The FIDE World Fischer Random Qualifiers Calendar

As far as I understand it, titled players can "take away" place of a non-titled player by qualifying from a tournament which they did not have to play. But they will "get punished" by losing the right to choose between the two invitational arenas and will have to play the one to which they had qualified. Given that the schedule of the invitational arenas has not been published yet, it might cause some problems in a few cases. It also seems that one of the two invitational events might be somewhat stronger than the other one. The rules are not perfect, but I am still glad that Lichess has taken part in staging a big qualification cycle.
(By the way, personally I would not speak about titled players taking away a spot of someone else, as they earned it in a competition, although they did not have to. The qualification system was not created by those titled players and some of them wanted to play an interesting event, check their form or just qualify without privileges.)

@KindFighter said in #11:
> As far as I understand it, titled players can "take away" place of a non-titled player by qualifying from a tournament which they did not have to play.

It has been confirmed that this is not the case, the top 50 who did not qualify are in, so it goes beyond 50 if there are titled players.

It's not clear about the 2 invitationals, I think that all players who qualified, whether titled or not, can play in both. That's my reading of the rules. But haven't seen any confirmation on this.

I qualified from an Offerspill open arena, and cannot make it to the respective Qualifying Arena due to date/time issues. Can I attend to the other Qualifying Arena or not?

I have noticed that the second invitational arena, which was played in times suitable for American and Asian players, will take place on September 4 between 17:00 and 21:00 UTC. I am not sure if the Asian players will be happy about that schedule. Given that the schedule of the invitational arenas has appeared only now (or not long ago), I am afraid that many qualifiers would prefer to play the other invitational arena if they were informed in advance.
This is not a criticism of Lichess, the website is doing a great job staging so many qualifiers. I just hope that a championship takes place again in a year or two and that next time the qualification cycle will be announced in advance.

222

Hello everyone,

Regarding GM RealDavidNavara's concerns and in case not everybody saw the update of the 26th (which will be linked below) let me clarify a few points.

Every player, titled and untitled, who has qualified via the open arenas (stage 1 phase 1) will be able to play in both qualifying arenas of 3rd and 4th September (stage 1 phase 2) independently from which sponsored arena they have qualified from in the open arena phase. Every player can play either in the 3rd Sept arena, in the 4th Sept arena or in both.

While we have delayed the CCC and NAC qualifying arena to cater best for American players, we have also anticipated the Offerspill qualifying arena to cater more for players playing from Asia and Oceania regions.
These starting times will most likely be kept during the swiss phases (stage 2) and beyond.

Moreover, the players who have qualified from the qualifying arenas will be required to follow the path of the specific sponsored tournament they qualified from, meaning that if one player played in both qualifying arenas of 3rd and 4th Sept and qualified for example in the Offerspill one, the player will have to follow the Offerspill track for the rest of the tournament.
This implies that players must choose carefully which qualifying arenas to play in since timings will be the same or very similar for the rest of the tournament.

Please see lichess.org/blog/Ywk7TxAAAEIYSm4e/fide-world-fischer-random-championship--update for more info and details.

Has anyone got the message yet from lichess inviting you to the arena

I am now at Swiss Stage 1.
Here in my region I may have problem accessing twitch/youtube and other sites, making me possibly fail the verification procedure at Swiss stage 2.
Can I be informed of the platform participants are to be called on at Swiss Stage 2 so as to prepare in advance?