Here’s a pet peeve of mine…In the old days, you found your board, set up and started your clock at the scheduled time. Now this seems to be the norm: The pairings are up 5 minutes before the round starts, I find my board, set up and I’m ready to play by the scheduled start time. But now the tournament director has to make 10 minutes of announcements covering: the next round start time, the time control, how to set your digital clock, how to set your analog clock, rules around cell phones, rules around analyzing after the game, how to request a bye, how to drop out, etc, etc, etc… before every round.
First, all of that information is posted throughout the tournament site. Second, if people haven’t read the rules (by round 4!), are they really going to be listening to this speech? I find the whole thing distracting and a waste of my time after I’ve made the effort to be ready to play on time.
I think Directors should be limited to 1 minute of talking before the round.
Every director is different. Experience and tournament attendance play a role. There are still plenty who post pairings 15-30 minutes before the round.
This all takes 10 minutes? At most 2 minutes if the TD has practiced his skit. Announcements before the first and last rounds could be a little longer.
If a player doesn’t forfeit the next round because he was reminded of the different round time;
if a player, or more especially, if a spectator, turns off his/her cell phone so it doesn’t ring while someone is trying to concentrate;
if a digital clock which has been incorrectly set, based on the previous round’s time control, is corrected to the actual time control in effect for the current round (in the old days there was probably just one schedule and one time control for everyone, but in many tournaments these days there are multiple schedules with different time controls, and someone who played in an accelerated schedule with a faster time control in the first four rounds might have forgotten to reset his clock to the correct time control for the slow round);
if a player is reminded that this is the last chance to request a half-point bye for the last round, maybe two days hence, and is thus not forced to get a 0-point bye in the last round because he forgot to ask for a half-point bye when the deadline came after a long and intense previous game;
if a player is prevented from having to wait for an hour and then having to chalk up a forfeit win on the morning of the last day, when all he really wanted, instead of dropping out himself because he was not in prize contention, was to show up at the board in the morning and just play an interesting game against a real opponent, not a gift of a free point because his opponent forgot to withdraw (or maybe his opponent happened to be a new player, who had never even thought about the proper way to withdraw from a tournament before, and not someone with the benefit of the experience gained by playing in many tournaments);
etc., etd., etc…;
If all of those things were realized, or if some of them were realized, or even if only one of them were realized, could that not be considered a beneficial use of up to ten minutes?
Ideally, people should not ever have to be reminded of things which are listed right in the rules. But sometimes, people being human, they forget.
Especially if even one forfeit is prevented because a player was reminded to withdraw in the correct manner, or because the player was reminded that the morning round on the last day is an hour earlier than the morning rounds of the previous two days, maybe someone who would have otherwise been paired against you the next round, wouldn’t you consider, maybe in retrospect, that that had been a few minutes well spent after all?
HAH!! I remember the good ole’ days of Dick Verber having players stop the clocks 10 mins into the round for 15 minutes of announcements… 
And here’s one of mine… organizers and directors who assume everyone already knows everything.
That’s particularly frustrating and unhelpful to those who are new to tournament chess and could use the extra information. (We are trying to encourage newcomers, right?)
And it can cause problems when even experienced players assume they know things that just aren’t so. The way things are done at one event isn’t always just like the next one. And rule changes take longer than we’d like to believe to really filter down and settle into everyone’s awareness.
Some people actually read that stuff. In my experience, most don’t. Or they do, but for whatever reason, don’t retain the info.
I agree announcements should get shorter as rounds progress. But I’d rather risk wasting a few minutes to remind folks of a few things they already knew, than to skip it and have something unfortunate happen that could have been prevented.
I should add that Mr. Immitt’s announcements tend to be clear and concise, not too surprising after running (at least) 2800 rated tournaments. I doubt he ever takes more than a minute or two, except possibly the first round and the merge round.
Most chess players would doze off in 10 minutes … unless the director was introducing an (ex-)world champion or a pretty woman.
Michael Aigner
The best time to remind players to ask for a future bye is just before the deadline for requesting. If the deadline for round 5 is before the start of round 3, then at the start of round 3 you can announce “if anybody wants a bye in round 5, request it now, before you push your first pawn or horse your first knight”.
Bill Smythe
Just to be clear, I wasn’t singling out any specific director. This is just something I’ve noticed over the past few years in different venues. I’ve played in many tournaments directed by Mr. Immitt and I can attest to the fact that they’re run smoothly, which is no easy feat when you consider the number of sections, all with multiple schedules merging at different times.
If the announcements were a minute or two, I wouldn’t have any problem. I just think the announcement could be as short as the following: “This is round 4. The time control is 40 moves in 2 hours and sudden death in one additional hour. The next round starts at 6:00 tonight. When your game has completed, please leave quietly, do not analyze at the board, and post your results. Turn off your cell phones. Start your clocks.” Anything more than that is unnecessary. I also still believe that the people who don’t read the notices aren’t listening either.
I’m just saying…
For the local scholastics the following are some of what is added to the round one announcements:
- No parents/coaches/finished players in the playing room
- ASAP schedule
- Swiss system - so losses do not eliminate players
- Doublecheck crosstables for team codes, grades, results
- Two players agree on a result before reporting it
- Call TD if there are any problems or any questions about “rules” being invoked
- Normal rules of chess used (include the three parts of touch move)
8 ) estimated completion time by section, labeled as being very rough guesses - Ties for trophies will be broken by tiebreak (possibly with a perfect-score blitz playoff if there are sections where there might be multiple perfect scores) - All tiebreak systems are unfair, and the ones used are designed by be unfair in a blindly unbiased manner
- Where the batchrooms are
Notice of withdrawals was mentioned earlier
Rounds two and later in local scholastics are limited more to “you may now start” and eventually “one more round after this one finishes” or “final round for the section”
Before every round of our chess league, I make a series of announcements. We meet one Sunday a month. There are always new players coming in and joining the league; some are even new to tournament play. We also make announcements for upcoming tournaments as a favor to clubs and organizers. Occasionally, we have to make an announcement per the university’s request. I also take questions - there are usually one or two about USCF rules or league rules. It takes about 3 to 5 minutes to remind every one, inform the new players, and tell everyone to turn off their phones - about a quarter of the players immediately go to their pockets to get out the phones to turn them off. Then I wish them luck, or say “Good hunting,” and start the round.
The Detroit Metro Chess League did this one hour into the round.
Many of us would get up to take advantage of the break, get coffee, etc.
For scholastic tournaments, I buy extra ‘generic’ first place trophies. By generic, I mean exactly the same as the regular first place trophy but without any section information.
In case of a tie in for first place in a section, all first place players receive a first place trophy with the player with the best tie-breaks receiving the first place trophy with the section info and other first place winners receiving ‘generic’ first place trophies. Then the rest of the trophies (2nd place on down) are awarded by score and then tie break order. Everyone is happy!
I normally give 10 trophies per section so if I have a three way tie for first, players 1-3 receive first place trophies and players 4-12 receive 2nd through 10th place trophies.
Unused ‘generic’ first place trophies are replated and recycled to the next scholastic tournament.
Or back in the day when he was running tournaments in the south loop (the Chicago Chess Club was on the second floor literally next to the EL, remember??) you could almost run over to Tad’s Steak House and get a steak before the announcements were done… 
And just to let everyone know I’m not just picking on directors who make announcements…In the 80’s, I quit playing locally because the director would show up at the playing site 20 minutes after the round was supposed to start, and then start doing the pairings (while talking to people). So maybe the pre-round announcements aren’t that bad after all.
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10 minutes X 100 players = 1000 playerMinutes = 16.7 playerHours; per round.
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You should add a pet peeve that many TDs and players have: players ten minutes after the start of the round still talking, laughing, dumping triple weighted pieces onto the table, walking around, talking on phones, and calling out to friends, rather than being prompt and starting their games on time. They disturb the players who have already started their games.