must be used for all FIDE tournaments The pairing engine for the Swiss Dutch system is Rob erto Ricca s JaVaFo http www rrweb org javafo aum JaVaFo AUM html which is the same pairing engine as that used by Swiss Manager Possibly the reason why Vega has had little use in the UK is that until recently the interfaces to the ECF grading system although present were not quite correct ren dering it unusable in practice However with version 7 1 6 the current release those interfaces are fully functional and worked correctly when used for the Frome tournament One advantage of Vega is that it is relatively inexpensive The Linux version is entire ly free whilst the Windows version is free for tournaments of up to 30 players An unrestricted Windows licence is 50 3 Quick Comparison with other programs In issue 6 of Arbiting Matters Alex Holowczak compared different tournament man agement programs using the following table Copied below it is a bit hard to read and t
13. h my mobile and its chess app in it was always occupied 8 The arbiter reject my draw claim just because my flag was down 9 Wrote a note to myself telling me not to write notes to myself 10 Dog ate my scoresheet so arbiter defaulted me for refusing to score You are the arbiter What happens if the 75 move without a capture or pawn move is mate Is it a draw does the mate count or should the arbiter record the score as 1 Would it make a difference if the mate came on move 76 but before the arbiter stepped in Answer on Page 15 12 Wesley So Postscript So lost a game in the US Championship after making notes not directly related to moves but to help him concentrate Some players felt this was a bit harsh The problem with a player making notes is that it could be impossible to establish their real significance Squiggles could be designed to disguise a move being analysed It was not always illegal to make notes during a game Dr Savielly Tartakower 1887 1956 the Polish and French player of Grandmaster strength for example was well known for writing during his games Tartakower a leading journalist and author in the 1920s and 30s is believed to have annotated his columns whilst playing Leonard Barden gives an anecdote about his note making at Southsea in Chess Notes 6990 on ChessHistory com FIDE amp Pairing Rules At one time it was acceptable to alter pairings to create norm chances This has not been the
14. he original is slightly clearer in Arbiting Matters The colour code is that Green means the requirement is met fully yellow means the requirement is partially met and red means the capability is not present at all Team All Play All Importing Players for Tournament Import players from FIDE rating list Import players from ECF grading list Import players in bulk Producing Pairings British Pairing System Dutch Pairing System FIDE Also does Dubov Speed of Producing Pairings Se Quality of Presentation Website Presentation Le Customisable Pairing Printouts Quality of Pairing Printouts Prints Result Slips with names Prints Match Cards withnames Variety of other Printouts J Pega Rating Reports Vega FIDE rating files ECF grading files Note that the ECF Grading Checker has the functionality to covert FIDE rating files into ECF grading files Vega Adding byes in advance po Calculating variety of Tie Breaks 2a Player Limit e Round Limit other E Web Output Le Export PGN Files ee Cost of Standard version Free Linux 50 Euros Windows Number of Installs No practical limit 4 Evaluation 4 1 Preamble This evaluation should come with the caveat that this is the first tournament man agement program have used so have no first hand comment to make on how well usability compares with other programs The comments below simply reflect whether the program did what needed it to do
15. il flag fall have tried to persuade a player to accept the draw claim offered in the last two minutes On those occasions had no doubt that had the claiming player had another minute any doubt about the result would have disappeared But when the opponent has refused to accept this have had to award the win as felt that a couple more moves needed to be played to demon 14 strate beyond any doubt that the claimant would hold the position Often in Britain when mistakes are made they are by non qualified people calling themselves arbiters Players do not differentiate We should all urge unqualified friends to attend a course and get qualified Details of courses are on the website Loss on Time The Origins The current laws has introduced the possibility of fining players for offences To many this seemed revo lutionary but in fact was not uncom mon in the 19 century It would be reasonable to assume that a loss on time came into exist ence at the same time as timing de vices were used The first timing devices which were sandglasses ee Met A1 1 a ee e e s ee gained popularity in the 1860s m 7 eg Sat Fa However a loss was not the recog nised penalty then Initially a player exceeding the time allowed would be fined for the offence The London International tournament of 1883 pioneered the use of the dual chess clock in a single apparatus The rules of the London event also pro vided that
16. ing events make interesting reading The time control of 50 moves in 2 hours and 10 moves in each additional 5 minutes could have meant several clock manual resets in a long game 18 i jup10338 Paien aq Win qoyam swwwe3od sjy yo uoponpoad uo 334 Dna ug Suyfed noy sjua Tepedg 247 Jo OML ANV YW agdtopmgd few s wurw3oid s1o p duos IIIJ JAJJI OYM dy qsuojdureqo 10 unf pue u do vdoinq am w s1 Bjd uey 19430 amug1foud e Zumptou Aoieid uy 200p ay 38 ewureiZoad amp Suyseyoind Aq dog aq Win eAysa au 0 uotsstuupe Ab wy aa Juvy 10 uado edomy ou uy etd oi ajquun suateid 10 paduvare ore suede Areypysqns aaoqe IJL A N 2 Uu JUSWeUINO 3y UL spew aq in saw jo juausounouuy d z ATEL Yowe 0 gotsgtupe DAC pue puzz YII UO SIUI JUDTUDAUOD Je paue aq 0 s iodxa Suipeay Aq uoneanp Inoy auo0 Ajajeuxoidde JO swTVL SSAHJ S E Uot2as Jad der aa Aug OJ JO uonoas yore ul der put der 13 read peounouue aie suoljoas se aa eu sI ejd Jeays g au JO UOISsas YOR BuLINP UNI aq ppm sateid QT Jo suoy s poyrsse D SLNAWVNANOL ONINLHOMI v EI dei aaq Aug jueweusno 3urajog GatdoAd I4 0 siseq AUS UO Papug ap 3q UA soziid pue jas aq jpm suonisod owes 9 NAWVNUNOL ONIATOS NIM AHL ANIA E M der 334 Aug Saat 1 U9 Ieiot JO YSZ Jo zd e upm jpm DAC yoe Aepuns uo uow 3 9 Surais aziid jeu y 21037 q Inoy uo p u do suotpntos 3901109 JO sjas 14 Say OY JO YOR pue jas a
17. ke to express our grave concern regarding raising suspicions of cheating in the tournament We would like to ask organisers cooperation in this regard There are a few ways to fight with advanced technology and we strongly believe organisers should do their utmost to avoid such situations We have already asked for a 15 min delay in the live transmis sion of all games It is a common solution used in many top level tournaments If it is technically not possible then we would like to ask organisers to propose another solution of this problem for the remaining rounds of the Championship This letter was signed by 32 of the 98 participants A second letter was signed by 15 players It stated We participants of the 16th European Individual Women Championship want to express concern about the situ ation with M Sandu s performance We would like to ask organisers not to include her games from the rounds 8 11 in a live transmission and publish them after the rounds We do not see any important reason to dislike this precautionary measure for both sides We hope that such a decision will prevent all the possible suspi cions Two players have subsequently asked for their names to be removed from the sec ond letter The tournament organiser stated that we don t share concerns of rising suspi cions of cheating in this tournament In a reply to the second letter it was stated After consultation with arbiters and also wi
18. l had no difficulty in saving the master list in the required format Vega automatically generated html files so that the evolving player lists could be displayed on the Congress web site as the entries came in Each player name was hyper linked to their FIDE profile so data like current rating could be easily checked There is a player status setting that allows byes or withdrawals to be pre set The player list has a coloured marker indicating those players that will not be included in the next round s pairings because of the player status setting Once player registration is closed the player list held by Vega is automatically sorted into descending rating order and the first round pairings can be made It is however possible to re open registration to cater for the unexpected very late entry and we had one of those 4 3 Pairings Automatic pairings are carried out in accordance with the Dutch system using the same pairing engine as that used by Swiss Manager The automatic pairings used in the Open section worked just fine The pairings were as and more importantly the players expected It is possible to customise the automatic pairings to some extent e g to avoid pair ing two players from the same club The pairings can also be modified manually or indeed carried out completely manually Manual input of the pairings that were generated the old fashioned way using cards was quite quick and it was easy to correct any err
19. n so far AS Jkuow entirely origioal by whicha pos can be retcurucil tery OPG Ate teu lve the only oocrssary material beidz e penc sod a scrap of paper tho ZA 5 size of a postage atemp Toe combustion of letters aud Sgurcs in the miargia de WurrTs notes acconiiog to this method the posl tios of the second gawo between Messrs g and Youns alter Black s Ath more in order toset uy tw position place the board before you as if for play Heginnlog with your opponent s rojal racy it wit be found that bls Q E Go ts vacant thls belog represotal by 9 in too wots the pext square Q Kr a lb occupied bya Blaci K the lise underceath the leirer depoticg that itis Bleck Tho tematoing six spots in the rome rank are vacant the Ggure indicating s0 lo Wir nett rank there are 5 lang paces at ibe right bund thes two Hack Pawus anc Tacout suare Axi 40 06 throush the remaising raves of the bo As forthes oxammples I cive tso positions which occurred nm ectual play 73 Bach baricg to plas scauired euch a superiority iu three mores that Waite IPAP Zeusi gacd i DEA PPSPOR WITZ E to Q Bait B takes P And White resigned Biacx Pwd Bak B to Q Rest L to Q R asid 3 exclose this position ig asotber form White care mate lo Gto moves Wuta Kt to ht eigbth ich X to Kt seventh cy R to Ns sirt ich K takes R FP ch ER to R eighth mate Probabiy there are other colutions fo the same Dumber of wores D F
20. onic cheating made to me In three of the cases players were simply having a very good run and playing a bit above rating in one of these an accused also had a medical condition which meant he was absent from the board more often than normal In one case it was quite clearly a case of sour grapes by a GM losing to an untitled player The fifth case remains one of some concern but is probably noth ing more than a good run Certainly in only one of these would I consider suggesting that action could have been taken against the accuser In the case of the above tournament it is one thing to ask the other opponents of a player if they shared your concerns It is quite another to openly canvas for signatures accusing the player of cheating Bits n Pieces Glasgow League Relegation in the top division of the Glasgow League amazingly called Division 1 was decided by a decision of the Management Committee There was a dispute between two teams in which every individual submitted a different view of the 9 events However all basically agreed the gist of the matter which was that Player A was very short of time Just before his flag fell he called out Draw His team mates interpreted this as an appeal under Appendix G 5 the old 10 2 draw claim in the last 2 minutes but the opposition thought it was merely an offer to their player Since it was generally agreed that the player was staring into space rather than at the opponent wh
21. ors swap colours move pairings up and down the board order etc Pairings and other reports can be passed to an in built text editor From that editor they can be printed directly or edited first e g to change the point size of the print ed text 4 4 Rating Reports Vega generates both FIDE and ECF rating reports Very little manual editing of the files is required In the case of the FIDE rating file the time control used has to be added manually In the case of the ECF files the Treasurer s multi line postal address if required has to be inserted manually as Vega will accept only a one line email address Also the Event code is too restrictive in the number of characters allowed 6 Version 7 1 8 now allows 10 character event codes But these are comparatively trivial edits to the header information the bulk of the results files are perfectly fine Both the rating reports for Frome were submitted the same evening as the Congress finished and both were accepted first time 4 5 Web Site Generation Web site generation is completely automatic apart from the need to upload the www folder The style of web site generated is best appreciated by looking at the Frome Congress web site i e http www somersetchess org frome_congress 2015 wwwFrome 200pen 202015 20 28Vega 29 index html Player names in the cross tables are hyper linked to the player s history card show ing opponents their grades the results and the calc
22. orsyTu S This ls the cod game between Moisrs Harciscoo acd Fer 6 tb given last week Ep the possession of his body guard The request was denied on the grounds that the gun could be seen as an intimidating influence on the opponent It could there fore potentially give the person with the gun a psychological ad vantage The organiser then sought advice from others that he had acted correctly One of the replies mentioned that a TD Tournament Director the American term for an arbi ter he knew had carried a gun with him and when anyone had a dispute about the rules he would display it He went on to say that that person s events had few disputes Most said that it was the correct decision but one person sug gested that tournaments where people had guns were actually safer Several stated that having an open gun was more threatening but probably less dangerous than having players with concealed weapons Can you even imagine discussing this in Britain Only in the U S of A 2 The US Open to be held in Arizona was under threat until recently due to a legal challenge It would appear that someone who was prevented from GC organising for profit poker tournaments because of the States gambling laws started a legal action which if successful could have affected the struc ture of the event It would appear that the poker organiser was unsuccessful One of the reasons being that the USCF woul
23. ory is that Denker claimed a win on time The arbiter arrived at the board behind the clock lifted it up and turned it round to look at it This action put the 10 clock with the expired time at Denker e side Stephen s declared Denker to have lost Reshevsky apparently did not correct the error Denker put in a protest which included a complaint that the clock had no flags and that his opponent was not recording It is likely that Reshevsky was not recording for religious reasons but under US Rules that would have prevented him from claim ing a win on time The arbiter is quoted as saying Does Kenesaw Mountain Landis a tyrannical base ball Commissioner of the day ever reverse himself The protest was disallowed The game and final position which is generally regarded as drawn follows 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 a3 Bc3 5 bc3 c5 16 e3 O O 7 Bd3 d5 8 cd5 Qd5 9 Nf3 cd4 10 ed4 b6 11 c4 Qd6 12 O O Bb7 13 Ne5 Nc6 14 Bb2 Rfd8 15 Nc6 Qc6 16 f3 Rac8 17 Qe2 Qd6 18 f4 g6 19 Rael Re8 20 Rf2 Nh5 21 Qg4 Ba6 22 Rc1 Re7 23 c5 bc5 24 Ba6 Qa6 25 dch Rec7 26 Qg5 f6 27 Bf6 Nf6 28 Qf6 Rc5 29 Rc5 Rc5 30 Qd8 Kf7 31 Qd7 Kf8 32 h3 Qb6 33 Kh2 Rc1 34 Re2 Qg1 35 Kg3 Rc3 36 Kh4 Och 37 Qh7 Qe7 38 Qe7 Ke7 39 a4 Kf6 40 Re4 Ra3 141 g4 a5 42 Rc4 Rf3 43 Rc5 Rf4 44 Ra5 g5 45 Kg3 Rb4 It therefore appears that Reshevsky scored at least point more than he should have from the game This was to be decisive
24. q Win sw Jqold 9 LNAWVNANOL ONIATOS WATHOUd Z M DICZ yore Aepuns 9 punoy DICZ yose Aepuns e punoy DICZ yoe Aepuns p punoy PUuzZ yoe Aepinyes punoy puzz yoieyy Aepinjes 7 punoy puUZZ Youe Aepinjes punoy AqQEL UNL Nee io D SINOY OE LT Ost SINOY OCEL OL ZI SINOY OE TT OC eg sinoy QO LT 00 ST SInoy 00 pI 00 71 Sinoy OO IT 00 60 dg Jo a81eyo ns e Jo juawiAed uo poydasor aq Wa YIT YIU eu 1032 1e uysod e Zuueag SaUIUZ SLOT ZI YIL Sat ua 101 37e p Sursor doz 2334 Auq Soot 1 U 0 JO YO PUR YSZ p Sau Cp Isi Aqenuee uo tt Jopun pue Jo age ay 1940 Suateid 09 0 dn 104 AIHSNOIAWYH NAdO NYOINAL I SINAAW TVAILSAA TVIOddS WAHHLO H H gt A ee mmamafeuetd 30H ag YM XTLOTAIA 400q sed SBIUEDWOD jo GNOIDH WA ay zo aqwaw y CE Spas snduy zu pm ns ur Suizipeioods yueineysai 9310 a3 PlIq Pasoaod V Jo suka q io au suIOfpe 2064 189 IEOOUEN V auoydaya pur orpes uoIsTAa a JAVY SWOOI UN sjsan3 ozz Surdagys swooipaq Ainxn Op TALOH SNONV TVAOU LYA pue aen ot Suypnjouy m zed ger 1svjyxvo1g ysi3ug pue pog LVA pue Ieo IIIS Suypnyjow et Aepuns uo youn Joye 0 Suluaae ep uo Jouulp ou dAISNIOUI pIvOg ma BAS3 J y 107 sua jep ds S19JJO s 9 0Y snopnxnj Jsou pue s m u swey mung jo uo Piot snduy jekoy ey uoyepowwooy 13 Jo adieyoins e Jo uouXed uo paidasoe aq Wun S 6T YII Your UeY 1
25. s depending on the tournament It is not surprising that players and arbiters get confused despite recent attempts to bring the two codes closer together Serper also claims that he teaches his students about the most common errors that arbiters will make In his article he talks about the infamous K N v K N Armageddon game from the Women s World Championship in which one of the players was flagged out The arbiters originally gave the result as a draw to be overruled by the Appeals Com mittee He then equates this to an incorrectly made repetition claim by an oppo nent of his If his account is correct the arbiter wrongly allowed the claim to be in vestigated after the player had made his move which repeated the position instead of writing it down This procedure of prewriting a move leading to a claim is often criticised by players but is intended to give them protection from the unscrupulous opponent who will simply reply to the drawing move and argue that no draw claim was made at the time Again the Appeal Committee decided against the arbiter and the game continued later the same day Obviously this was unsatisfactory Any delay in a game should be avoided if possible It is easy to knock arbiters In both of the above cases it was implied that arbiters were inventing their own spirit of the law rules rather than the actual wording admit that on a couple of occasions when a draw claim had beenmade and the game had continued unt
26. th grandmasters organisers are sure that there is not any particular reason not to transmit the games of Mrs Sandu Grandmasters have checked her games with different programs and did not find any use of computer help during the game We consider this accusation as unfair insulting and creating some psychological pressure We think that both letters should be seriously discussed in ECU to find the right way to protect players from advanved technology so that not a single chess player is put under psychological pressure or undeserved insult Organisers ask those 15 players to show their respect to their colleague and to withdraw their signatures The player lost her remaining four games This case has been described as a witch hunt It appears that there is no evidence that Sandu did anything wrong As an arbiter would want players to come to me if they had concerns about their opponent s behaviour Whilst would not expect the players to neces sarily be able to provide proof of their concerns think would expect them to claim more than just that the opponent was playing very well and therefore must be cheating FIDE requires the accuser to complete a form when making an accu sation It also warns that action may be taken against those making false accusa tions would not expect action to be taken against anyone expressing genuine concerns As Chief Arbiter at norm bearing events have had 5 accusations of electr
27. ulated player performance rating for the tournament The latter is calculated according to ECF grading rules using the ECF grades A nice feature is the ability to link to a pgn viewer for display of the games see the link above for an example 5 Conclusion quite enjoyed using this program and it was definitely worth the effort required to gain familiarity with it It did everything that required it to do and can thoroughly recommend it An additional positive comment is that have found the author Luigi Forlano to be very responsive to any comments received and helpful in imple menting suggested bug fixes improvements 1 In fact Luigi Forlano now recommends his new program Orion for team tournaments http www vegachess com tl index php downloaden html http www newzealandchess co nz NZCFdocs VegaNZInstructions pdf gt The Vega User Manual says that when a player doesn t have a FIDE rating the program will use the na tional rating instead Rather than rely on that statement and because it wasn t clear how if the program would convert between ECF and FIDE grades preferred to manually calculate the FIDE equivalent rating and insert it as an edit There is a utility to convert between FIDE and ECF grade ratings but one at a time not en blocO Gerry Jepps A lengthy article which hope will help others who wish to use pairing software FALSE ACCUSATIONS There is no doubt that cheating occurs in chess In my earl
28. y days as an arbiter so not exactly yesterday a player was disqualified for going to the bookstall and check ing on the opening line he was playing Another received similar punishment when he went to the analysis room and the position on his board was discovered there There was even an instance of a someone playing in place of a friend The problem nowadays is that it is so easy to have for example a chess engine running ona phone that more people are increasingly suspicious that their opponent may be getting outside advice Such suspicion took root at the recent European Women s Championship in Chakvi Georgia The 45th seed Romanian WGM Mihaela Sandu was leading on 5 5 when two letters of concern were received by the organisers requesting anti cheating measures to be put in place One of these letters named Sandu Sandu a 2300 player had defeated an 1862 and then 4 2400 players Whilst this performance was unusual it would not be correct to describe it as exceptional par ticularly when one game was won on time in an inferior position and another by a bad mistake by her opponent Sandu lost in round 6 when transmission of her game and one other was delayed for technical reasons She then won again in round 7 this time against a 2500 During the rest day which followed the situation escalated A letter was written and posted on the hotel noticeboard The letter stated We the participants of the 16th European Women Championship would li
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