Studying the rules of chess and being an Arbiter

We were lucky to have as instructors - Gerry Graham and Ted Jennings both experienced International Arbiters.

The course was spread over friday evening, saturday and sunday.

It included running a tournament, the rules of chess, manual Swiss pairing, using program Swiss Master pairing program, Setting chess clocks, uploading chess files to a website.

Those participating included: Damien Cunningham, Robert Lavery, Adrian Dornford-Smith, Richard Gould, Brendon Jamieson, Damien Lavery, Geoff Hindley and Mark Newman.

The course is part of the process of becoming a national qualified Arbiter - participants have to be arbiters under supervision at two accepted tournaments.

The team thoroughly enjoyed the course. With plenty of questions and lots of useful information to absorb. The exam was gruelling - practical and written. Making decisions on complex issues at chess competition, making a manual draw and using Swiss Master. An exhausting but worthwhile course.

Part of the UCU's plan to improve chess in Ulster. Thanks to the instructors Gerry and Ted. and thanks to Damien Cunningham for organising.

For the FIDE Chess rules click here.

Couple of things I like the preface:

"The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions. Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous situations which are regulated in the Laws. The Laws assume that arbiters have the necessary competence, sound judgement and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding a solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special factors. FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view." - FIDE Laws of Chess - Preface.

and the rule for a Knight move

3.6   The knight may move to one of the squares nearest to that on which it stands but not on the same rank, file or diagonal.

How concise is that!