Changes to Title and Rating Regulations effected from July 1st 2009

Registration of Tournaments

All tournaments have to be pre-registered one month before the tournament; exceptions to this may be decided by the QC Chairman.The intention is to publish registered tournaments in a calendar on the FIDE web page immediately after registration. This is to inform the participating players that the tournament will be rated.A tournament registration may be rejected, if the tournament seems to be suspicious. FIDE has also the right not to rate a tournament. The organizer may appeal against these decisions.

Rating Period

The rating period will be shortened from three months to two months. The list dates will be January 1, March 1, May 1, July 1, September 1 and November 1.The closing date, it is the date on or by which a competition must be finished to be included on the list, will be seven days before the list date. The official FIDE competitions will be taken on the list if they finish even on the day before the list date.

Coefficient K

The change of K as decided in Dresden was not confirmed by the PB. The K values stay as they are.Also the value of 0.5 point in a new player's rating calculation will stay as 12.5 (half of the highest K value).

The K is determined based on the rating at the beginning of the tournament, not based on the rating at the time the ratings are calculated (the practice now)

Rating of Previously Unrated Players

Games against unrated players are rated in round-robin tournaments, as they have been rated so far. It is, if a previously unrated player scores at least 1 point in the event, the rating will be calculated. For the previously rated players all games, also the games against previously unrated players are rated.

In the Swiss tournaments, the rating of a previously unrated player is calculated, if the player plays against at least three rated opponents, scores at least 1 point against the rated opponents, and the rating calculated based on these games is at least the rating floor.

The rating of games of a rated player against unrated opponents was not confirmed by the PB, but the issue was returned to the QC.

Rating Floor

The rating floor will be 1200 from 1.7.2009. It means that a first result giving a rating at least 1200 for an unrated player is taken into account when calculating the unrated player's first published rating.

Changes in the Calculation of the Unrated Player's Rating

The new player's first published rating will be calculated in a cumulative way. Until 30.6.2009: The rating is calculated as a weighted average of tournament ratings (at least three rated opponents in a tournament) when the total number of games against rated players is at least 9. From 1.7.2009: The rating will be calculated as if all games had been in one tournament. Example: An unrated player has played three tournaments as follows: 3 games with a result 1.5/3 against opponents with an average rating of 2000, 4 games 1/4 against 2100 and 5 games 4/5 against 2200. Until 30.6.2009: The partial ratings would be 2000, 1907 and 2238, weighted average is 2068. From 1.7.2009: The average rating of all opponents is 2142, the total result is 6.5/12, so the new player's rating is 2142+12.5=2155.

Maximum Rating Difference

The maximum rating difference used in the calculations will be 400 points instead of 350. If the rating difference between players is more than 400 points, 400 points is used. It means that the highest expected result in a game will 0.92 instead of 0.89 and the lowest expected result will 0.08 instead of 0.11.