The Issue with FIDE Hybrids

On November 9th, 2022, US Chess made an update regarding FIDE hybrid events. They would not approve it to count for over-the-board (OTB) rating anymore, and would instead only count it for online rating. Along with that, there are now growing calls by high figures in the chess scene such as Robert Hess, Garry Kasparov, and Fabiano Caruana to regulate and address suspicious behaviors in hybrid tournaments. Hybrid tournaments, which originally started as a great idea to many have now become a scandalous matter of discussion in the chess community. How did it become such a big scandal in the chess world?

What are Hybrid Tournaments?

A hybrid tournament as defined by FIDE is a format where the games are played online, but the participants are physically present in a public place like a club, federation headquarters, hotel, et cetera under the supervision of an arbiter.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic which ravaged the world in 2020 and 2021, FIDE approved the online hybrid tournaments to be valid for over-the-board rating in January of 2021. This would allow players to play from places with arbiters for rating, in a time where FIDE-rated tournaments were practically impossible to access for most people. The approval allowed many players around the world to become much more connected and play against each other for rating, but with the approval also came new problems.

The Issue

The main problem that arose due to hybrids was rating manipulation. It was made easier and more accessible as it now allowed many players to play against others with fewer restrictions and regulations. This was one of the main reasons why US Chess stopped registering them for over-the-board FIDE rating. US Chess's unwillingness to register them for over-the-board rating did not stop the issue at all, however, as many hybrids that were played by US players began to be offshored to other federations.

Serbia and Bulgaria

After the US Chess stopped registering hybrid tournaments for FIDE rating in late 2021, many hybrids involving players from the US have been registered and approved for FIDE over-the-board rating by other areas, especially Serbia and Bulgaria. These hybrids that are validated by Serbia and Bulgaria are almost always US players versus Serbian and a few Bulgarian players. Some similarities between all of these tournaments, besides the players, however, is the fact that the Serbians/Bulgarians are generally aged between 30-60 (past their prime) and losing rating in just about every hybrid they play in.

The US players, on the other hand, are only playing against these Serbians/Bulgarians and are gaining rating in just about every hybrid they play in. I decided to do a bit of my own digging, and from the full list of Serbia's registered FIDE-rated hybrid tournaments in April, I calculated the average amount of FIDE rating gained by US players and lost by Serbian or Bulgarian players.

MARCH WEEKEND I HYBRID

US players on average gained 32 FIDE rating, Serbians on average lost 15 FIDE rating, and Bulgarians on average lost 19.5 FIDE rating.

MARCH WEEKEND II HYBRID

US players on average gained 50 FIDE rating and Serbians on average lost 22.7 FIDE rating

COLORADO SPRINGS HYBRID 2023

US players on average gained 41.5 FIDE rating and Serbians on average lost 16.5 FIDE rating

If it was only this data, it may not scream rating manipulation. Perhaps in an ideal world, these games were simply games that were played as matches and the players from the United States were simply stronger because many of them were underrated, but there was more to it. According to many participants of the hybrid tournaments, they must pay an entry fee which GOES to the Serbian and Bulgarians that lose rating, and they can select the opponents they play. The fact that the players who lose take money makes the situation seem much stranger. Why are the people who are almost always losing rating taking money from the players who gain rating? With all these factors combined, many people believe hybrid tournaments have been used by a select few as an effective rating farm for many players in the United States.

The Problem with this

Since the US players are almost always playing people who are out of their prime, hybrid tournaments may very well lead to many players with inflated ratings whose skills may not be on par with that rating. For example, I have seen multiple 1900 USCF players who are hovering around the 2250 FIDE rating range because of hybrids. As a reference, the usual FIDE rating for a 1900 USCF player would be around 1700-1800 FIDE. Intentional or not, the inflated rating has an effect on others.

When these players who boost their rating play an actual over-the-board tournament that isn't against Serbian/Bulgarian players who are past their prime, they will eventually play worse than their FIDE rating and lose their rating rapidly. The people who win will be beating an inflated player rather than a player that is actually to the skill of their rating. This will then inflate the player who WON against the hybrid player, which can inflate other players as well. Then the cycle will repeat again when the original player goes back to a hybrid event to regain the event. Their rating graph will look a little something like this:

The Other Perspective

Obviously, hybrids are not all just places for people to play overrated people and farm them. Most people simply play hybrids to be able to play FIDE-rated games. These hybrid tournaments allow people who can not easily access FIDE tournaments play FIDE-rated tournaments and bring their rating to their actual skill. For example, players who are 2000-rated USCF but rated 1500 FIDE because they can't easily access FIDE events may greatly benefit from hybrid events. One of my friends who actually partook in one of these hybrid events was in a very similar situation and has this to say about hybrids:

Having played two hybrid tournaments against Serbian players and gaining close to 200 FIDE points, I can understand why some may see these events as rating manipulation. However, my overall record against the Serbian players is 7/16. One of the main reasons for huge rating gains is K=40, most hybrid players are kids hoping to raise their FIDE rating so it reflects their true strength. My reason for playing Hybrids was not to "inflate" my rating or "buy" the CM title. There were certain tournaments in my area that required a certain FIDE rating to play, for example, one tournament was the American Open, to play in the Open section, it required a FIDE rating above 1800 otherwise an extra $500 fee. Since I didn't have access to many FIDE-rated events in the area, my rating was much lower than 1800 FIDE, in contrast with my actual skill. Personally, I do not believe my FIDE rating is inflated, I recently played a tournament against other American players and kids and had a FIDE performance rating of 2080. Another issue is that there are not enough FIDE-rated tournaments in the US, many kids in the US have FIDE ratings 300-600 rating points lower than their USCF. I know someone with a lower USCF than me, who recently traveled to Europe to play, they ended up with similar results and now have a 2000 FIDE. Overall, hybrid events can have extreme upsides and simply looking at rating gains shouldn't provide enough information to jump to conclusions.

It is apparent that hybrids have been beneficial for most people, however, issues such as inflated ratings and rating manipulation smear its image.

What Should Be Done? 
Hybrids are obviously beneficial for many reasons, but they are extremely prone to rating manipulation. Increased regulation of these events to make sure there is no rating manipulation may cause change and prevent these situations from happening in the future. For example, some players or organizations may face consequences for blatant hybrid rating manipulation. These regulations however would come with their own issues such as the difficulty in determining whether someone is manipulating their rating or not. If FIDE wants to just deal with this issue right now, they would simply end the hybrid tournament format, but if they want to keep the hybrids for their obvious benefits, FIDE must do a thorough investigation into them and regulate them in a much more strict nature, even though there may still be issues.

Final Thoughts

All in all, hybrids are a very strange scenario. There seem to be players blatantly boosting their rating in them, but most people who play legitimately benefit from them greatly. FIDE is now in a pickle as they are forced to make a decision on what to do with these hybrids, but that is not something that I should worry about as I am not FIDE. Anyways, thank you for reading, and have a nice day!