FIDE Arena International Master

[Stephen Westmoreland]

I was browsing Facebook the other day and came across a FIDE advert on their Chess Arena platform, where if you get 1700 rating points you can get a recognised title of FIDE Arena International Master (https://chessarena.com/). Of course a World Chess Pro account is needed at eu25.

It made me think that for players like me (dad, over 40, working full time and perpetually stuck in the 1800s), any kind of title is not really achievable. I quite like this idea and it seems a good revenue raising scheme. Is this something the ECF could consider perhaps, whether online or OTB? What do members here think?

[LawrenceCooper]

I was browsing Facebook the other day and came across a FIDE advert on their Chess Arena platform, where if you get 1700 rating points you can get a recognised title of FIDE Arena International Master (https://chessarena.com/). Of course a World Chess Pro account is needed at eu25.

It made me think that for players like me (dad, over 40, working full time and perpetually stuck in the 1800s), any kind of title is not really achievable. I quite like this idea and it seems a good revenue raising scheme. Is this something the ECF could consider perhaps, whether online or OTB? What do members here think?

They do have something along these lines for over the board: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/master-points-system/ so extending it to online may be something they would consider.

[Stephen Westmoreland]

I never knew that. Must get my games over 30 and also advertise this. Online would be a great idea.

[Joey Stewart]

Arena master titles do seem to get a little recognition in the wider world but the ecf ones seem to be very under supported within our own nation - many tournament organisers would not recognise them with any sort of discount and the ecf gives you little more then a name check on their website.

[Stephen Westmoreland]

It is a nice to have I suppose. Something to aim for and gets a sense of achievement.

[Joseph Conlon]

I think the arena titles are embarrassments (did FIDE sell the rights to award them, or some similar disreputable story?). The levels required for them are so low that they devalue the words associated to them.

[NickFaulks]

(did FIDE sell the rights to award them, or some similar disreputable story?).

There were certainly some strange occurrences in 2018, when the previous administration was on the way out. FIDE Online Arena and its titles are nothing to do with FIDE.

[Joey Stewart]

I was going to say it was a bit unfair to belittle these online titles until I checked the requirements.... arena candidate master, for example, requires you to play 150 bullet games and achieve a average rating of 1100, pretty sure you can get that just by merit of having a stable internet connection and being able to move the pieces quickly!

[Alex McFarlane]

FIDE Online Arena and its titles are nothing to do with FIDE.

Without disputing anything Nick says about the 'puzzling' existence of FIDE Arena, its titles are recorded on the FIDE database and, annoyingly, get included when players are entered into pairing programs such as SwissManager.

There was some sort of agreement with the previous administration which still has a year or two to run. Other than that, I agree it has nothing to do with FIDE.

[Roger de Coverly]

There was some sort of agreement with the previous administration which still has a year or two to run.

Was it not pne of Kirsan's pet ideas?

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[NickFaulks]

Without disputing anything Nick says about the 'puzzling' existence of FIDE Arena, its titles are recorded on the FIDE database and, annoyingly, get included when players are entered into pairing programs such as SwissManager.

I got them removed once, but after a while they were back. My impression was that in its dying days the previous administration had given away everything, even the rights to its own database.