Greater Greenwood Chess Players have been meeting about 5-6 weeks. Next step: local tournament play.
I understand Round-Robin/Quads are a good first tournament. So, once again, I come here to “the well of experience & knowledge” for general guidance, ideas & suggestions on what is done elsewhere. …then use or adapt it
Of the 35 Greenwood Players, a few active USCF members for rated play and several (non-USCF) scholastics.
EXPENSES: What are the associated expenses? What type of prizes and entry fees are typical for quads…and how dispersed. How is TD compensated?
RATING: If rated quad has all non-rated players, how is rating determined/calculated? Do scholastics & non-scholastics need separate tournaments?
TIME CONTROL & VENUE: Currently, meeting space is available to all players on Tuesday for 2 hours. During tournament, should tournament players be separated from non-tournament players i.e. quieter space or different day
Working to operate each smaller tournament as if a large one…with attention to detail, hospitality, and creating a tournament environment where players want to play…then prepare for a larger tournament next summer.
Perhaps someone knows of a good web site with info on organizing & operating a good first tournament
Congrats on “going for it” and organizing that first tournament.
I’ll chime in on the stuff I know about, and hope others answer your other questions.
I’m not so crazy about quads and round robins. If someone leaves a quad or a round robin – wants to take a bye, wants to drop out – the other players can’t easily complete their games. I found this out when I ran the unrated evening round-robin blitz tournament from h-ll. Everybody had fun, but the pairings got totally messed up. We find a one- or two-section swiss to be more flexible.
Scholastics and non-scholastics need not be separated. We find the best division is by ability rather than age. However, if most of your adult players can beat most of your scholastic players, you could do a scholastic section and an open section. Or divide sections by rating. Or, you can do a rated section and an unrated section, if you think you’ve got a bunch of players who want to try tournament play, but don’t want to join uscf just yet.
Most of our players would rather not play someone rated 500 points or more lower; they’d rather have challenging games each round.
If you only have two hours on a Tuesday, then you’ll have to get creative. Do you want to do one or two rounds a week for multiple weeks? Or do you want to do a very short time control?
Our space is available to us 9 to 5 on a Saturday. We can fit 4 rounds G/40 (dual rated) or 5 rounds g/29 (quick rated) in that amount of time.
Yes, you want to separate tournament space from non-tournament space. People playing tournament games want absolute quiet. Those who are “just playing” want to be able to chat and analyze. Having that skittles space helps a lot with hospitality.
Mike,
Get with me and Bill Taylor at the SC Open in Greenville next weekend. We’ve both started clubs in the past year and done what you’re trying to do so we should be able to help you out.
A 2-hour limit is going to be a major obstacle in running a tournament. The amount of time it takes to run quads can be expressed as:
T = 6G + 2B + R + S + I
where G is the game time limit (i.e., Game/n), B is the break time allowed between rounds, R is the time it takes to register everyone, S is the time it takes to seat everyone once they are registered, and I is the time it takes for the TD to give instructions to the participants. So if, for example, the games were designated as Game/30, a 5 minute break was allowed between rounds, it took 20 minutes to do the registration, 10 minutes to seat everyone, and 20 minutes for the TD to give instructions, the total time for the tournament would be 4 hours. You can play each round on a different day, but that may make the tournament less convenient and may increase the likelihood that not all players will show up for all of the rounds.
Registration is the process of verifying that everyone is a USCF member (or having them fill out a membership form and pay the required fee if they are not), recording everyone’s name and USCF ID#, verifying that memberships are still current (and collecting a renewal fee if not), and looking up each player’s current rating (or assigning a rating if a player is unrated). The quickest means of doing the lookup is usually by using the “Player/Rating Lookup” feature on this website, but this obviously requires having a computer available with an internet connection. Otherwise, you must look up players in the most recent ratings supplement(s). And, no, the “s” is not a mistake! Composite supplements are only issued in December and June. The supplements issued in between only record changes from the previous month’s rating supplement. So it is possible (depending on when the tournament is held) that you might have to search several monthly supplements to determine a player’s current rating. The lookup process should be faster if you are doing it on a computer using supplements that have been downloaded to CD, rather than using a printed listing.
The seating process for quads isn’t all that difficult. If you record the registrants on file cards, for example, and order the cards by rating as you put them in the deck, all you will need to do is put the first four at the first table, the second four at the second table, and so on. But you will need to work out what you are going to do if the number of participants isn’t evenly divisible by 4 (see rule 30G).
How many instructions need to be given may depend upon the playing level of the players. Veteran players may already be fairly familiar with the rules of tournament play, but inexperienced players may not be.
Break times should be adequate to allow players to use the toilet, if needed, between rounds.
Expenses you may incur include:
The tournament site (if you are being charged for it).
Ads in Chess Life. (Be aware that significant lead time is required for the placement of ads. The deadline is July 10th for the placement of an ad that is to run in the September issue of Chess Life.)
Prizes. Are you going to give out medals? Trophies? Cash prizes? If you want to know what’s typical, try browsing the “Upcoming Tourneys” section of this website. But it may be at least as important to find out what your club members would like to see and how much of an entry fee they are willing to pay to get it. Also, what are you going to do in the event of a tie? Are you going to try to have a playoff? Or are you going to award medals or trophies to all those who are tied, or split cash prizes among those who are tied? (Keep in mind that ties can easily be 3-way: e.g., players A, B, and C all beat player D, and A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A.)
Having the tournament rated. (Keep in mind that tournaments with time controls of Game/30 through Game/60 must be both regular and quick rated, which will cost a little extra.) You don’t need to worry, by the way, about how players in non-rated quads will be rated. The USCF is quite capable of taking care of that!
Refreshments (if you choose to provide them).
Whether the TD will cost money may depend on whether your club has a TD or whether you must hire one from outside.
Whether you need a separate tournament for scholastics really depends on their age and playing level. Young children may not be comfortable playing against adults, but if you have scholastics who are regularly playing against adults at your regular club meetings, they will probably also be comfortable playing against them in tournaments.
If you only have two hours, you probably have two choices for rated events:
Run a Game/10 or Game/15 event (quick rated.) You could run a 5 round G/10 event in 2 hours, especially if you use a computer to do the pairings.
Run a slower event that extends over multiple weeks, one round per night. You could run dual-rated Game/45 events, for example. It’d be cutting things really close to run two G/30 rounds in a night.
I have a few of comments about supplements when running a USCF rated tournament.
A golden supplement has been made available each month. It is much larger to download than the other supplements but it has every player in it (as of when the supplement was created), including those who have never had any activity. The other supplements only have players who had activity during the dates the supplement covers.
There might be mistakes when referencing only a supplement rather than a player’s membership card or magazine. Last names like Smith and Wang have numerous entries for some of the common first names, with many states having multiple entries for a single first name (and initial). It’s easy to select the wrong one.
Since a supplement has a cut-off date/time, the supplement you have may not reflect recent renewals or new memberships, potentially erroneously indicating that a membership is required when it has already been paid for. If you have internet access then you can double-check to see if a recent membership payment has been made. Otherwise you would need to do one of the following.
3a) Have the player give you the payment for another year of membership so that you can do the renewal after the tournament. You can check then to see if a renewal really was needed. If it is a check or credit card payment (AND the player wanted to renew only if it was necessary) then you can tear it up (informing the player) if they were already fine on the website. If it was cash and you would see the player again then you can return the cash instead of doing an unwanted renewal.
3b) Have the player give you a tournament membership payment. If the player was already a member then handle the return of funds as in 3a.
3c) Trust that the player will do a renewal if it is necessary. This is NOT what I would recommend. Be prepared to pay for a tournament membership if the player refuses to renew.
3d) Refuse to register the player unless they can prove membership or will pay for a membership.
For us pairings/walk-in registration (on WinTD) usually take an extra 10 minutes–we typically post pairings at 9:40 for a 9:30 start time. Takes people about five minutes to find their boards, and five minutes for TD to give instructions to the players at a small, mostly adult tournament; maybe 7 minutes for a scholastic group–the kids want to start playing and won’t listen past five minutes anyway.
If your time control is long enough, people take bathroom breaks during rounds, or they will sit down to their rounds a bit late.
On an all-day event, I add in about 20 to 30 minutes between rounds 2/3 so people can go to nearby fast food joints and grab lunch. Since most boards finish early, most players get at least 40 minutes for lunch. It’s occurred to us to cater in lunch (collect $5 to $7 during registration then order in sandwiches and drinks), but we’ve not tried that yet.
Everybody had fun, but the pairings got totally messed up. We find a one- or two-section swiss to be more flexible.