I’ve seen some clubs run USCF rated tournaments online (chess.com) for their club members. What is the process to doing one of these for youth? Could be very beneficial for kids with limited transportation in the summer months.
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Read Chapter 10 in your US Chess Official Rulebook. Play close attention to section 4 in that chapter about Tournament Directors responsibilities for anti-cheating measures, including the use of cameras.
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The USCF Members club on the website you mentioned holds USCF-rated tournaments on a consistent basis several times a week at various time controls ( USChess - Members Only - Chess Club - Chess.com ). I have been regularly attending their 30-minute five-round event held each fourth Saturday of the month and my understanding is that it is open to children as well, subject to the same restrictions as the overall website (which I believe is anyone 13 and older may have an account, and anyone under 13 may have an account so long as their parent/guardian approves and monitors it). All of the members who attend rated events in the club have their USCF membership verified. There is an open section and an under 1450 section which would suit many of the younger children. It is mixed event with many adults attending as well. If you are looking for a children-only online event, it might be worth looking into whether the “kid” version of their website Chess Kid (www.chesskid.com) offers that.
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Thank you! I’ll review the rulebook, but if I am a certified TD and have my own club on chess.com, wouldn’t I be able to run online tournaments on my own instead of joining another online club?
Do you have your own online server running? (It isn’t as easy to create and run one as it sounds, especially if you’re going to monitor for cheating incidents.)
@DrCheck I might be misreading the Rulebook, but I thought that running a club event on chess.com (with its FairPlay / Anti-Cheat systems…) was sufficient to satisfy 4B2 in that section. Please advise if that’s not accurate - I’ve run a couple of (very) small events for club members (all known IRL), and want to make sure I’m within the bounds. I thought this was what the (much larger) USChess club on chess.com relied on as well (played in some events there and was not asked to use a camera).
Thanks -
John (anyone know how to change an account handle here 
)
One of the tedious parts of this is getting the results back into a format that makes it easy to submit to USCF. I finished automating that process this morning so I don’t have to do it manually. There’s some documentation on how that works here if anyone is interested.
russellb do you need still need to have the SwissSys pairing software? I looked at the documentation you provided and it seems it does pairings as well.
If you’re running an online tournament on chess.com, then chess.com handles the pairings for you.
The relevant section of the USCF rules is this one, I believe:
8A. Pairing Method, Ratings Used and Tiebreaks.
Either the game service provider or the TD shall pair the players.
All games shall be paired in accordance with the Official Rules of
Chess or a close approximation of the rules, including FIDE’s pairing
rules. Chief TDs shall inform players in their pre-event publicity about
the pairing method, ratings and tiebreaks being used for the event
(e.g. generated by the service provider using the provider’s method,
or created by the TD according to the Official Rules of Chess).
The pairing support you saw in my docs is for running your own over-the-board tournaments. It’s not necessary for online events.
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Thank you! Yes, just wanted to clarify.
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Curious as why they need to be USCF rated? What value add is there over just a ChessKids tournament? This is what a local youth based group does – real easy and lot of great on-line learning for kids in addition to the tournaments. We have tons of USCF OTB for youth, but there are some where the CK’s OL suits their needs better or just as a supplement to the OTB.
That is a valid point and very true. I’m trying to gauge what’s best for a group of youth in general while also not having to get multiple systems involved. Our youth have chess.com memberships not chesskids for the most part. Thanks for the input.