URGENT: FIDE ON-LINE CHESS OLYMPIAD: SELECTION OF WELSH TEAM AND CAPTAIN:
DEADLINE FOR RESPONSES – END SUNDAY 25 JULY
1. Introduction
The World Chess Federation (‘FIDE’) are organising a second on-line chess Olympiad at very short notice. The full details can be found at:
https://reg-olympiad.fide.com/login.phtml
and here
https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/OnlineOlympiadRegulations2021.pdf
It is open to one team per member country. Entries need to reach FIDE by 31 July and include a list of players and reserves. A team captain also has to be nominated. We therefore need to identify very quickly those who wish to participate (if selected).
2. Action needed
If you wish to take part in this event and are definitely available, please e-mail
Peter Bevan (internationaldirector@welshchessunion.uk) and
Howard Williams (chairmanofselectors@welshchessunion.uk)
by the end of next Sunday 25 July specifying in what capacity (see below).
3. Format of Event
The event consists of matches between teams of six, two places open to anybody, two places for women, one player (either sex), and one girl both born on or after 1 Jan 2001. Each country is entitled also to nominate one reserve for each of these six ‘main’ players.
Games are played on-line at a rapid chess rate, here 15 minutes plus 5 second increments from move 1.
Initially teams will participate in seeded all-play-all ten-team groups. This seeding works generally by allocating teams to divisions of 50 and then splitting the fifty into equal strength groups of ten. The top three teams in each group go on to the next stage; the other seven are eliminated.
A team’s nine matches are played on three consecutive days at a rate of three rounds a day. The timing of the three rounds within those days will take into account the time-zones in which countries are situated.
Games may be played from home though teams are encouraged to gather together at one venue if a country’s lockdown rules, as they then stand, permit. Please assume that you will need to play from home.
Only the ten-team APA tournaments in a particular division will take place simultaneously. All the matches for the bottom division will be completed before the next-to-bottom division’s tournaments start and so on. This enables the top three teams in a lower division APA tournament (15 teams in all from the division) to be promoted into the next division’s APAs. On the completion of the Division 2 tournaments the event moves on to the play-off stage essentially a series of knock-out matches and eventually a winner emerges.
The timetable for the event is set out in full in Section 4 of the FIDE regulations to which there is a link above.
4. Likely Seeding of Welsh Team
Seedings are determined by the average position of teams in the 2018 Olympiad in Batumi and in the 2020 on-line Olympiad and have no link to the ratings of those selected for this event. The rules are complex but we are likely to be seeded to play in Division 3 (as in 2020).
5. Period over which participants must be free
As a result it appears that we will play our nine games over the three days August 27 to August 29. And if, contrary to the seeding expectation, we finish in the top three in our group, we would then play a further nine games in Division 2 over the period Sept 2-4.
FIDE will confirm the allocation of teams to divisions on August 8.
6. Requirements for selection as a player
Players must be registered as Welsh by FIDE and meet the WCU’s domestic eligibility rules for international competitions under the auspices of FIDE.
Access to a lap-top (with a camera turned on during rounds so that an arbiter can observe the player remotely) is necessary. The rules prevent games being played from a tablet or mobile phone.
All Welsh players will need to be registered with a nickname on the CHESS.COM platform before we can enter.
As some rounds are almost bound to fall in the working day players must be free to participate throughout Wales’s playing days (likely to be August 27-29 (see Schedule in Regulations).
All players need to be aware of the FIDE regulations for this event including the fair-play rules (see link to the regulations in Para 1 above).
Experience of playing chess on-line is highly desirable.
7. Team Captain Duties and Requirements
The captain chooses the team for each round from the main players and the reserves.
The captain must participate in the technical meeting (via Zoom) held the day before the start of the games in the division in which Wales is placed.
8. Notification
Those stating their wish to take part in this event (see para 2 above) will be considered for selection next week and will receive a response by Saturday July 31.
