My thoughts about the FIDE Online Arena

When I heard about the FIDE Online Arena in the early part of 2015 if I remember correctly, I thought that it was a good thing. One could play official elo games on the internet and earn titles for the lower rating band. The latter part especially interested me, because at the time I was quite certain that I may not be able to get any of the classic FIDE titles and that my only hope of ever getting an official title would be via these online games played at FOA. Already when I learned that the FIDE Online Arena client requires Java to work, it was a thing that I was not all that happy about. However, I thought that I would test it out and finally get myself a title. The time I started playing there, they offered one year membership for free for players who already had a FIDE ID number. Luckily I was one of those who had already a FIDE ID number, so I did get that one year for free. When I had set everything up and started my first game there, I was happy to see a nice looking board and pieces, so the playing experience was enjoyable.

I had looked at all the titles I could get and what the requirements for each one are and decided that I should be able to get the title of Arena International Master. As the game requirements for the titles are as follows, in order to get any of these titles, one needs to play 50 rapid games, 100 blitz games or 150 bullet games with at least a certain minimum rating that the title requires, so I decided that rapid games is the way to go, because I expected to be able to hold my rating above the 1700 limit for 50 rapid games with relative ease based on my rating on other sites. I started with a rating of 1823, because it was and actually still is my over the board standard elo rating. During those first 50 games, I played mainly tournaments there and actually soon realised that my task is not as easy as I would have thought. Not every game was counted towards the requirement, because not all the players playing in the tournament had an official FIDE rating and therefore when I faced those players I did not get any closer to my goal. That was not the problem that prevented me from getting the title I wanted and the real problem was that there were some players whose official rating was way too low for the skill level they posessed and therefore I lost against them and dropped my rating quite a lot. During one tournament I noticed that I momentarily went below 1700, but because the rating was counted after all the games in the tournament had been played and my rating after the tournament was still over 1700, those games did count for the 50 game requirement. If I recall correctly, it was either my 49th or my 50th game that brought me below 1700 and therefore I could not get the title of Arena International Master on my first try.

After those 50 games I had earned the requirement for the title of Arena FIDE Master and debated with myself whether or not to take that title, because it was something that I was not that happy about. I did end up taking the title because I wanted a title and that point I did not care that much that I did not get the title that I would have wanted. I became Arena FIDE Master on April 14th, 2015. Later on in the year I decided to play as many games as it took to get the title of Arena International Master and I finally got the title I knew I should have earned earlier on December 12th, 2015. My second attempt for the title went much easier in my opinion and I was more confident about my playing skills on that second attempt.

At that time I did not have any real problems how FIDE had done things, I was okay even with the fact that I needed to actually buy the title after I reached the requirements because the titles were not that expensive in my opinion. That being said, I was not all that happy with customer service in the sense that it took several months from them to send me the diploma where it said I had earned the title of Arena FIDE Master, for example. They did send me the diploma of my second title a little bit faster though. They did update my FIDE Chess Profile with the information that I had the title quite soon after I had obtained it. However, it took me some time to find it, as it was not in the place I thought it should be. The title was shown in the section where it says Online Rating. I had looked at the section of the profile where it says FIDE title. I thought it should be shown there because like they say about all of these titles, while they are titles that can only be obtained by playing at the FIDE Online Arena, they can also be used in over the board tournaments because they are official FIDE titles. I was a bit disappointed at this point, but at least it did say in my profile that I was Arena International Master. It does not say that there anymore by the way since my membership expired. Now that is something that annoys me a great deal. I was even considering to renew my membership and try to get the Arena Grand Master title, but then I noticed that they had removed all things in my FIDE Chess Profile about what ratings I had and most importantly the fact that I am Arena International Master. In the FIDE Handbook it says that these titles are valid for life and that they can only be replaced with better ones. Nowhere there does it say that they remove the title and online ratings out of your FIDE Chess Profile when your membership of FIDE Online Arena expires, but that is exactly what they have done. In my opinion they should keep the titles there regardless of the status of my FOA membership. This is the kind of behaviour that really annoys me.

I will likely post a new game of some sort tomorrow, but today I thought about doing this out of the ordinary post. I have added two mate in three and three mate in four puzzles today.