I may need to split up 14 players of one section into two sections for a tournament. Is there such a tournament section called Unrated? I would only put unrated players in that section if I am allowed to have an Unrated section in a tournament.
It is not not super rare to see all unrated players in a section, but it usually will delay players getting a more accurate rating. It can also make it a bit awkward if you had one or two new adults and the rest kids. I prefer assigning ratings to unrateds for section placement even if it is aged based for kids – it may still come out to be all or most unrated in same section but a player who says they are 1900 lichess may only be 1400 uscf, but even the 1400 gets them out of a bottom section off all <1000 players.
Lots of unrated players – especially as adults is a group I would want to bend over backwards to make things good for their first tournament. free entry – extra rated games if their game get over quickly – nice to get 4 games in so the rating gets published.
Search unrated in the rule book to get more thoughts/procedures for unrated players.
Note that an unrated section is different from a non-rated section. An unrated section is for players that do not have a rating where you may not want them to play in under sections if there is a chance they are strong players that would just crush the opposition. A non-rated section is not submitted to US Chess to be rated and is an introductory section to get players to sample the tournament scene and later move to sections submitted for ratings. The organizers I know that introductory non-rated sections have pretty much all abandoned them (one exception is the non-rated section of the friends and family at the national scholastics where the first prize is a US Chess membership).
The national scholastics have unrated sections for the kids that do not have a rating and do not want to play in the championship section (only two options for unrated players).
An unrated section has players given initial age-based provisional ratings (with zero games so far) to have a starting point for calculating their first actual ratings.
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We a lot of non-USCF players in the area who play more socially on-line, at bars, libraries – I have gotten very few to spend for the membership, but $54 even if I give them a free entry isn’t enough. I would think about doing an adult NR section (I could even do it as a stand alone, but that sort of defeats them seeing the real tournament side) if I knew an easy way to get 8+ committed for a $10 EF. I have noticed that a lot of these younger adult players are not interested in slower chess – even G/60 is deadly slow to them. Of course, I still have vivid memories of players complaining that 40/90, 30/60 was too fast.
Years ago we offered length-of-tournament memberships with the fee based on the number of games that person played. These days it’d probably have to be something like $5-$10 a game for adults to keep it from affecting membership sales, and non-members can already buy a two-month membership for $20 through the tournament, which strike me as a better deal, except perhaps for a quad.
Any affiliate can run a primary JTP event for students who are in grade 3 and below, and the players do not have to be current members, though they do need a member ID.
I wish it were K-5 - that would open up so much more kick starting than the K-3 for very low cost (just rating fees and that is easy amount to get covered) tournaments at schools and being able to invite other nearby schools - already rated players from the area. It would also be great for libraries where I might be able to get a space for a small K-5 event - but they don’t allow collecting any money for the event or limiting participation to active USCF members.
The JTP program is one I’ve been reluctant to press for changes in, because I could easily see a Board looking for additional revenue sources say ‘eliminate JTP’.
If you’re not a Delegate, you could contact your state’s Delegate(s) and see if they’d support expanding the primary JTP range.
I learned this type of reality in the corporate $$ world the hard way.