Helpful USCF website

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I directed a USCF rated tournament yesterday.

During the hectic registration, a player needed to renew his USCF membership.

I wanted to show him, and also all of the other players, a printed chart showing the many options (such as 1 yr vs. multiple, reg. vs premium, the costs for different age groups, etc.)

That info is sometimes printed in the paper magazine, but not every issue, and paper is so 20th century, so I went to the USCF website first, because that would be quick and easy.

For an obvious first step, I went to uschess.org/

Knowing that a person can join or renew through the webstore, I clicked on “shop USCF sales” in the column of options, which took me to uscfsales.com/

Near the bottom of that page, there is a link that says “Join the USCF”. You can see those words, but there is a partly transparent element over that area at the bottom of the page that reads “Sign up for exclusive deals and offers”. No matter how I tried to access that “Join the USCF” link, I was prevented because the “Sign up for exclusive deals and offers” thing would open a new field over the current page, with places to enter ID and e-mail info to, well, “Sign up for exclusive deals and offers”.

It was extremely frustrating.

2

From the main USCF page. Right near the top right, just below the flowing advertising banner, click join/renew.
Then choose the
If you have problems or if you want to skip the questions and go straight to the membership webstore, click here.

That’s all there is to it.

3

Show your players this list of membership rates and benefits I put together, pdxchess.org/wp-content/uploads/ … nefits.pdf. It’s more complete and clear than anything on the USCF website. It has all the membership options except the group and prison memberships which don’t apply to my club.