Ah I am stupid. I meant he met 5/7 requirement. Doesn't thankfully deduce from the main point of the thread.

Semi-regular.

FIDE titles handbook, clause 0.6.2

Although I still stand by my opinion that Michael's attempt also brings the game in disrepute. I would be pretty mad if the kids I am teaching would do that. I actively try to teach them not to do such cheap things.

Well, 50% of the "agreement" rate is acceptable to me :D. I will take it.

WDYM "for a change you agree" :D.

If you are interested, I also recently made a video on this topic, feel free to check it out if you want youtube.com/watch?v=J1QSjXEq… 17/17

And while the rules are the main culprit, I don't think people who go out of their way to play them should be absolved of responsibility. I still find what Mr.Dick did unethical and shameless. I think these cases should be given more publicity. 16/17

... aside from the fact that this arrangement is good for business because FIDE gets more fees (when you become FM, you have to pay 70EUR) and ECU can collect more fees for the ECC because it is more prestigious. They certainly have the incentive to keep the status quo. 15/17

I think these examples demonstrate vividly why these direct title regulations need to be changed ASAP. Or even abolished (I personally don't see the reason why ECC would be eligible for them considering that there are many tournaments in Europe anyway) ... 14/17

There are also some interesting lineups from last year's edition (s1.chess-results.com/tnr1250…). Make sure to keep an eye on clubs Radnički, Zmaj and Standard De Liege 13/17

Of course, this is not the only instance in the history of this competition. In fact, last year it was precisely Mr.Dick's teammate, Rob Duijn, who made FM with the performance of 1951. Do note that Mr. Dick was playing 1st board. It was less blatant than this year, but... 12/17

This is precisely what happened. Bloemendal lost 5 matches and won in the last round. Mr. Dick scored 5.5/7 and became FM. Do note that he beat 1575, 1645 and 1677 players and actually ended up LOSING rating. 11/17

What makes this even more blatant is the fact that the rest of the team was so weak. This made it very likely that Bloemendal will lose their team matches, which will in turn results with being paired down and facing even weaker opponents on board 6. 10/17

This is precisely what Dick de Graaf's team Bloemendal did. They put him on the last board even though he was the strongest player in the team! He was playing below 3 sub-2000 players and 2 UNRATED ones. 9/17

This means that the board order of a team can be "random" (instead of placing stronger players on higher boards). This makes it possible to abuse the rules and place your strong player on low board to maximize the chane of scoring 5/7. 8/17

This would be a poor criterion in any event, let alone in a TEAM EVENT where the team results and the board you are playing significantly impact the variance in terms of the opposition you are facing. LET ALONE as there are no rating requirements for board order in ECC. 7/17

...provided that you reached 2100 ELO at some point in your career (why is the threshold for a direct title 200 points lower than the threshold for the FM title in the regular way also eludes me). 6/17

In this thread, we will focus on C). In order to be eligible for the FM title in the ECC, you need to score a minimum of 65% in 7 games. Or 5/7. And that is it! No rating performance or opponent rating requirements. If you beat 5 noobs, you are FM... (con't) 5/17

There are several things one could debate here: A) Whether all the events included are necessary B) Whether these regulations should be valid only for titles that require norms C) What are the criteria for achieving non-norm titles in these events 4/17