English Chess Forum

Hi all. I have been abroad for the last 3 years and have played no chess in the UK at all. Earlier this year my fide rating vanished. Its been suggested that I should re-register at my home club in the UK to resolve this problem but this is problematic as i won't be returning home any time soon. What should I do to get my rating back. My federation is England .

Ooh that's interesting. I didn't realise that player records were now being obliterated completely! (to the extent that their name doesn't even come up if you search in the search box on the site - it appears you need a FIDE ID number to even know to contact the National Federation. This only seems to apply to active players). This doesn't seem very sensible and will surely lead to more duplicate ratings?

Joining the ECF should do the trick for £28 a year. Alternatively you have to seek to switch Federations.

Richard Bates wrote:Ooh that's interesting. I didn't realise that player records were now being obliterated completely! (to the extent that their name doesn't even come up if you search in the search box on the site

FIDE are getting better at erasing all traces of players that the national federations tell them to remove. I think a search for the opponents of a vanished players will still bring up details of the code and rating.

It's a mean and vindictive policy to make it look as if a player has been suspended for cheating and is even applied to members of the ECF if they aren't Gold members.

(edit) If you know that's where to look, the FIDE ID is still recorded on the ECF grading site
http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/?ref=133035E
An International grader would presumably consider the original poster a new player unless tipped off to the contrary.
(/edit)

MJMcCready wrote:Hi all. I have been abroad for the last 3 years and have played no chess in the UK at all. Earlier this year my fide rating vanished. Its been suggested that I should re-register at my home club in the UK to resolve this problem but this is problematic as i won't be returning home any time soon. What should I do to get my rating back. My federation is England .

Hi there. You just need to join the ECF as a GOLD member. You can do that online. Full details are here http://www.englishchess.org.uk/membership/tester-2/

It is not clear to me that FIDE could show these players as not having a national federation.

What would be wrong with this?

Perhaps they have a requirement to be a current member of a national federation to be listed?

I assume that PSO will allow anyone to join the ECF regardless of circumstances?

John Upham wrote:It is not clear to me that FIDE could show these players as not having a national federation.

The reason why the original poster does not show up on the FIDE rating list is because the ECF would have asked that it should be so. FIDE regard national federations removing and reinstating players as a pain, which was one of their motivations behind their licensing plan.

John Upham wrote: Perhaps they have a requirement to be a current member of a national federation to be listed?

FIDE currently interpret "member" in the sense of registered with. Whilst many national federations have membership schemes, for several it is the club or local associations that are the members and individuals cannot be members in any shareholder, guarantor or ownership sense of the word. If ENG was behind with FIDE regarding membership payments, all ENG players would be suspended. When individuals are suspended it's because of action initiated by the ECF. The player's offence was to play in a tournament outside of England without being a Gold member of the ECF. Unfortunately there's little way out. Those in that position can either abandon internationally rated chess, pay the ECF £ 27 a year in perpetuity or pay whatever FIDE will demand for transferring Federations to their country of residence. Becoming Welsh, Scottish or Irish, if allowed, is another option, but the FIDE transfer fee still seems applicable.

(edit) No one ever completely disappears. Here's the OP's recent chess activity from the chess-db.com site
http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=423688
(/edit)

It seems a little unfair that i should have to pay 27 pounds a year when its unlikely that i will play in the UK again . Perhaps its best that i echange federation.

MJMcCready wrote:It seems a little unfair that i should have to pay 27 pounds a year when its unlikely that i will play in the UK again . Perhaps its best that i echange federation.

If you contact the federation that you want to transfer to, they can start the process. FIDE charge €250 for a federation change.

At least after spending your 250 Euro you'll be supporting a Federation that promotes chess rather than one that spend zero on junior chess, but $1m on legal fees with the primary purpose of restricting funds for chess in developing nations. Well worth it I'd say.
Alternatively, you can just continue playing, your FIDE rating still exists it is just not published. A bit annoying, but not a huge problem, particularly if you are an infrequent international player.

If you are not too worried about your current rating you could also just enter an event listing your federation as something other than England. Try to get a new rating and start again.

Matthew Turner wrote:Alternatively, you can just continue playing, your FIDE rating still exists it is just not published. A bit annoying, but not a huge problem, particularly if you are an infrequent international player.

The FIDE Player Licencing scheme is still not finalised but it is possible that such a course of action might result in a fee to the player to be 'registered' as FIDE rather than ENG. That is certainly a possible interpretation on some of what was being discussed. I think a fee of 60€ was a possibility.

MJMcCready wrote:It seems a little unfair that i should have to pay 27 pounds a year when its unlikely that i will play in the UK again . Perhaps its best that i echange federation.

I agree this does seem unfair: pay the fee for gold membership and receive very little in the way of benefits otherwise lose your FIDE rating.

Elsewhere it has been suggested that a new entry-level category of membership is created to allow players to play in junior-only and internal club events without being liable for game fee (with the membership fee set at rate which covers ECF admin and grading costs). Perhaps this might also cover FIDE registration for ENG-registered FIDE-rated players who don't play in ECF-graded events.

Angus French wrote: Perhaps this might also cover FIDE-registration for ENG-registered FIDE-rated players who don't play in ECF-graded events.

The cost is currently one Euro a year, so just ignoring players who don't play in events put through the ECF International Grader is simple and doesn't incur the costs of trying to collect the membership and removing the FIDE entry.

If FIDE see that national federations can get away with charging £ 27 a year for the sole service of allowing a player to remain on the FIDE rating list, they may want a slice of the action too and indeed did so in their initial withdrawn proposals for registration and licensing of players.

Angus French wrote:Elsewhere it has been suggested that a new entry-level category of membership is created to allow players to play in junior-only and internal club events without being liable for game fee (with the membership fee set at rate which covers ECF admin and grading costs). Perhaps this might also cover FIDE registration for ENG-registered FIDE-rated players who don't play in ECF-graded events.

Yes, let's make things way more complicated. That's always a good idea. Just look at game fee.

Angus French wrote: receive very little in the way of benefits

A recurring theme is to ask what the benefits of ECF membership are.

Unless I am mistaken they are stated to be: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/membership-benefits/

Are the ones listed here current and is this a comprehensive list?

Would the DoMM be able to help this place on this matter?

Isn't this an opportunity for the DoMM to evangelise as part of the marketing remit of the DoMM role?