If the tournament rating report validation code simply rejected any submitted tournament with too many players for the submitting TD’s level of certification, I bet this problem would sort itself out real fast.
As for the “insider TD” issue, how do people get to be insiders in the first place? Frequent, deep involvement. Which is exactly what you want to see in a high-level TD. Next thing you know, someone will be calling the TD level system “elitist.”
It may be a bit more complicated than that.
The submitting TD may not be the chief TD of the event. (This is often the case for national events, but it happens in smaller events as well.)
Is it only the chief TD for the tournament whose certification level needs to be high enough, what about section chiefs? What about the assistant chief TD for the tournament, or the assistant chief of a section? (All of the TDs listed for an event should be currently certified TDs, which is why we check that.)
We would probably also need to look at unique USCF IDs when counting players, not just at the number of pairing #s used, because of things like merged sections and re-entries.
Further, if someone runs several sections back to back, with many of the same players in each section (quite common in scholastic events, like quads), is it the total number of PLAYERS in the event or the total number of unique individuals in the event that is important?
The validation code could be reprogrammed as suggested above, but someone will need to decide what the rules really mean so that they can be enforced consistently, as well as how tolerant we want to be about events that cross over a threshold. (John Hillery once wrote that the USCF should be looking for ways to rate events, not for ways to NOT RATE them.)
Also, the rulebook says that TDs at a certain level should not direct events that are expected to draw over some limit. I know I’ve been involved in some events that drew many more players than we were expecting. At one of them there was a line of over 50 players waiting to register when I got to the site about 45 minutes before the first round. We had plenty of TDs on hand, but we needed to find space for additional boards–QUICK!
I would think that if there is at least one TD at the level required for the tournament then that should be OK even if a lower one is the chief. We certainly want directors to get experience and having a higher level TD there who should be able to help if the lower one has a problem could be educational for the lower one.
When I was moving up the TD ranks there were a number of times when I was chief of an event with higher-level TDs as assistants, and I’ve returned the favor to others when I can. A good tournament like that is one where two things happen: you aren’t asked for assistance for a ruling; and the rulings made show that you didn’t need to be asked for assistance (that’s not exactly the same as saying that the rulings made are the same as ones you would have made, just that the rulings made are valid and reasonable - there is a saying that a complex pairing situation could have 10 different NTDs resolve it in 10 different ways, with each of those 10 ways being valid).
I may have a sampling skewed by consisting of those dozens of TDs that I know or have worked with, but pretty much every NTD, ANTD and SrTD that I know has been quite willing to assist in the development of existing lower-certified TDs or non-TDs looking at becoming TDs. I sometimes think that, at the lunch area of a large national scholastic, the casual conversations and questions about ruling issues approach being roughly equivalent to a problem-solving TD workshop.
I agree with the desirability of getting TDs more experience, but that does complicate the task of enforcing the limitations on TDs, doesn’t it?
nolan wrote:
While it would be up to the TDCC, I would think that having a higher TD on staff even though not chief might be a legitimate exception to the strict enforcement provided that the higher TD is more than a figurehead. Recently SrTD Bob Messenger was chief TD while NTD Bill Goichberg and I were his assistants. While I can’t speak for Bob, I think he would be open to advice from either of us.
My observation is that there are far too many tournaments by the same organizers in which their chief and sometimes only certified TD might not be of a sufficient level.
jwiewel wrote:
I agree. Sometimes I feel like I’ve gained experience just from talking to other TDs including those below my certification level. If I feel another TD has a better way to handle a situation, then I try to keep that in mind for next time.
Surely you don’t socialize with the non-certified TDs??
To steal somebody else’s quote, I actually do have a life outside of chess. I even socialize with non-chess-players. That is true even in a chess-centric gathering. After all, the IL K-8 chess boom in the '80s had one of its major sparks coming from a spouse and parent of chess players that ddin’t know how to play chess but who knew how to organize an event, resulting in an inaugural school-based event that was solely K-8 and that is stil going on more than a quarter century later (also in the '90s successfully passing the torch for organizing the event). That event was the start of my club getting tapped to provide TDs for K-8 scholastics.
A number of organizers I’ve worked with are not, and never were, TDs.
If you are asking if I socialize with people that have TDed and are not certified, I do know a number of TDs who have let their certification lapse (some of whom I’ve been able to push to renew). I have also made the aquaintance of non-TDs that direct non-USCF-rated events. My son even won a trophy in one totally non-rated chess tournament (and in other ICCA-rated, but not USCF-rated events).