NEW DELHI: Earning an official FIDE rating (the primary governing body of chess) has never been easy. A player must participate in FIDE ranked tournaments, which are organized under strict regulations and often require travel, entry fees and consistent preparation. To receive a rating, a player must face already rated opponents and achieve the required performance in ranked games.This tradition, however, may soon change.In a radical change of policy that has sparked a deep existential debate, FIDE and World Chess, an official commercial partner of the governing body, recently presented the “First Rating Experiment”. The two-year pilot program will allow casual enthusiasts to earn their first official over-the-board (OTB) blitz and rapid ratings entirely through online play at worldchess.com. It’s a bold attempt to democratize a historically insular sport, as the governing body aims to expand the current global pool of 500,000 ranked players into the millions so that every Tom, Dick and Harry will then have a chance to earn their first FIDE rating.To govern this new digital frontier, FIDE plans to employ an AI-driven fair-play screening framework and a specialized technical coefficient designed to align performance in line with physical standards. To protect the height of the sport, the governing body has also installed a regulatory firewall, where these ratings incubated online will be strictly capped at 1,800 Elo.Although FIDE intends to launch the program in July, after a period of community review, India’s Grandmasters, the vanguard of the modern chess revival, are locked in a fierce brainstorming session over the decision.For some, it represents a visionary dismantling of economic barriers; for others, however, it is a dangerous compromise of the ultimate value of the game, which lies in the integrity of the rating system.
“A pointless move” by FIDE?
According to many Indian Grandmasters, the boundary between online and offline chess should be completely sacred. In an exclusive interaction with TimesofIndia.com, Grandmaster (GM) SL Narayanan was blunt in his disapproval.“I think it was an unnecessary move by FIDE. You cannot combine online tournaments and then translate the rating into the board’s ranking because the rules are different for online and offline chess,” he said. “For recreational players, they should consider this a welcome move, but the real problem is (that) it could affect the credibility of the rating system.”This sentiment was fiercely echoed on X (formerly Twitter) by prominent coach GM Srinath Narayanan, who expressed deep reservations about online security. He wrote: “Very skeptical about the effectiveness of fairplay controls. Online play and ratings on the board should not be mixed.”GM SP Sethuraman also took to X to highlight how this integration could destabilize an already fragile rating ecosystem, “I already feel that the chess rating system is far from perfectly calibrated across different regions, formats and activity levels. We’ve already seen significant rating inflation and deflation issues over the years, making it difficult to compare ratings between generations. “The introduction of official online ratings that can be converted into OTB ratings may create even more noise and uncertainty. While the intention is to make chess more accessible, I hope that FIDE will proceed very carefully.”Offering a more relaxed but still cautious take, GM Abhimanyu Puranik told this website: “In general, (it’s) not great to link online and play OTB, but the rating itself starts so low that it doesn’t change that much.”“It’s a very tough decision to doubt players just based on moves”Speaking to TimesofIndia.com, one of Chennai’s most reputed coaches, GM Shyam Sundar M, admitted he was very surprised by the news, weighing the massive operational change against the dark cloud of digital fraud:“The good thing is that FIDE is trying some new initiatives… But, combining online chess for over-the-board ranking, I’m not sure. I mean, who even plays without a physical board. Like, a hybrid system, I understand. This also makes sense.”Shyam Sundar suggested that a hybrid system, where players meet in regional physical rooms monitored by local referees and 24-hour Zoom surveillance, would be much safer and equally economical for the organizers.Expressing his central concern about anti-cheating algorithms, he added: “I strongly believe that even an innocent person should not be punished. It’s not easy, and it’s a very hard decision to doubt the players just based on the movements, on the quality of the game in two or three or four games.”However, he remains open to the future, adding: “Maybe based on AI or even based on the server. Maybe something like that browser with AI, maybe it’s possible. If it happens, maybe it’s good.”
grandmaster Pravin Thipsay welcomes the initiative
In contrast, Arjuna Awardee and veteran GM Pravin Thipsay hailed the initiative as a visionary leap, as he noted that less than 1% of chess enthusiasts worldwide actually have the means to play in physical, valued tournaments.“I think FIDE has taken a bold step … There are millions of players … who play chess online, and they play quite regularly since Karpov had founded a third of the Western world they play chess almost every day, but they play with the computer, and then they remain far from the mainstream. he told TimesofIndia.com.Thipsay acknowledged that the system could face serious problems if cheating is left unchecked or if the rating coefficient is calculated incorrectly, noting that previous FIDE coefficient changes for players under 18 have “boomeranged and failed”. However, I believe that the 1,800 ceiling is an excellent filter.“If someone crosses 1,700 or 1,750, there is a reasonable chance of that particular player trying to play chess more seriously, being an over-the-board player,” he added. “So I think it’s a good initiative, we will have a large number of players coming to chess more.”With FIDE currently gathering feedback before its final launch, the chess world is at an unprecedented crossroads. What do you think of this proposal? Let us know in the comments.
