The 151st FIDE Arbiters’ Seminar, organized by the FIDE Commission for Women’s Chess and the Polish Chess Federation under the auspices of FIDE will be held online from 12/01/2024 to 14/01/2024 .

The lecturer will be IA Nikolopoulos, Panagiotis (GRE), a FIDE Lecturer. The language of the Seminar will be English.

The Seminar will award norms and titles of FIDE Arbiter according to the Regulations for the titles of Arbiters.

Note: 20 participants, women only. All participation costs will be covered by the FIDE WOM commission. Eight participants will be nominated by continents and two by Poland (as co-organizer); others need to apply via THIS LINK 

Schedule:

January 12,  2024

16:00-21:00 Laws of Chess

January 13,  2024

09:30-12:00 Laws of Chess, Rapid, Blitz, Appendices and Guidelines
12:15-13:00 System of Games
13:00-14:30 Tie break regulations
16:00-18:00 Swiss System, Pairings
18:15-19:30 Titles Regulations
19:45-21:00 Ratings Regulations

January 14,  2024

09:30-11:00 General Regulations for Competition
11:00-12:00 Arbiters’ titles
12:15-14:00 Fair play Regulations
16:00-16:45 Review, Questions-Answers
17:00-21:00 Examination Test

On November 23, at the World Youth Championship 2023 in Montesilvano, Italy, a workshop for arbiters and federation representatives on how to make chess broadcasts using VAR (video assistant referee) in tournaments was held.

VAR (Video assistant referee) is a set of technological solutions to help referees at sports competitions. In many sports, various technologies are already used to help referees make decisions. The VAR system allows arbiters to track controversial moments in the game. However, the final decision remains with the human arbiter. In other words, VAR systems provide additional information but do not make decisions for people.

Representatives of Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Denmark, Cyprus, India, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Monaco, UAE, and other countries attended the workshop. They learned how to use the idChess platform and to implement VAR technologies at tournaments.

“I learnt about idChess last year. I see that a platform has a lot of useful features; it recognizes the game very well. I’ll definitely recommend it,” said IA& IO Arild Rimestad from the Danish Chess Federation.

“I was already familiar with this technology and had seen it at many tournaments. The broadcasting platform is very convenient and easy to use. As an arbiter, I welcome the use of VAR at all tournaments very much,” said Bauyrzhan Khamzin, a FIDE arbiter from Kazakhstan.

For all federations, tournament organizers, and coaches idChess grants free access to the tournament organizer account at live.idChess.com. The account allows you to create and manage tournaments, save game data in PGN format, instantly upload pairings, and many more. To gain access to a personal account, leave a request.

If you were unable to participate in the workshop, join the idChess webinar November 30: “How to easily broadcast tournament games and use VAR to resolve controversies in the game”. To participate, please fill out the form.

Photos: Przemek Nikiel

Dear Chess Friends, Chess Arbiters,

The FIDE Arbiters’ Commission is pleased to release the List of arbiters for the green, blue, red, and yellow panels, which will be used for making appointments to FIDE events during the 2024-2025 cycle. We would like to thank the hundreds of Arbiters from around the world who responded to the Call of Interest for Arbiters in World Events 2024-2025 (almost 600 colleagues from 116 Federations).

The panel system is described in the FIDE Handbook, B06.4 – FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events, including Appendix B06.4.B – Arbiter Selection Procedural Rules. 

There are four panels named by colour:

• A Green Panel , containing 25 International Arbiters of category A
• A Blue Panel, containing 45 International Arbiters of category A or B
• A Red Panel, containing 60 International Arbiters of category A or B
• A Yellow Panel, containing the remaining International Arbiters or FIDE Arbiters of any category

The Arbiters’ Commission started the procedure by releasing a Call of Interest for all International Arbiters and FIDE Arbiters who hold a valid FIDE arbiters’ license. The Call of Interest was open for more than a month, from July 25th to August 24th, 2023, and was then extended until August 28th, 2023. In total, 143 Arbiters with IA-A and IA-B categories responded to the Call for Interest.

During the meeting on September 2nd 2023, the voting members (FIDE Arbiters Commission councilors, ARB Chairman, ARB Secretary), discussed the criteria for selecting arbiters for panels. 

The meeting was also attended by the Team of Consultants (FIDE Council, FIDE Management Board, Global Strategy Commission, and Events Commission representatives). 

The following criteria were used to select arbiters: gender (the total number of arbiters must be at least 25% female and at least 25% male), experience and level of arbiters’ category, undergone preparation for the appropriate arbiter position, software skills, language (English), leadership skills, teamwork skills, activity as an arbiter in the last few years, previous behaviour or misbehaviour during chess events.

These selection criteria were applied by a team of voting members who used consensus as a decision-making method. The panels were formed following the FIDE Regulations, particularly B.06.4 FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (effective July 20th, 2023) and selection criteria. 

Each voting member received a list of 143 arbiters (arbiters Category A and B who participated in the Call of Interest for World Events 2024-2025) and voted for every other arbiter on it (on a scale of 143 points to 1 point). For the initial draft, the lowest score was dismissed as none of the voting members could vote for themself. Voting members discussed the draft with the Team of Consultants so as to be able to present you the final version of the List of arbiters for the green, blue, red, and yellow panels.

The Arbiters’ Commission believes that this list was made in the best interests of FIDE and arbiters worldwide. Moreover, we expect that its content and integrity will be proved over the following two years when these arbiters complete their duties at FIDE World Events.

Ivan Syrovy, ARB Chairman 

Nebojsa Baralic, ARB Secretary

According to the FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (B.06.4), arbiters selected for the Green Panel are eligible to be appointed as:

 1) Chief Arbiter of category A tournaments

 2) Any role that members of the Blue Panel, Red Panel or Yellow Panel may be appointed to

The Green Panel will be composed of 25 arbiters, all of whom must be Category A.

The Green Panel will be used to appoint:

 1) The Chief Arbiters of all Category A tournaments

 2) The equivalent number of positions as Chief Arbiters in Category B tournaments

LIST OF ARBITERS / GREEN PANEL (alphabetical order):

Note: one spot is not occupied and during the cycle one arbiter can be added to green panel

According to the FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (B.06.4), arbiters selected for the Blue Panel are eligible to be appointed as:
1) Deputy Chief Arbiter of category A tournaments
2) Chief Arbiter of category B tournaments
3) Any role that members of the Red Panel or Yellow Panel may be appointed to

The Blue Panel will be composed of 45 arbiters, all of whom must be Category A or B.

The Blue Panel will be used to appoint:
1) The Chief Arbiters of all Category B tournaments not assigned to the Green Panel
2) The Deputy Chief Arbiters
a) in all Category A tournaments
b) of twice the equivalent number of positions from a) in Category B tournaments

LIST OF ARBITERS / BLUE PANEL (alphabetical order):

Note: one spot is not occupied and during the cycle one arbiter can be added to blue panel

According to the FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (B.06.4), arbiters selected for the Red Panel are eligible to be appointed as:
1) Sector Arbiter or Pairing Officer of category A tournaments
2) Deputy Chief Arbiter of category B tournaments
3) Any role that members of the Yellow Panel may be appointed to

The Red Panel will be composed of 60 arbiters, all of whom must be Category A or B.

The Red Panel will be used to appoint:
1) The Deputy Chief Arbiters of all Category B tournaments not assigned to the Blue Panel
2) The Sector Arbiters and Pairing Officer
a) in all Category A tournaments
b) of twice the equivalent number of positions from a) in Category B tournaments

LIST OF ARBITERS / RED PANEL (alphabetical order):

Note: two spots are not occupied and during the cycle one arbiter can be added to green panel

According to the FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (B.06.4), arbiters selected for the Yellow Panel are eligible to be appointed as:
1) Arbiters selected for the Yellow Panel are eligible to be appointed as any remaining roles, provided that their title and category of arbiter are compliant with Table B06.3.8.3.
2) There is no predefined size for the Yellow Panel as it contains all remaining applications retained by the Arbiter Appointment Procedural Rules.

LIST OF ARBITERS / YELLOW PANEL 

Note: Arbiters eligible for the yellow panel who haven’t initially answered the call of interest may still register in that panel by sending an email to the FIDE ARB Secretary, Nebojsa Baralic: secretary.arbiters@fide.com.                                                           

Dear chess friends,

We would like to inform you about the most important changes in FIDE Regulations for Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (Handbook B06.4), effective from July 20th 2023. These regulations existed since 2022, and they established the first panels of arbiters.

The reasons for changing the regulations are:

a) increase the number of arbiters in each panel to enable more people to get appointments as Chief and Deputy Chief Arbiter of world events.

b) adding the possibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances 

c) Fair Play Officers have been removed from the regulations

d) correct some typos and unclear rules – distinguish between nomination and appointment

e) open the process of establishing panels to other relevant bodies as FIDE Council, MB, EVE and GSC through a consultation team

Some more detailed information:

• These regulations no more deal with Fair play officers as they have their own FIDE commission and it is different role being an arbiter and being a FPO.
• In accordance with FIDE policy, at least 25 % of arbiters in higher Panels (green, blue or red) must be female, each Panel must be geographically diverse, and have representation from each Continent.
• Higher Panels were enlarged (green from 20 to 25 members, blue from 35 to 45 members, red from 50 to 60 members)
• Until now, arbiter could be appointed as a Chief Arbiter to a maximum of two (2) FIDE official events per year, same applied for Deputy Chief Arbiter. Now the total nomination is limited – Arbiters can be appointed as a Chief Arbiter or Deputy Chief Arbiter to a maximum of two (2) FIDE official events per year.
•  FIDE President keeps the rights to grant exception to arbiter from the lower panel.
• At the Olympiad, the Organiser may propose up to 25% of the arbiters, who do not need to be on a panel. They may come from the host Federation, or a Federation that shares a land border with the host Federation.
• The procedural rules to establish the Panels was updated. Councillors on the Arbiters Commission will discuss the Panel membership with other bodies – Continental arbiters commissions and also with a consultation team. The consultation team includes one representative from each of FIDE Council, the FIDE Management Board, the Global Strategy Commission, and the FIDE Events Commission.

IA Ivan SYROVY
Chairman
FIDE Arbiters’ Commission

IA Nebojsa BARALIC
Secretary
FIDE Arbiters’ Commission

Dear chess friends, International and FIDE arbiters,

According to the new Regulation B.06.4 FIDE Regulations for the Appointment of Arbiters in World Events (effective from July 20, 2023), the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission is proud to release a new process for the selection of arbiters in the Panels (Green, Blue, Red, and Yellow) for the next cycle 2024-2025.

The Call of Interest for Arbiters in World Events 2024-2025 is open for one month, from July 25, 2023, to August 24, 2023, 23:59 CEST, for all FIDE Arbiters and International Arbiters with a valid FIDE license.

All arbiters who wish to officiate in World Events have to submit their application via Chamilo* (https://arb-learn.fide.com/).

* Chamilo is the ARB Training Portal, which we are using to support the process. We will take advantage of the call of interest to include colleagues who haven’t followed training sessions yet under this new system.

Survey link >>>

Please complete this survey to help us identify your wishes and availability for the World Events scheduled in 2024-2025. Arbiters will be assigned, according to the Regulations (B06.4), depending on their experience, to panels, which will be used to assign positions in tournaments.

GENS UNA SUMUS!

IA Ivan SYROVY
Chairman
FIDE Arbiters’ Commission

IA Nebojsa BARALIC
Secretary
FIDE Arbiters’ Commission

Officiating in a FIDE event is a milestone in an Arbiter’s life. It takes many steps to gain experience from the very beginning of one’s career until the FIDE Arbiter (FA) and International Arbiter (IA) titles which make colleagues eligible for selection in world competitions.

No more than 20 official FIDE events are organized each year, while there are currently more than 1,500 International Arbiters and 1,800 FIDE Arbiters. Therefore, matching the number of positions in tournaments with the overall number of active arbiters is like squaring the circle. Unfortunately, whatever the selection system, it is not granted for every International Arbiter to be appointed, even once, in a world event.

Nevertheless, we believe that there are a few levers that can help increase accessibility to world events. In the past, the lack of an appointment system led to many arbiters trying their luck with different events/organizers, and they could get many nominations while other competent colleagues would still be waiting for opportunities at home. Appointing arbiters without coordination prevented the implementation of a master plan for the development of arbiters through world events.

Even worse: regulations for the eligibility of arbiters for FIDE events were published but not always enforced. In January 2020, an analysis of nominations for 2019 highlighted that 53% of positions in world events did not comply with the minimum requirements.

A recent challenge has been to start a transformation based on two core needs: ownership and quality improvement. The ultimate goal is to put in place a new model that places FIDE and the chess community’s interests at the centre of the process. Bringing back the ownership of nominations to FIDE while preserving flexibility for organizers and giving more opportunities for development for colleagues and federations. For FIDE, this is also an effective way to foster cross-commission teamwork between ARB, GSC, EVE, PDC, and WOM, following a structured plan.

A first project, focusing on the Olympiad in Moscow 2020, was launched in mid-December 2019. Subsequently, regulations were voted in 2021 to cover the selection of Arbiters in world events in general, with the first cycle of events in 2022-2023.

In September 2020, a 2-hour webinar was hosted by Laurent Freyd and Nebojsa Baralic to explain the context of world events and the selection process for Arbiters. The second part of the session analyzed as a case study the process of selection for the 2020 Olympiad. After Moscow was cancelled, the devised process was applied to Chennai 2022, with minor adjustments: some colleagues had to be replaced since they could not attend, and following the 1st FIDE Council Meeting 2022, some nominations by Continents had to be included. The final list of Arbiters for Chennai 2022 is available here.

In a nutshell, the selection of Arbiters for the Olympiad followed a few key principles:

A) Involve the community

A call of interest was used to address individuals interested to be involved. Then, federations were invited to give their feedback on their Arbiters. 526 arbiters from 136 federations answered and 101 federations shared feedback.

B) Data driven

The selection of arbiters for the past two Olympiads (Baku 2016 and Batumi 2018) was analyzed, producing statistics on the number of federations represented, the distribution by gender and continent, and the number of federations/arbiters selected once or twice. 

C) Rotation and mix of experience

Selecting at least one arbiter per federation for the Olympiad is not feasible, so it was decided to encourage rotation among individuals and federations. First, an attempt was made to include the maximum of federations that weren’t represented either in 2016 or in 2018. Second, to balance experience and rotation, it was decided to select Arbiters previously involved but limit their number. A maximum of 33% of Arbiters from the last Olympiad in Batumi 2018 would be kept in the team, and only a maximum of 1/5 arbiters would be selected for the third time in a row. Overall, that means that 2/3 of the team will have a first-time opportunity to officiate at the Olympiad since 2014 – or for the first time ever.

D) Support development

World events are key to supporting development. Hence, between 15% and 20% of Foreign Match Arbiter positions were assigned to FAs, who would be paired with more experienced colleagues (mentors). These FIDE arbiters will, in turn, bring back to their countries some of the knowledge and experience earned during the Olympiad.

Following that first experience of global selection by FIDE, a procedure was designed, and regulations were voted by the FIDE Council in 2021 to extend the process to all FIDE events and become the new standard. The first cycle started this year for 2022-2023.

This is a summary of the process:

1) Call of interest

While this wasn’t a common practice before, the most effective way to trim down the number of candidates to be arbiters at an event is simply to reach out and ask them. Those who are available, willing to travel, and meet the basic conditions, can respond to this call with an expression of interest, informing ARB of their readiness to take part in the event.

As it has already been reported, the call of interest for World Events 2022-2023 was answered by almost 800 arbiters from 133 federations.

This presents the Arbiters’ Commission with a great opportunity to engage with the community. All respondents are now registered in the ARB Training Portal, which allows us to do things like conducting a survey, or collecting all kinds of input, like the languages these arbiters speak, et cetera.

2) Panels

The different Arbiters’ categories (A, B, C and D for International Arbiters and FIDE Arbiters) have always been used upwards: the categories implicitly represent a kind of recognition system of past selections. Since the creation of the system, no colleague has ever been “downgraded”, and the new FIDE Arbiters’ Commission decided not to change that.

However, this means that step by step, the number of Arbiters in the higher categories has been growing. In contrast, the total number of slots for senior roles in world events (Chief Arbiter, Deputy Chief, Sector Arbiter) remains stable.

This poses a problem that requires the introduction of an operational tool for selection: the panel of arbiters.

The system of panels is explained in the FIDE Handbook (B06.4 – FIDE Regulations for the appointments of Arbiters in World Events). There are four panels, named by colour:

• A Green Panel, containing 20 International Arbiters of category A
• A Blue Panel, comprising 35 International Arbiters of category A or B
• A Red Panel, including 50 International Arbiters of category A or B
• A Yellow Panel, including the remaining International Arbiters or FIDE Arbiters of any category

Panels are valid only for a limited period (2 years). Their primary use is to allow organizers and FIDE Commissions like GSC or EVE to pick Arbiters for tournaments. By design, this is a way to bring focus (by narrowing down the number of eligible Arbiters for each level) while allowing some flexibility. The panels also represent an enabler to reaching goals such as connection, diversity, accessibility and quality improvement.

It is important to underline a key idea: the split of concepts between a recognition tool (the titles and categories) and an operational tool for selection (the panels). Such a transformation may represent a real change; however, it is expected to bring new benefits to the community.

The panels were formed, following the published procedural rules and considering selection criteria to help make the final lists:

• Geography: each continent is represented proportionally to the actual demographics of titles/categories (A and/or B) eligible for the Green, Blue and Red panels
• 25% women: in accordance with the policy decided by the FIDE Council
• Proficiency in English
• Wishes expressed by the candidates (maximum level for appointment, geography)
• Feedback from federations
• Previous experience in tournaments as an Arbiter

A team of 7 people from the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission applied these selection criteria, using consensus as a decision tool. While the choices made can’t possibly satisfy everybody, the goal was always to work in the best interest of FIDE, sticking to the regulations, following a vision, and listening to arguments before reaching a decision.

The structure of panels gives a framework that allows for a better representation. Limiting the number of Arbiters from a single federation to allow more federations to be included in the panels and continents to be represented with better equity is a global approach in line with FIDE’s motto: “Gens una Sumus”.

Except in the Green panel (highest level), where only category A Arbiters may be selected, the other panels open a door for colleagues to progress and increase their category from B to A. Such accessibility is a prominent feature of the panels to support colleagues with the potential to develop. Limiting all upper panels to category A arbiters would stop the development of the next generations.

Panels also present an excellent opportunity to act as a catalyst for quality improvement. Under the leadership of the ARB, several workshops are planned to reflect and implement more standardized practices. Even colleagues who will not be nominated in a tournament this year are included, which is also a way to support the community to develop.

Photos: Eric Rosen and David Llada

Last week, the FIDE Arbiters’ Commission released the edition 2022 of the FIDE Arbiters’ Manual. This new edition includes some important changes in regulations that every arbiter should be familiar with. It would also be highly recommended that players read this document – as well as, of course, the laws of chess. 

Chapter 10 is now called FIDE Regulations for arbiters, with new regulations on titles, training, classification and selection of arbiters in FIDE World Events. 

Chapters 6 and 7 reflect the recent changes in the regulations for ratings and titles. They are critical for our colleagues delivering player norms.

The Arbiters’ commission also reviewed the exam questions and have updated them accordingly, preventing discrepancies between the official text and the concrete examples presented.

The International Arbiter Shohreh Bayat, Councillor of the ARB Commission, was the leader of the project. On her behalf, and on behalf of FIDE, we would also like to thank all those who contributed with their time and their inputs. In particular, Alex McFarlane, Gopakumar Sudhakaran, Juergen Klueners, Aris Marghetis, David Sedgwick, Jens Wolter, and Alex Holowczak.

Arbiters’ Manual 2022 (pdf)