I think you missed my point.
Sorry, what’s you point? Mine is that India uses FIDE rules and has huge, rated amateur swisses all the time, e.g. 2nd Marvel All India Below 1600 FIDE Rated Tournament February 2024 India FIDE Chess Tournament report and 2nd War of Knights School Chess FIDE Rated Tournament 2024 February 2024 India FIDE Chess Tournament report.
And I note that the last one had only four arbiters, including a Chief Arbiter, who we all know wasn’t patrolling the floor. 
Just because something can be done one way does not mean that way is the best way.
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I think India’s current success, with very young 2700+ Grandmasters like Pragg, Gukesh, Vidit, Erigaisi, etc, means they’re doing something right. The youngest USA player over 2700 is Wesley So, at age 30. And he didn’t grow up playing US Chess Swisses.
Of course, there’s probably no cause-and-effect here based on which rules the kids grow up playing with, but my point is it hasn’t hurt India’s chess development to have kids playing with somewhat stricter rules.
There’s no reason we can’t do the same. There really aren’t many differences anymore between US and FIDE rules, and people can adapt; especially kids.
Our kids should have the benefit of “growing up” playing under the same rules as the rest of the world. And US Chess will save time and money, maybe not a lot, but every bit helps. We certainly spend a huge amount of time on the forums yammering about rules!
All I ask is for people to think about it objectively, instead of having a knee-jerk defensive reaction against the idea.
We are thinking of it objectively. US Chess rules are objectively superior to FIDE rules. They are more practicable and flexible than FIDE, which means that a broader share of the public plays chess competitively than would otherwise be the case.
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India’s success at getting top young players to 2700 may have more to do with how chess is funded there. A lot of top US players have said getting from 2500-2600 to the rarified air of 2700+ takes a lot of teamwork, for which there is very little funding.
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And how is chess funded in India?
I conceded that using FIDE rules probably wasn’t the cause of their success, but I don’t concede that it harmed them.
Here I strongly disagree. I do not believe more flexibility is better. They are “rules” for goodness sakes. We have dozens of “variations,” many of which aren’t announced ahead of time. Players have critical rules that may, or may not be in effect, but they don’t know during the game! How is that a “better” way to run a sport? Name me one other sport that does that? I’ll help; the answer is “there isn’t one.” We should use FIDE rules for many reasons, but a really good one is they are consistent, fair, readily available (for free, I might add), and they aren’t subject to the whims of different officials choosing which ones to enforce or not. The US rules are a hot mess, and we should just dump them and get with the program and play the same game as the rest of the world.
Well, in the latest financials for the AICF they show a grant of over 98 million rupees (around 1,175,000 USD) from the government for the year, which I think was used to help run the Olympiad, in other years I see smaller government grants, apparently for holding other types of events. I also found a press release where they made around $240,000 (USD) available to three players to help them prepare for the World Championships.
How much money does US Chess get from the government?
It seems that you want others to think about it objectively but have already made your mind up yourself, so you’re not willing to be objective in return.
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Why on earth would you think that?
Why? Why are The Official Rules of Chess better than The Laws of Chess? Why do you think that the Official Rules are “more practicable” than the Laws which are, let’s remember, used in every single tournament in every single other country in thw world? Why is more flexibility desirable? That is, where is the benefit in going to a tournament and not knowing in advance what rules will be in effect? And, where is the slightest bit of support for the statement that people would stay away if they were required to play by the Laws?
And, of course, if that was true, why would it necessarily be a bad thing? Our (US Chess) mission is to promote chess in all forms, not just “competitively”. Besides, I’m not sure what the estimates are for players who play chess in this country that have played rated chess in the past year, but I’d be astonished if it were as high as 5% and think it more likely around 2%.
One of the things we do very badly is provide competitive opportunities for adults under 400 strength, which is a very good rating for a casual player. This is easily true up to 1000, and not much better below 1400, at which point the (adult) is pretty darn good. This is, of course, not a function of our using the Official Rules, but is a strong counter to a knee-jerk suggestion that “a broader share of the public plays chess competitively than would otherwise be the case.”
Let’s imagine the Delegates pass a motion to adopt FIDE rules with no variations. How many organizers would stop organizing? How many TDs would stop directing? How many players would stop playing? I would guess the numbers would not be very big, because we all still love chess. The differences in the rules are not that big. While there may be plenty of intense debate about things like castling king first, in the long run it won’t drive people away.
If the Delegates pass a motion to adopt FIDE rules then they are implying that they will not be adopting any more rule changes unless FIDE makes them. That seems unlikely.
As a clarification, is it both the FIDE Laws of Chess and the FIDE Handbook (with the pairing rules) that has been asked for. The handbook doesn’t have the transposition/interchange rating limit rules that US Chess does and some have said 'color is king" in FIDE, and the handbook has “pairing allocated byes” but not requested byes (FIDE handles all games where a player isn’t there as a zero point no-show).
Example: Going into the last round the top score group has a 2200 and 1675 due White, a 2175 and 1700 due Black and the 2200 has already played the 1700
US Chess pairing:
2200-1675 (color conflict)
1700-2175 (color conflict)
FIDE pairing:
2200-2175 (475 point interchange to avoid a color conflict)
1675-1700
Generally there is a lower chance of draws with lower rated pairs of players so it is a bit more likely that the 1675 or 1700 would win the tournament than the 2175 or 2200.
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True.
I don’t believe that anyone can make an “objective” assessment on this question though. It’s impossible to say which set of rules is “better” without having a personal opinion. I do think it’s an objective fact that US Chess would have less expense, in terms of money, but mostly time and effort, if we stopped maintaining our own set of rules. I think that’s clear.
Obviously, the amount of that expense, and whether US Chess deems it worthy, is up for debate.
Do FIDE rules deal with prize distribution? If not, then that’s a significant section of the US Chess rulebook that would need to be kept.
This isn’t true. FIDE allows 1/2 point byes.
From “General Regulations for Competitions” (https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/Competition_Rules.pdf)
Unless the rules of a competition specify otherwise:
…6.7(4) In an L2 or L3 tournament the rules may permit a player to take a half point bye in a given round. It is only allowed once during the tournament, if adequate notice has been given and is agreed to by the arbiter. Such permission might not be granted to a player who receives conditions, or who has been given a free entry to the tournament.
Note the “Unless the rules of the competition…” phrase. This appears in more places than this. FIDE rules do, in fact, have some flexibility!
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I don’t believe they do. There’s nothing preventing US Chess from regulating that though. That’s really a function of organizing, not officiating. FWIW, I’m in the camp of people who believe this is an example of “rules bloat” in the US rulebook.
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I will, once again, point out that this has already happened in the upper sections of a lot of tournaments in the US, i.e. those that are FIDE rated. To your point, I don’t see any evidence of diaspora because of this.