I’m not sure I agree with the statement that we aren’t getting a lot of strong junior players.
The All American Team will be the largest team since this program was begun over 15 years ago, so much so that they’re thinking of raising the age-to-ratings based qualification criteria.
Nicholas Nip is poised to become the youngest Expert in USCF history, and he’s not the only promising young player out there.
A 14 year old senior master, Robert Hess, is #5 on the Under 21 list. Ray Robson is 12 and rated over 2200.
I’ve directed my share of both scholastic and open to all ages events. The scholastic events are far more challenging due to the added the player assistance needed and the much larger numbers involved. Some of the most interesting rules questions also arise from scholastic events. In comparison, open for all ages events are a walk in the park.
TDs going for the Senior level certification should have to do at least half of their qualifying tournaments at 50+ player scholastic events, and possibly even assist in a much larger one. Today there are probably a lot of Senior TDs out there that would have a lot of difficulty with a 250 player scholastic tournament.
Mike Swatek
Senior TD
ps, the section structure we’ve evolved to in Oklahoma for rated scholastic tournaments which are now routinely over 200 players is:
K-4 Under 500
K-6 under 700
K-12 Under 900
K-12 Under 1100
K-12 Premier
Note that the top section is not Open and we do not allow players to play up more than 100 points. So the floor in the Premier section is a 1000 rating.
No doubt they’re different, and each has its unique challenges.
No I don’t think we should require everyone, or everyone going for Senior TD, to direct scholastic tournaments. We should let people concentrate on what they want to do and are good at.
Mike Nolan has pointed out the small number of scholastic players and junior players with high ratings for their age group, even a high rating without looking at any age group too. Scholastic chess does produce over 4,000 USCF ratings at 100, with just a small group that breaks past the rating of 2000.
Maybe that could be one of the reasons why adults have mixed feelings with scholastic tournaments. It is that obsession with that rating, not the obsession that everyone gets from time to time to have a better rating; it’s the obsession with the rating from the USCF itself.
Everyone can talk about the very strong scholastic or junior players, than again everyone understands these strong players did not get their ratings with scholastic tournaments only. My point is the scholastic tournaments, the ones at the local level were the players or all the players are never going to become that expert or greater. At the best, some if they still want to play chess into adulthood will only become an amateur chess player. How many amateurs that are reading this text would have stayed with the USCF if your rating was so over analyzed when you were under the age of ten?
Since the USCF is so obsessed to produce strong players at a young age, if you are a amateur as an adult, would you feel irrelevant as a chessplayer if your under ten ratings became the standard of your worth?