FIDE ARBITERS’ COMMISSION GENS UNA SUMUS ARBITERS’ MANUAL 2016 2 FIDE President’s welcome Dear friends, Let me congratulate you on the publication of the Arbiters’ Manual. I am aware of the huge amount of work put into the preparation of this important document, which includes all necessary documents for the Arbiters to be guided by, by a team of excellent and most experienced experts in this field, led by the Arbiters’ Commission’s dynamic and efficient Chairman T. Nikolopoulos, and comprising such renowned personalities, as G. Gijssen, F. Dapiran, W. Stubenvoll, D. De Ridder, A. Vardapetyan inter alia. I am confident that this Manual will be instrumental in each Arbiter’s work and will facilitate and enrich his/her skills in order to exercise arbiter’s duties in the best way. Commission’s daily work and brilliant organization of seminars, webinars and workshops has substantially increased the number and quality of chess arbiters throughout the world, including new Federations. I support and welcome the work and future plans of the Arbiters’ Commission and wish all of its members and all the arbiters in the world, success and good guidance to players in the tournaments of FIDE in all our 181 member‐Federations! Gens Una Sumus. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov President Moscow, 7 July 2014 3 4 Introduction Dear friends, The FIDE Arbiters’ Commission has the pleasure to present the 2016 Arbiters’ Manual. This Manual is a team work, in which some of the most experienced Arbiters, such as Geurt Gijssen, Werner Stubenvoll, Ashot Vardapetian, Franca Dapiran, Dirk De Ridder and Takis Nikolopoulos, participated, writing its parts. Many thanks belong to Mario Held for his excellent work for the Dutch Swiss System that we published in the Manual, as well as to the Arbiters who also contributed to this work with their proposals, such as Roberto Ricca, Stewart Ruben, Rathinam Anatharam and Arild Rimestad. The Manual includes everything that is necessary for an Arbiter to know. It includes the Laws of Chess, with necessary interpretations, the Tournament Rules, the Swiss System and the pairings regulations with examples for pairings in a tournament, the title regulations with example of calculating norms, the rating regulations with example of calculating ratings, the Arbiters’ title regulations, etc. We hope that this Manual will be a very useful tool for the Arbiters all over the world and it will offer them a great help in exercising their duties in the best way. The Manual has been updated and has included all changes after July 2014. You are welcomed to send your comments, opinions, proposals to the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission. Your help in our effort will be valuable. Athens, 30 June 2016 Takis Nikolopoulos Chairman FIDE Arbiters’ Commission 5 CONTENTS: a Short History Of The Laws Of Chess .................................................................................... 7 Fide Laws Of Chess ................................................................................................................. 9 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 9 Preface ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Basic Rules Of Play ................................................................................................................ 10 Competition Rules .................................................................................................................. 20 Appendices............................................................................................................................. 37 A. Rapidplay ........................................................................................................................... 37 B. Blitz .................................................................................................................................... 39 C. Algebraic Notation ............................................................................................................. 39 D. Rules For Play With Blind And Visually Disabled Players .................................................. 42 E. Adjourned Games .............................................................................................................. 44 F. Chess960 Rules ................................................................................................................. 46 G. Quickplay Finishes ............................................................................................................ 48 Glossary Of Terms In The Laws Of Chess ............................................................................. 50 Types Of Tournaments ........................................................................................................... 55 Swiss Dutch System Tournament Example ......................................................................... 107 Tie-Break Systems ............................................................................................................... 146 Fide Tournament Rules ........................................................................................................ 157 International Title Regulations Of Fide ................................................................................. 171 Fide Rating Regulations ....................................................................................................... 201 Regulations For The Titles Of Arbiters ................................................................................. 210 The Role Of The Arbiters And Their Duties .......................................................................... 217 Application Forms ................................................................................................................. 221 Anti cheating guidelines for Arbiters..................................................................................... 229 6 A short history of the Laws of Chess FIDE was founded in Paris on 20 July 1924 and one of its main programmes was to unify the rules of the game. The first official rules for chess were published in 1929 in French. An update of the rules was published (once more in French) in 1952 with the amendments by the FIDE General Assembly. There was another edition in 1966, with comments to the rules. Finally in 1974 the Permanent Rules Commission published the first English edition with new interpretations and some amendments. In the following years the Permanent Rules Commission made some more changes, based on experience from competitions. The last major change was made in 1997 when the ‘more or less’ actual Laws of Chess were split into three parts: the Basic Rules of Play, the Competition Rules and Appendices. The first part - Articles 1 to 5 - is important for all people playing chess; while the second part – Articles 6 to 14 - mainly applies to chess tournaments. In the third part there are some appendices and the guidelines for adjourned games. Starting from 1997 the FIDE Rules and Tournament Regulation Commission (RTRC) made changes of the Laws of Chess only every four years, coming into force on 1st July of the year following the decision. Let us finish the history with the prefaces of the 1958 and 1974 Rules of Chess: 1958 “GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. The Laws of Chess cannot, and should not, regulate all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor they can regulate all questions of organization. In most cases not precisely regulate by an Article of the Laws, one should be able to reach a correct judgment by applying analogous stipulations for situations of a similar character. As to the arbiters’ tasks, in most cases one must presuppose that arbiters have the competence, sound of judgment, and absolute objectivity necessary. A regulation too detailed would deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgment and might prevent him from finding the solution dictated by fairness and compatible with the circumstances of a particular case, since one cannot foresee every possibility.” 1974 “FIDE INTERPRETATIONS. During recent years the Commission has been more or less overwhelmed by a steadily growing number of proposals and questions. That, of itself, is a good thing. However, there is a marked tendency in those many questions and proposals to bring more and more refinements and details into the Laws of Chess. Clearly the intention is to get more and more detailed instructions concerning “how to act in such and such case”. This may be profitable for a certain type of arbiter, but at 7 the same time may be a severe handicap for another, generally the best, type of arbiter. The Commission in its entirely takes the firm position that the laws of Chess should be as short and as clear as possible. The Commission strongly believes that minor details should be left to the discretion of the arbiter. Each arbiter should have the opportunity, in case of a conflict, to take into account all the factors of the case and should be not bound by too detailed sub‐regulations which may be not applicable to the case in question. According to the Commission, the Laws of Chess must be short and clear and leave sufficient scope to the arbiter to deal with exceptional or unusual cases. The Commissions appeals to all chess federations to accept this view, which is in the interest of the hundreds of thousands of chess players, as well as of the arbiters, generally speaking. If any chess federation