Can a Chief TD, Chief Assistant TD, and a D1 Floor TD all get credit for running a single Class D tournament so that the credits count for TD Promotion and TD Experience Completion?
The Tournament Director certification rules explain exactly what experience requirements are needed to upgrade to each level of TD, and where substitutions to those experience requirements can be used and how.
The current TD Certification Rules can be found on the US Chess TD page at Tournament Directors | US Chess.org
In terms of your question, yes, it is possible for multiple TDs to obtain TD experience credit from the same Category D event. Even if there is only one section, you theoretically have Overall Chief TD, Overall Chief Asst. TD, Section Chief TD, Section Chief Asst. TD and then just TD, all of which can be utilized somewhere along the lines to meet an experience requirement.
Chris, I realize that there are the approved allowances for what kinds of activity can be claimed for a tournament. It seems, though, that 3 tournament directors for 8 to 12 players may not be what was intended when the types of work were set. The ratios of 1 TD to 2 2/3 players or 1 TD to 4 players may be taking advantage of the allowances. I wanted to check with an experienced TD about what we are planning on doing.
I thought there was a rule or understanding that if more than one TD is using an event or a section for advancement credit then the number of players is divided by the number of TDs working that event or section who would be able to use it for advancement.
Is my memory failing or is that rule no longer in effect?
That is for co-chief. Chief and Chief assistant can use the same number because they are different roles.
Once you start working on Senior TD or higher, the number of players needed for a credit is generally 50+. Even for Local TD the total number of players for all tournaments still needs to add up to 50+ spread over three or four tournmaents.
From a practical standpoint one tournament of 8-10 players just means other tournaments need to be larger fpr advancement.
Also simple floor TD credit (usable only for activity only you reach Local) can be given to every certified TD working the event regardless of how many. Supernationals VIII had about 130 TDs with one chief, one chief assistant, 12 pairing chiefs, 15 section chiefs, 25 section chief assistants, 25 section floor TDs and about 50 other TDs as general assistant TDs (which is where the remaining divisional chiefs, divisional floor chiefs and backroom chief went).
PS MUIR allows putting more floor TDs as the section level.
Mike. . .in MUIR how do you recognize a TD that worked a tournament as a D1 Floor TD? Do you just recognize him as an Assistant? He could point out later that he served as a D1 Floor Tournament Director for promotion purposes.
MUIR does not track advancement specifics, neither did MSA. There is currently some discussion within TDAC about how the player count should be determined for advancement purposes.
There are multiple categories of TDs, some at the ‘tournament’ level and some at the ‘section’ level.
Chief Tournament TD
Assistant Chief Tournament TD
Assistant TD (with flags for pairing or floor duties, either, both or none)
Other TDs working the tournament
Section Chief TD
Assistant Section Chief TD
Section Assistant TD (with flags for pairing or floor duties, either, both or none)
Other TDs working the section (new in MUIR)
It is possible for a TD to have both tournament level and section level responsibilities. (At first MUIR was not always allowing this but I think all the individual work roles are now fully independent of each other.)
I haven’t checked, but it is probably possible to have multiple chief TDs or assistant chief TDs at either the tournament or section level. What that would mean is unclear and I don’t know how TDAC would utilize that in determining advancement credits.
There are also categories for tournament organizer and section organizer. These were initially intended for FIDE rated events, but seem to be used for non-FIDE rated events as well. Unlike FIDE, US Chess doesn’t currently recognize ‘organizer’ as a defined or certifiable role, because the affiliate is considered the organizer of the event and there must be an affiliate behind any rated event, although it is still technically possible for two players to play a rated match under the supervision of a certified TD and submit it for rating by supplying signed letters from all 3 individuals, though I’m not sure when that was last done. (The closest parallel to the US Chess affiliate role in FIDE is probably the National Federation submitting the event for rating.)
Our longstanding advice, especially for those looking to advance beyond senior TD, is to get a letter from the chief TD with details about the event and the specific responsibilities of that TD. Those looking to advance to local or senior TD might want to keep track of their directing record as well, especially because we’ve still got some data that hasn’t been fully transferred over from MSA to MUIR. Also, some TDs don’t put in all the TDs who worked at their event, so the MSA/MUIR records can be incomplete
Check Rule 11 of the TD certification rules:
The one situation I’ve seen in the past 20 years where co-chief TDs made sense to me was an event where TD A was available on Saturday but not on Sunday and TD B was available on Sunday but not on Saturday.
But what I was noting was that I don’t think MUIR is restricting an event from having more than one TD in any category. TDA/MSA did because it only had one field for the chief TD, one field for the assistant chief TD, etc.
Well, there seems to be only one data entry box for both the Chief and Chief Assistant from what I remember. But what is done in the Supernationals where you have 100 total TDs and you want each valid TD work to get credited? Can MUIR handle 100 TDs?
Mike, you typed that there were flags for recognizing Assistant TDs that do Floor or Pairing work separately. Are you saying that MUIR has a flagging procedure for that intent? This is D1 work under a D Class tournament.
Can a person practice entering in a tournament into MUIR by hand as long as the practice tournament is not validated or submitted?
Yes, SuperNationals VIII had 174 TD records for 138 different member IDs, as several TDs had more than one role.
I believe in the TD portal there are checkboxes for ‘pairing’ and ‘floor’ options for the assistant TDs and you can check none, one or both.
There may be only one box on the form for fields like chief TD, but the database table itself would probably support multiple chief TDs if there was a way to enter them. That might create display issues, though.
Mike, I did not receive an answer to this. Can a person practice entering in a tournament into MUIR by hand as long as the practice tournament is not validated or submitted?
The only thing that matters is submitting the event, you can create test events to your hearts content as long as you don’t submit them. Just remember to delete them so they don’t take up space. (We have something like 400 events in ‘editing’ state, and probably 3/4 of them haven’t been touched in several months, so they’ve been abandoned.)