I began thinking seriously about permanent chess identities after a player disappeared from the ChessEver database. I followed the reference back to FIDE and found that the public profile was no longer available. Then I checked other deceased players and found the same problem.
This was not only a missing web page. The entire chess ecosystem uses FIDE IDs to connect a person to tournament reports, rating lists, games, articles and research. When the public profile behind that identifier disappears, every other database is left to guess what happened.
A FIDE ID should not behave like a temporary account. It is part of the historical record.
An identifier is more than a profile page
Names are not reliable keys. The same player’s name can be written in different alphabets, transliterated several ways, shortened, reordered or changed. Two players can have the same name. A player can change federations. Tournament files can contain spelling errors. A stable numerical identity is what allows those imperfect records to point back to the same person.
That identity remains useful after a career ends and after a player dies. Historians need it. Database builders need it. Journalists need it. Players studying old games need it. A reference should become more valuable with time, not less.
This does not mean every piece of personal data must remain public forever. Privacy requests and corrections need a proper process. FIDE’s own rating-server terms say that data may be cancelled at the request of the person or the person’s heirs, while historical tournament archives are retained. That is exactly why identity and display policy should be separated. A public profile can limit sensitive fields while the historical identifier, title, rating record and tournament references remain stable.
FIDE made the right correction
After I raised the issue in July 2026, FIDE’s Council approved a better approach on August 23. Decision CM2-2026/14 calls for a “Deceased” status or indicator on a FIDE profile instead of hiding it. That is the right principle, and I was happy to see it.
The distinction matters. A status explains what happened. A vanished page explains nothing. If a deceased player is marked clearly and respectfully, software can stop treating the person as active without deleting the historical link. Tournament records still resolve. Old articles still point somewhere useful. Researchers do not have to reconstruct an identity from fragments.
The next requirement is consistent implementation. A policy is only fully useful when old identifiers resolve reliably, the status is visible, and historical rating and tournament references remain available. Permanent identity should be an infrastructure rule, not a special favor for famous players.
Why we built the ChessEver Memorial
I did not want to wait for every part of the wider ecosystem to be fixed, so we built the ChessEver Memorial. It is a growing historical directory for deceased titled players from the published FIDE-rating era. The public directory can be searched and sorted by peak rating, and individual profiles can preserve available biographies, rating history, sourced photographs and links to games.
The word “sourced” is important. Declaring that someone has died is not a harmless metadata edit. A false match can misclassify a living person. For the initial research, we published a player only when the death could be tied to the exact person through a reliable biographical page, obituary or explicit death notice. When the evidence was not strong enough, we left the player out.
That fail-closed approach makes the directory less complete, but more trustworthy. Completeness can improve later. A false identity can spread through databases and become much harder to correct.
The Memorial also invites contributions and corrections. A useful historical system should admit uncertainty, show its sources and make correction easier. It should not present a scraped name, an approximate birth year and a rating as if they prove an identity.
What a permanent chess identity should contain
The basic model is not complicated. The ID should never be recycled. The URL should remain stable. The profile should have a lifecycle status such as active, inactive or deceased. Core chess facts should remain attached to it: names and known variants, federation history, titles, rating history and tournament references. Important claims should carry sources and correction dates.
Games need the same discipline. A name in a PGN is not enough to establish who played. Matching should use the FIDE ID when available and combine it with event, date, round, color and opponent evidence. If the identity remains uncertain, the system should say so rather than forcing a match.
There should also be a visible correction path for federations, families, historians and players. Corrections should preserve an audit trail. If two IDs were created for one person, the records should be linked or merged without silently erasing the old reference. If one ID was wrongly used by two people, the history should be repaired at the event level.
These details sound technical, but they decide whether chess history remains usable.
A memorial is not a substitute for permanent official records
ChessEver can preserve and present historical profiles, but a private project should not be the only place where an official chess identity survives. FIDE IDs originate in the international rating system. Their continuity matters to every tournament organizer, federation, database and publication that relies on them.
FIDE’s decision to mark deceased players instead of hiding them is therefore bigger than a website change. It recognizes that a player’s record does not lose its value when the player is no longer active. The profile changes status, but the career remains part of chess.
Every titled player spent years creating that record. Some became world champions. Others played quietly in national leagues, opens and team events. Their games may still teach somebody decades later. Their ratings show the shape of a career. Their IDs connect the evidence.
Chess is unusually proud of its history. We replay games from a century ago as if they were played yesterday. Our identity systems should be built with the same time horizon.