I am wanting to be the Chief TD of a 8 to 12 player tournament. Is it expected by the TDAC that I run the tournament by myself? At most I am expecting 12 players. I am personally asking for no more than 12 by name. Is it wrong for me to have a Chief Assistant TD along with me?
I don’t think there’s a rule. I think you can run a tournament with 12 players as chief and have 5 assistant TDs listed on the report and no rules are being broken (assuming these 5 TDs really were present and assisted).
Alex. . .rules would not be broken, but would the Assistant TD deserve credit for helping or would I deserve credit for being a Chief TD if both of us ran this small of a tournament as far as the TDAC is concerned?
It never is a bad idea to have another TD around, if nothing else it gives the chief TD someone to talk to during rounds and someone to watch the TD room when taking a break.
In a small event, the assistant TD isn’t likely to earn credits towards advancement, but as noted in another recent thread, the requirement for automatic renewal of certification is serving as the chief TD for the required number of events, and there is no size restriction mentioned, so if the TD needs to direct 3 events, they could all be single-section quads.
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Note there is no requirement to be Chief or Chief Assistant TD at an event for it to count towards meeting your activity requirement for automatic renewal of your TD certification. This was changed from 2025 to just be “a TD”.
The whole system of who works as a TD at an event and who gets listed in the appropriate place is basically on the honor system of the Chief TD or the person who submits the rating report on their behalf.
TDs should be listed in the position they performed during the event. If you are the Chief TD, then you should be listed as Chief TD and receive credit as appropriate. If you have a Chief Assistant TD, then list them as the Chief Assistant TD. If they just worked more as an “Assistant” to just help with certain aspects, then list them as an Assistant for the event.
The same applies to tournaments big enough to be run as multiple sections. The assumption will be that everyone is listed in the correct place as to what work they were doing as a TD, either for all sections in the overall TD areas or as section TDs within those sections.
There is no limit to the number of assistants you can have working an event, but if you are found to be listing TDs who did not work events, or TDs in positions they did not do, or even TDs in positions their level of certification really means they should not be working, there is always the possibility of there being repercussions for those decisions if there are issues.
Chris. . .I should have originally posted the helper would be a Chief Assistant TD.
I’m not sure the title of the non-chief TD matters when it comes to receiving directing credits.
Chris. . .So you seem to be saying that I can be an Assistant Chief Tournament Director for a 12 player tournament, and an Assistant Chief Tournament Director for a 17 player tournament and an Assistant Chief Tournament Director for a 29 player tournament and after completing the three jobs, I would be able to take the test to advance to Local TD? Is that an accurate conclusion?
Nothing of the sort. I’m not sure how you make the leap from me talking about meeting the activity requirements for automatic renewal of a TD certification to upgrading a TD certification.
Every upgrade, including that of Club TD to Local TD, requires you to be a Chief TD of an event or section at some point.
Yes, it does. There are numerous experience requirements, or substitutions to the main experience requirements, that require you to be either Chief TD or Chief Assistant TD of an event or section.
Chris. . .So it matters to be Chief or Chief Assistant when advancing to a higher TD level, but it doesn’t matter when you want to maintain a level of TD certification? Additionally, it seems that a Chief AssistantTD can get credit as such even when the total players in the tournament are 12?
That might be a hole worth closing, if TDAC is interested. Maybe only a tournament larger than some number of players should have/need a chief assistant TD.
It doesn’t seem like a significant issue as, after the Club to Local transition, the “Chief TD” or “Chief Assistant TD” requirements also have “of Class C” or “Class B” or whatever, imposing the tournament size that way.
I guess your idea of significant and mine differ, and that’s just something we’ll both have to live with.
I completely disagree. I regularly oversee events with 10 players that I need and have a Chief Assistant at. In time trouble situations, even with as little as 5 games it can be difficult to watch all of them at the same time. And being a TD isn’t just about watching the games, there might be spectators to watch, computer work to be done such as results to enter in real time, nature calls, etc. It is always good to have at least one TD available to the players at all times.
I’m not going to list everything that is in the TD Certification Rules, you can read those for yourself.
However, I will cover something you’re potentially missing, and a lot of TDs miss, in regards to upgrading from Club TD to Local TD in that quads do not work for the purpose of meeting the “Category D” tournament requirement.
Category D is defined as an over-the-board SWISS tournament, having at least three rounds. Quads are not Swiss tournaments, they are 4-player round robins. So if you have a tournament that is three quads and totals 12 players, this will not meet the definition of a Category D tournament as defined in the experience requirements needed to qualify to upgrade to Local TD.
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I totally agree with having more than one TD, even at very small events, what I’m less sure about is how much advancement credit that is worth.
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But my particular windmill when it comes to TD training and advancement is that I think we do it all wrong.
I would like to agree with you here a) generally and b) with the idea of a bank of training questions that TDs could use for self-study.
I don’t know that TDAC or US Chess senior staff are interested in that, though.