Rules for Acceptance of Games for Rating

This document is effective from September 2020.

1. Games submitted to the ECF for rating must be played in accordance with the FIDE Laws of Chess, or as modified by the ECF Tournament Rules. Events where the Director of Home Chess has allowed a request to use rule variations not covered by the ECF Competition Rules will be accepted provided the variations do not bring the games within the scope of clause 4 below.

2. It is a condition of submitting results to the ECF for rating that the following data is collected, which will appear on the ECF rating website –

  • The player’s forename and surname
  • The club that the player is playing for, in the case of a team competition
  • The player’s results of games against other players, including the date the game was played

The following non-compulsory data, used by the ECF to help identify players, should be supplied where possible:

  • The player’s date of birth: the age of junior players on 1st September will be publicly accessible on the ECF website, but the full date of birth will not be made public
  • The player’s gender

This data is used by the ECF and independent organisers to ensure players can enter particular sections, e.g. age-restricted junior or senior events, or gender-specific events.
The submission of a date of birth for any player not already registered with FIDE is a necessary condition of submission of results for FIDE rating. This data will be passed to FIDE and the player’s year of birth will be publicly accessible on the FIDE website, but the data will not otherwise be published.
This information will remain on the ECF rating website indefinitely, to act as a historical archive of rating information.
Some of this information may, in turn, be passed on to FIDE when rating FIDE-rated events, in accordance with any FIDE requirements.
Organisers must make players in their competitions aware that this data will be forwarded to the ECF as a condition of them entering their competition.

3. Online and Over-the-Board games submitted for rating to the ECF will be rated in the category appropriate to the time limits of that game, as follows –

A. Rapid Chess
Each player must have more than 10 minutes, and less than 60 minutes, for all moves. This includes both the initial time control and any subsequent time controls or quickplay finish. When Fischer (cumulative) mode is used, the time available for each player is calculated on the assumption that the duration of the game is 60 moves.

B. Standardplay
Each player has more time than the maximum defined above for Rapidplay.

C. Blitz games, where each player has at least 3 minutes and no more than 10 minutes for all moves. All games submitted by the ECF for FIDE rating will also be rated by the ECF.

4. The following types of game are ineligible for rating –
Thematic; Lightning; Correspondence; Games played without chess clocks; Chess960 games

Miscellaneous

Failure to Comply
Unless the Director of Membership decides otherwise, events which are in breach of these regulations will not be rated.

Questions
If you have any questions you wish to raise, please contact Rob Willmoth, the Director of Membership at director.membership@englishchess.org.uk

— David Thomas, Director of Membership; Brian Valentine, Manager of Rating; Adrian Elwin, Director of Home Chess; Lara Barnes, Chief Arbiter
September 2020; refreshed November 2021