I think there may be a wording problem in the Senior TD requirements regarding the C1/C2 substitution.
§18 defines C1 and C2 as Category C tournaments with restricted TD duties—C1 being floor-only and C2 being backroom/pairing-only.
But §30(b4) says:
“Satisfactory performance as a Chief TD or chief assistant TD at any combination of two Regular rated or Dual rated Category C1 or C2 tournaments.”
That seems contradictory. If you’re the Chief TD or Chief Assistant, you’re presumably performing the full duties of a Category C assignment, not a restricted C1/C2 assignment.
Wouldn’t the intent make more sense if b4 simply required two C1 or C2 tournaments, without requiring you to be Chief or Chief Assistant?
I would suggest rewriting b4 as:
“Satisfactory performance at any combination of two Regular rated or Dual rated Category C1 or C2 tournaments. The two Category C1 or C2 tournaments together count as one TD credit. This type of TD credit can be used as a substitute only twice, replacing only two of the four Category C tournament requirements in (a3).”
That seems to preserve the apparent intent: regular Category C experience gets full credit, while two restricted C1/C2 assignments can substitute for one Category C credit.
This is a rarely needed substitution that only comes into play if somebody is a section chief or section chief assistant at one event with no pairing input and a chief assistant backroom chief or section pairing chief with no floor rulings at another event. This will generally only happen at larger tournaments where the pairing and floor functions are quite segregated, maybe to the point that only the overall chief gets involved with both functions. At the US Open as the overall chief this year and the floor chief in 2023 I had very little pairing input that was primarily limited to double-checking latter round top score groups and resolving appeals of pairings (barring game result entry errors it is virtually always denied with the pairing rules explanation of why the pairing was correct).
At multi-section nationals it is common for the section’s chief assistant to have no pairing input and the section pairing chief to have no floor duties, and the section chief might not have any pairing input either. In those cases section chief or section chief assistant cannot truly be said to have performed the duties needed to count the event as a category C (as opposed to either C1 or C2).
At the US Chess run scholastic nationals it is common for the section chief assistants to already be Senior TDs but that is not true for all nationals or for other large events where the floor and pairing duties are segregated.
Thanks, Jeff. I think I’m getting closer to understanding what you’re saying, but there’s one piece I’m still having trouble connecting to the wording of the rules.
For example, if I were the section chief of a 70-player section, and my duties were primarily or entirely on the floor with no pairing responsibilities, would that section still be considered a regular Category C tournament under §18, or would my experience as the section chief be considered C1 experience?
I think that’s the distinction I’m having trouble understanding. I can certainly see how someone could perform only C1-type duties while serving as section chief, but I’m not sure what in the current definition causes that to become a Category C1 tournament rather than a Category C tournament where the chief happened not to handle pairings.
I’m probably missing something in how the categories are intended to be applied to an individual’s experience, so I’m curious how you interpret that part.
The difference is explained below. The duties are reported during the submission process. As a practical matter, most large tournament section chief assistants are only doing floor duties (some are only doing pairing duties) but the submitting TD rarely limits their reported duties to that. I cannot remember the last time I saw a section chief assistant at a large tournament doing both pairing and floor duties unless it was an already higher certified TD cross-pairing the byes from multiple sections. Note that a backroom TD doing manual pairings (no computer) is not limited to C2 and can claim C (most pairing TDs that only use computers are less knowledgeable than those than can do manual pairings - I’ve explained the validity of pairings to players using knowledge that my ANTD/NTD pairing TDs did not have because they have always used a computer to pair).
Certification Rules
Subcategory C1: A Category C tournament, or any one section considered as a stand-alone event, of any tournament, that by itself meets the Category C requirements, where the TD is limited to solving problems and making rulings on the floor only (floor TD) for the entire tournament or any one section, of any tournament, that by itself meets the Category C requirements.
Subcategory C2: A Category C tournament, or any one section considered as a stand-alone event, of any tournament, that by itself meets the Category C requirements, where the TD is limited to the duties of pairings in a backroom capacity using a pairing program (backroom TD) for the entire tournament
The entire tournament director certification rules document should be rewritten. It’s currently is written in a way that is incredibly difficult to decipher.
A much simpler Senior TD qualification rule would be to change 32 to have
a1 Chief of 5 category C tournaments (not sections, entire tournaments)
a2 Chief or chief assistant of another five Category C tournaments (not sections)
Then eliminate a3, b and c entirely. d then becomes b, e is removed and f becomes c.
Much simpler. Much harder to achieve.
Some of the complexity revolves around making it easier to move up the TD ranks.
An alternative is to have the expiration of each certification level automatically move you to the next one up (3 years as Club makes you Local, 4 years as Local makes you Senior, 5 years as Senior makes you ANTD, 6 years as ANTD makes you NTD - 18 years after becoming a Club TD). That would delay many that move up (no more NTDs still in their teenage years) and would also make a lot of TDs that are incompetent for their level, but it would be a simpler certification rule.
Complexity also comes in trying to make sure people are qualified for their level.
That is competing complexities between making it easier to move up running up against making sure people are qualified before moving up.
PS the certification rules have been made shorter and simpler over the past two decades.
Christina did a very good job in cutting to the core of the requirements. She also said in the document that not all of the details were covered, more or less a given for a simplified explanation. She took the initiative to provide the document as a prototype of what might be done and upon review it looked good enough to simply take as is and assign her the very well deserved credit for doing it.
I agree that the document cuts to the core of the requirements and is worth reading; my point is that a simplified document will necessarily be inaccurate in at least some regards because the rules are complicated.
Category T.
A US Chess-rated team-vs.-team, or individual/team, Swiss system tournament involving at least fifty players and having at least four rounds.
(emphasis mine)
A team vs team tournament is way more complicated than individual/team. That seems to be dumbing down the requirement for NTD. Is there anyone going for NTD who has not done one of the National Scholastics (which would qualify as a T under the individual/team clause)?
The change to insert “or scholastic individual-team” was made prior to 2014; it is in the 6th edition copy I bought around 2018. The change to delete “scholastic” and leave “or individual-team” was made prior to 2019; it is in the earlier 7th edition copy I have.
If memory serves it was some time between 2006 and 2010 that individual/team was added, requiring at least 50 players and at least 12 teams of at least 4 players. Later the Armed Forces individual/team was brought up that nad more than 50 players but only 4 teams, so the number of teams and number of players per team were eliminated.
Prior to the change there was a fair amount of pushback that the decline of fixed board team eents meant that the USATs were becoming a gateway and it had to be either a smaller USAT an ANTD could do or a larger USAT with multiple sections.
Personally I did it in the '80s with fixed board 16-20 team 8-player per team high school tournaments but that was not available to most people.
Over the years there has been significant pressure, and sometimes passed delegates’ motions, to reduce the requirements for NTD.
The one time the Delegates two years in a row asked TDCC to add a practical experience requirement (because NTD was becoming too easy to achieve - for subjective definitions of easy) the TDCC eventual response was to require either 6 months as an ANTD or a good review from a US Chess run national event. The delegates that year rejected that response to their repeated request and approved the round robin change that now allows becoming an NTD without ever being in a position to make rulings in a tournament or section of a tournament with anybody rated over 1500.
Another change made after the turn of the century was to count section chief of a large enough section to serve as credit as the chief of a tournament that size. Prior to that only overall chief or overall chief assistant would count for any of the non-substitutable requirements that served as a bit of a roadblock where areas with NTDs and ANTDs available would not want to hire Senior level or Local level TDs as a chief TD - essentially locking them out of gaining the requisite credits unless they were able to convince an organizer to hire them (or organized an event themselves).
Removing all of the verbiage about a section serving as a tournament in its own right would streamline the certification rules and make them simpler to write, but the side effect of that call for simplicity may not be what the requesters want..
PS The easiest option for those delegates who want NTDs to have practical experience would be to pass a motion to remove the option to treat a section as the equivalent of an entire tournament and only have sections mean anything in the substitution options. Personally I think that would be too restrictive but that is not my call if the delgates act.
Personally I would like to see something akin to the new FIDE Category upgrade system. You first have to meet some requirements, pass a test and become a Local TD. Then as a Local TD you have to meet some requirements, pass a test and become a Senior TD. Then as a Senior TD you have to meet some requirements, pass a test and become an ANTD. Then as an ANTD you have to meet some requirements, pass a test and become an NTD. No more skipping levels but the requirements between each one can be made much simpler and less as the previous requirements for all levels have already been met.
I would also personally like to see the level to try to get a FIDE National Arbiter license reduced from Senior TD. This is very inhibiting to our FIDE rated events world, especially for those that want to run such events but do not get club nights with at least 50 players. Something akin to Local TD with some interim experience requirements for FIDE NA, then you must get to Senior TD before you will be approved to have a FIDE FA title application submitted. This would allow our TDs to start working their way up the FIDE arbiter chain much quicker than they can right now and we’re falling behind the rest of the arbiter world in this regard.
I would not expect these forums to be the most supportive of lowering TD / Arbiter requirements; the delegates have consistently been more supportive than here, however, so you might get there with an ADM or two.
The first part would be great. We would love to have more of our events be FIDE rated, but there are literally now 3 Arbiters in the state (up from 0 at the beginning of 2024) and all of them travel on a relatively recent basis, so having club nights be FIDE rated is impractical.
However, with 3 NAs in the state and 0 FA/IAs (0 ANTD/NTDs, in fact), getting a FIDE FA norm remains a significant commitment.
As long as we are in the open forum I may as well say that a big reason that Senior TD is needed to become an NA (and before NA existed it was still needed to run a FIDE event) is that TD mistakes by lower certified TDs had led to severe issues with FIDE to the extent that many of our events were being scrutinized for any potential issues just because they were being submitted by US Chess. For decades TDCC generally ramped up the severity of any complaint that involved a FIDE rated event and increased any penalty if one was assessed. It took a long time of strict enforcement to reach the point where US Chess submitted FIDE event get only some additional scrutiny from FIDE. My guess is that if US Chess ever allowed Local TDs to become NAs then the chief arbiter would still need to be at least Senior (and also an NA) just to minimize the risk of returning to US Chess run events being heavily questioned by FIDE.
From my experience the quality of Local Level Directors wildly varies and most of them I would consider be quite informal directors. Of course, there are some that would make fine NA so the idea of Local+some experience that can be verified and maybe recommendation by trusted source. It has to be something above the just Local Level which is just too easy to obtain.
Since I have been asked about running FIDE, I did run some queries of how many of the NC players who are have FIDE Ratings between 1400-1799 vs no fide but USCF 1400-1799 and it was like a 3 to 1 ratio (higher if local since Charlotte does run some FIDE for that range) so the only thing that might work is giving those with a rating a FREE entry incentive, but that means the EF needs to be higher for those newbies. Also, if I do 4 rounds G/55;+5 that becomes a long chess day which is not good for a lot of players these days.