‘Bharat Chess Rating System’ by AICF is a welcome move: Players, coaches

Chennai, May 6 (IANS) Indian chess players and coaches have welcomed the All India Chess Federation’s (AICF) decision to have a National Rating System or ‘Bharat Chess Rating System’ as it would result in the emergence of large number of tournaments, enthuse chess masters to play in the strong domestic circuit, tingle the chess body’s cash chest amongst other benefits.

According to them, the casualty may be FIDE rated chess tournaments as the tournament organisers might opt for AICF rated tournaments and in the process save costs (FIDE fees) and may pass on the benefits to the players as prize money or lower entry fee, they added.

The international body, too, has no objection to AICF’s move.

“Internal rating system is the decision of each National Federation. FIDE does not interfere. At present dozens of thousands of Indians have FIDE rating, but obviously there are hundreds of thousands in India who play regularly in competitions of various kinds. So, it is sensible to rate them,” chess Grandmaster (GM) Emil Sutovsky, CEO, FIDE, told IANS.

Terming AICF’s move as a great step forward GM Pravin Thipsay told IANS: “It means that even the performance in district events will be measured. As all national and international tournaments in India will be counted for the Indian Rating List, every national player will have an Indian rating and ELO rating of FIDE.”

According to Thipsay, the comparison between these two ratings will set some standards and district-level players will be able to judge themselves. The player’s growth (or otherwise) can be checked from a very low level and the growth graphs could enable the fraternity to judge the future starts at a very young age.

The US and several countries have their own rating system and India with a large number of chess players is a bit late to enter this club.

“Here in the US they have their own rating system and in fact Washington state has their own rating system which does not use the US Chess Federation (USCF) rating system,” GM Arun Prasad told IANS.

According to him, having your own rating system means it is easier to keep the rules according to your preference and one need not to follow the FIDE rules.

Continuing further he added that players beyond a certain level have to surely play in the FIDE-rated tournaments to get globally recognised chess titles like the Candidate Master (CM), FIDE Master (FM), International Master (IM) and GM.

Queried about the difference between the USCF and FIDE rating, GM Priyadharshan Kannappan told IANS: “The USCF rating will be lower by about 100 points as compared to FIDE rating. That is, if a player is rated as 2,200 points under the USCF, his FIDE rating will be about 2,100.”

Kannappan said in the US there are a very small number of FIDE-rated chess tournaments as almost all the tournaments are USCF rated.

“After a tournament the result data has to be keyed into the USCF portal and soon after that the updated ratings of the players will be shown,” Kannappan said.

Be that as it may, there are views that the Indian rating system will be a revenue generator for the state and the central chess administrations and the beneficial impact will be that Indian IMs/GMs may play in such events without the risk of losing points under the FIDE rating system.

Currently Indian titled players do not play in the FIDE-rated tournaments in India – unless prize money is very attractive- fearing loss of ELO points if they lose to a lower rated Indian player.

“An Indian player may be rated low, but his playing strength is generally strong and there are chances of a GM losing or drawing against such players in the domestic circuit. A loss of two games against low rated players will bring down their ELO points and taking that up will be difficult. That aside, invitations to overseas tournaments are based on the FIDE rating. If the rating goes down, tournament invitations with appearance fee may not come,” a chess coach told IANS preferring anonymity.

It will be interesting how the conversion ratio between the proposed Indian rating system and FIDE’s ELO rating would be worked out.

“On the other hand, a tournament under the Bharat Chess Rating System will not have any impact on a player’s FIDE rating and hence might attract strong GMs and IMs. This in turn will give the needed experience for the upcoming players,” chess coach SC Subramanian told IANS.

“The entry fee for such tournaments will be less. It is better for the tournament organisers to get more entries. The higher entry fee may result in a better cash prize purse for the winners. Such tournaments can make titled chess players make a decent living out of prize monies by playing in India,” Subramanian added.

After the Competition Commission of India’s order, many private tournaments are being held in India which are not recognised by AICF or the state chess associations.

With the Bharat Chess Rating System there may be pressure from the players on the tournament organisers to hold the event under Indian rating system resulting in additional revenue for AICF, is one of the views.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

–IANS

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