Age Requirement to apply as a TD

Running Chess Tournaments
41

Are you sure aren’t referring to the 2003 US Open? I know that quite a few of the prizes for that tournament weren’t paid on-site because of the USCF’s financial crisis (they laid off 17 employees in August of 2003), but I think all prizes were paid by October.

Last August, I watched Judy and Ken Thomas write checks for most of a day in Florida, so I KNOW they were paying prizes on-site.

I can check with her tomorrow, but I suspect that any prizes that weren’t paid on-site were because the winner wasn’t present or because of documentation issues. The USCF cannot pay prizes over $600 without social security information. Additional documentation and withholding forms are required from foreign nationals.

42

Some of the prizes (and other bills) from the 2003 U.S. Open were indeed not mailed out until October or November. However, this is not a good example for Mr. Forsythe’s original argument that TDs should be subject to tighter supervision. I can assure you that neither the chief TD nor any of his staff at the 2003 U.S. Open had any influence whatsoever on when or how the prizes were paid.

43

And that reinforces my point, supra, that paying the prizes is the organizer’s responsibility, not the TD’s. That generally translates into the affiliate, but there are many cases where the organizer/affiliate/TD are the same person.

But even in those cases, I think the USCF should generally sanction the AFFILIATE, not the TD.

44

I don’t care what anyone says, the ultimate responsibility lies on the TD’s shoulders. If there are any problems at a tournament most people look at the TD. Even though technically it’s the organizer, in most people’s eyes, it’s the Chief TD. Whether I’m running a tournament of 20 or 400 I run every tournament the same way. I assume it is my name tattooed on the event and proceed that way. Believe me, there are not many more checks & balances on the bigger tournaments.

Also, when the USCF tells someone not to return to a tournament, run by a shady TD, I agree. I don’t think it’s a cop out; it’s a fact of life. If you get treated poorly by an individual, don’t be gluten for punishment. Spread the word and most people will avoid that person’s tournament. I’m not saying there should be no punishment but the chess community is small and people will find out fast enough on their own.

45

I am not referring to large National events.

46

John and Nolan, I did make a error on the years, it was the 2003 US Opne not the 2004 US Open.

There has only been a few times, not being the director and the organizer. The organizers I had dealings with in my career, have been very passive as the organizer. In a few weeks going to have a non-USCF scholastic event, the organizers had no clue what an analog clock looked like. Until he looked at one, he did not know a analog chess clock has two clocks. This was the reason he was confused with a flag fall, as he did not understand how someone could win a game. But he is the organizer.

Even working with the site of the Western Michigan Opens’, they want some type of food and drinks at the event. Before the first Western Michigan Open I, they had as a plan to have wine and cheese and a keg of beer at the tournament for the drinks. I did veto the idea of having free beer, as drunk players are not going to have good games.

If a organizer does not have the skills to be a director, why do you feel they have the skills to be an organizer? Sure, we can point out very good organizers for category D events. Most organizers (category D) are going to let the director take care of the USCF memberships, take care of everything during registeration. If there is a problem with membership, most players want to talk with the person that did take the money.

Since the director will be dealing with money, talking about a large amount of money. If a club tournament director can be any age, do we want a 10 year old club director have control of $300 - $800? Directors are going to have a lot of control of the money during the tournament.

47

Many of our local scholastic tournaments generally exceed 200 players and I’m the chief director for half a dozen or so tournaments for multiple organizers (one organizer has been doing two tournaments a year while the others only do one). The organizers take care of the entries, the money, the trophies, the memberships and the rating fee. That allows me to concentrate on handling 500-1,200 games between K-8 kids. Handling the money and getting memberships for new players are together more than a full-days job. Taking care of the site and the trophies is also a big job. If I had to do the organizers work as well as the tournament day directing then I would be delaying the tournament and burning myself out.

With the new TD/Affiliate area I’ve emphasized that next year the organizers can try to get on-site internet access and get the new membership numbers in the morning so that the tournament can be submitted on-line in the evening. The TD/Affiliate area seems to handle a membership in a matter of minutes versus the matter of days that I used to have to wait when going through the normal on-line purchasing method. Also, with the TD/Affiliate area, a temporary membership card can be printed and given to the kids/coaches the day of the tournament. Some of the organizers I direct for are already looking into getting on-line access. The affiliate can have a club TD approved for it so that the new memberships can be taken care of. Also, since a TD can be added and taken away for an affiliate, the affiliate only has to have the chief TD approved long enough for the tournament report to be accepted and rated. That also helps address the issue of TDs using affiliate IDs without the affiliate’s knowledge and permission.

48

Call me anal but I would then have to count on someone to verify the correct information that my name is on. I know my competence level but I’m not always sure of others. It’s a lot of work but some things you just can’t delegate.

49

I wish I knew the exact context you had in mind here.

I think there is a completely different set of skills required for an organizer than for a TD.

The organizer deals with site negotiations, designs the structure of the event (sections, prizes, time controls, etc.), handles advance publicity, registrations, memberships, paying out prizes, paying the bills, etc.

NONE of those are directly the responsibility of the TD, though the TD is likely to be involved in several of them, notably registration, membership checking, and determining prizes.

The TD’s responsibility is to direct the event, which begins with identifying all the players and their current rating prior to pairing of the first round and ends with the determination of prizes and preparation of the rating report.

A TD-for-hire may at that point turn the signed rating report over to the organizer (ie, affiliate) for submission to the USCF along with the appropriate ratings fee. I’ve also seen cases where the organizer writes a check for the rating fee (once the TD determines it), gives that check to the TD, and the TD mails in the report.

From the viewpoint of the office, they would MUCH RATHER that the rating report and any memberships from that event arrive together. In an online environment, that really means doing the memberships first, then using that information to complete the rating report.

50

If I can find a organizer like that, I only have to come 10 minutes before the first round to do the pairings. Then walk out the door after the last game. Most of the players would have been at the site longer them myself. It would be so nice just get a list of registered players, do the pairings and watch the games. If you can find me an organizer like that, I will pay the organizer $75 a day.

51

I’d have to agree that this is a counsel of perfection. In the majority of cases in my experience, the positions are combined in one person, either because the organizer got tired of paying the TD or the TD got fed up with the organizer. I agree with Mike’s description of the job functions, however.

52

Although I have done that many times before, that wasn’t what I meant. I was referring to the affiliate doing online memberships & ratings. I can see that being a nightmare. Right now I will take the entries, do the pairings, setup boards, supervise the floor, take care of the hit list, create a spread sheet with the entry & membership money, enter the new memberships, update the new memberships in WinTD & enter the results online. That’s enough. I may be anal but I’m not totally insane.

53

.

I think even in my utopian world the TD is going to have to be available several hours before the first round and is likely going to be one of the last ones to leave as well.

I don’t care how good the registration process is, the TD is going to want to review the list of players and ratings for accuracy before pairing the first round, not just upload a file into WinTD or Swis-Sys.

The organizer and the TD need to share the responsibility for identifying the players properly. That includes making sure they have the right IDs and the correct ratings for everyone.

Collecting dues should primarily be the organizer’s responsibility, though in many (if not most) cases the TD will be involved in that, if only as the means of contact, possibly handing out notes that say ‘PLEASE SEE TD/ORGANIZER BEFORE THE NEXT ROUND OR YOU WILL NOT BE PAIRED’.

I think the TD and the organizer usually need to work jointly on site setup issues, too.

But the BIG distinction between an organizer and a for-hire TD is that the organizer is the one taking the financial risk.

54

Rob, I think it really depends on the organizer. I know of one fairly large organizer who wants to take care of the memberships and paying for the rating report, but uses local TDs to run the events.

The TD/Affiliate Support Area currently gives the TD the ability to handle submitting and paying for both the memberships and the rating report.

Affiliates can also submit and pay for memberships, but except for authorizing a TD to use the affiliate’s ID the affilliate has NO role in the rating report process.

Based in part on discussion with people at SuperNationals (mostly in the TD room, where there were a lot of TDs who contract out their services to organizers), I am revising TD/A so that TDs can be authorized to handle all those tasks as they can now, or so that the TD can be authorized to upload and validate memberships and the rating report but not to submit or pay for them. The membership batches and validated rating report file would be turned over to the sponsoring affiliate for final submission and payment.

That’s still a bit tricky, since if the event involves any new memberships the new ID isn’t issued until the membership batch is submitted. That means the organizer needs to be able to enter those IDs into the rating report.

I’m also not sure exactly what to do if in the process of resolving membership issues the organizer discovers that an ID is wrong. Should the organizer be able to correct the ID or should the report have to go back to the TD for that?

55

As we previously discussed, once we can set up an affiliate account, that will make life a lot easier for us TD’s.

56

Okay, I would like to jump in on this, if I may, covering various aspects.

Back in the early 80’s when life was much simpler, I became a club TD. I held small events, enough so I could get an idea of what was involved. It gave me a chance to see if I would like to direct bigger events. I was also the organizer and affiliate for them.

My experience led me to decide I wasn’t cut out to be a local TD, but I had no trouble directing events at the club level. This was, of course, before there was any pairing software, so any problems I had as a club TD I knew would be worse directing bigger events. Fortunately, I had very few problems doing events of 50 or less.

I also organized and brought in a TD for events that I expected would draw more than 50. I did everything except direct, because that was what I expected to do as an organizer. I don’t know what Doug thinks an organizer or TD should be doing, but I had no illusions that as an organizer I was expected to have nothing to do with directing and everything to do with everything else.

I had one two-section event where I was both organizer and the TD for the section which was smaller, as prearranged with the other TD who directed the upper-rated player’s section. I lost some money on this, and ran into my first lesson about how to divide up prize money properly. I thought I had done it right, later found out I was wrong, and paid out more money to a player from my own pocket. It was only right to accept responsibility for my mistake.

But I didn’t want to become a local director, and that was the only option I had after my club TD expired. So I never applied and still don’t do it. I’m a volunteer who felt the USCF wouldn’t let me cater to a small group of people without having to take the test. Yes, I know I could still direct small events even with the local TD cert, but I just didn’t want to bother. Rfeditor asks if it is such a burden, and I’d say it must be if there are 3,000 former club TDs who didn’t go on to become locals.

One other thing about the club TD time limit. Unless a person is willing to run a lot of tournaments in that time frame, it’s unlikely he’s going to get the experience needed to move up anyway. I’d favor extending the time limit, since you get better the more you direct, and I’m willing to bet there are a lot of club TDs who simply don’t have the time or the money (to risk) to do that in a three-year period.

I will always give a TD two chances to run an event right. After that, I avoid his tournaments.

Radishes

57

I see many people come & go. I think some of the reason is due to scholastic events. If a parent gets a club card they can check on their kids games or maybe they just want to help while their waiting. Then their kid gets out of chess and so do they. That’s why the USCF owes it to the higher level TD’s to uphold the requirements and encourage them to increase their levels.

58

There has been a few times not as the organizer and director. If being the director only, the organizer has a number of job duties to perform.

  1. Find and pay for the site.
  2. Set up the rounds, time control.
  3. Set up the prize money and the cost of the entry fee.
  4. Take care of whatever advertisment the organizer wants.

When the day of the tournament happens, the organizers job is done. Will work within the round times and the time control. Will take in the money for the entry fee, then deal with the prize money in the last round. There should not be any problem with a category D event. Will work with the organizer with everything in the list. Will work with the organizer to set up the site. Even willing to have the organizer help in registeration if the organizer understands about registeration.

When the first rounds starts, if the organizer wants to help will tell the organizer to get back to the board. If the organizer starts to get in the way of myself as a director, will expell the organizer from the tournament. Think of it this way, before the day of the event I work for the organizer. The day of the tournament till the start of the first round, the organizer works for me.

When the first round starts, the organizer better be at his/her board. The organizer, if the organizer wants to play, is no better then anyone else in the tournament. If the organizer is a player, will treat the organizer as a player. As the organizer is a player, if the organizer gets in the way of myself as a director, will expell the organizer from the event.

59

I know of a few cases where the organizer fired the chief TD during the event, but they were all justifiable because the TD was NOT performing his duties properly.

I disagree that the organizer’s job stops when the first round starts. The organizer is still responsible for any non-chess issues that arise, such as problems with the site. (If the organizer is the one paying the site rental, he/she’s also the best one to deal with the site management.)

And the organizer writes the prize checks, not the TD.

60

But what does the USCF owe the volunteer TD who has a small group of members to draw from and wants to hold tournaments? There’s no sense in going for a higher level if you don’t have the numbers or the desire to hold bigger tournaments.

So in an area with a small number of USCF members, who would prefer having local tournaments instead of having to travel all over the place, they can expect to have rated events for only the next three years. The either someone else has to become a club TD or there’s nothing more for them. We’re talking grassroots directing here, nothing fancy and nothing elaborate. Yes, I know if the TD goes up to the next level there’s no reason he can’t direct the smaller tournaments, but if that’s all he wants to direct, thus avoiding the hassles of organizing a bigger one, then USCF gives him no choice.

I held two events, invitational only, in my basement for eight players. It was easy, fast, and fun.

Radishes