2000+!!

Running Chess Tournaments
1

According to MSA records, as of this past Sunday, March 18th, the Chess Center of New York has organized over 2,000 tournaments since November, 1991: uschess.org/msa/AffDtlTnmtHst.php?A6004530

This past Thursday Night’s March 15th edition of the “Four Rated Games Tonight!” tournament (“Score One For Thursday Night Action!”) commemorated 20 years of running our weekly Thursday Night Action tournaments (Sudden Death time controls were first approved by the Delegates to be USCF-rated beginning in 1987).

I believe that the Manhattan Chess Club is the only other USCF Affiliate which has organized over 2,000 tournaments.

CORRECTION: Sorry I failed to include the Atlanta Chess Center either, which appears to be the King of Activity with over 3,000 events!! Also, the Chess Castle of Minnesota has over 2,050 events as well. I apologize for the omissions.

2

2000 events is a MAJOR milestone indeed. Congratulations Steve. But there are a few other very active affiliates out there.

MSA records aren’t 100% accurate for event counts, because prior to the new ratings programming if an event was dual rated it was usually issued two separate event IDs, one for the ‘regular’ event, one for the ‘quick’ event. Counting events by unique starting and ending dates appears to eliminate most of the dual rated events, though if there were two independent events on the same dates it would consider them as just one event, so I suspect the ‘true’ number is somewhere between those two.

With that in mind, here are the top 10 affiliates since late 1991 based on starting/ending dates and event IDs:

[code]affil name dates event IDs

A6010817 THE ATLANTA CHESS & GAME CNTR 2926 3049
A5002419 MANHATTAN CHESS CLUB 2428 2909
A5023921 CHESS CASTLE OF MINNESOTA 1979 2051
A5011493 DALLAS CHESS CLUB 1663 1851
A6011821 CHESS EMPORIUM 1663 2151
A6010042 CHESS PALACE 1576 1596
A6010939 HOUSTON CHESS CLUB 1556 1616
A5002346 MARSHALL CHESS CLUB 1541 1823
A6004530 CHESS CENTER OF NEW YORK 1469 2001
A6009315 ROCHESTER CHESS CENTER 1302 1775[/code]

The Manhattan Chess Club and Chess Emporium both appear to be inactive, the last Manhattan Chess Club event was in November of 2001, the last Chess Emporium event was in September of 2006. I know the Manhattan Chess Club closed, I don’t know what’s going on in Arizona with Chess Emporium.

However, here’s another way of looking at the data. This shows the number of events run by affiliates that have attracted at least one established master:

[code]affil name dates event IDs

A6004530 CHESS CENTER OF NEW YORK 1274 1505
A5002419 MANHATTAN CHESS CLUB 1226 1272
A6009315 ROCHESTER CHESS CENTER 1106 1119
A5002346 MARSHALL CHESS CLUB 1007 1245
A5023921 CHESS CASTLE OF MINNESOTA 877 881
A6010939 HOUSTON CHESS CLUB 702 711
A6011821 CHESS EMPORIUM 682 791
A6010042 CHESS PALACE 674 686
A5011493 DALLAS CHESS CLUB 665 688
A6010817 THE ATLANTA CHESS & GAME CNTR 656 666[/code]

3

Mike,
Will the Events Rated List info carried in the Supplements be available somewhere online now that the only paper Supplement is the December one?

4

Is the “Events Rated Search” form good enough for now:

uschess.org/ratings/RatesSea … Search.php

5

Yes,thanks very much!

6 
 We usually hold multiple events on the weekends, and the Manhattan Chess Club did so as well, so I'd guess that the redundant dual-rated events thus eliminated are pretty much offset by the independent separate events also eliminated.  Also, I think the Office didn't actually begin the practice of dual-rating Game/30-Game/60 until late 2000 or early 2001, and sometime around late 2004 or 2005 the MSA program began displaying dual-rated events as a single event.

Different events with the same starting and ending dates before late 2000/early 2001 or after late 2004/early 2005 would therefore most likely be independent events.

7

OK, here’s yet another way of counting events, which goes to show just how ‘fuzzy’ the USCF’s data is.

This shows the number of unique event IDs that were regular/dual or quick/dual rated. Unless an affiliate is holding quick-only events, which it appears the Atlanta Chess & Game Center does frequently, the QR column will reflect the number of dual-rated events.

Another issue that could lead to under-counting of events is if affiliates were submitting several independent events as sections of an event in order to save on ratings fees. (I think the Houston Chess Club used to do this regularly, other affiliates probably did too. I don’t know how to factor that in.)

[code]affil name Reg event IDs QR event IDs

A5002419 MANHATTAN CHESS CLUB 2535 374
A6011821 CHESS EMPORIUM 1832 413
A5023921 CHESS CASTLE OF MINNESOTA 1769 453
A6009315 ROCHESTER CHESS CENTER 1697 170
A5011493 DALLAS CHESS CLUB 1672 502
A6010042 CHESS PALACE 1569 69
A6004530 CHESS CENTER OF NEW YORK 1558 668
A5002346 MARSHALL CHESS CLUB 1501 461
A6010939 HOUSTON CHESS CLUB 1493 361
A6010817 THE ATLANTA CHESS & GAME CNTR 1308 1855
[/code]

8

As far as I know the Chess Emporium is still open and active. They run regular weekly Action tournaments on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

I know that they’re split off from USCF in their scholastics program, but I didn’t think they did the same for the adults. I can look into it if you wish.

  • Enrique
9

chessemporium.com/other.html

The Chess Emporium (AZ) is still running regular adult (open) tournaments, including Tuesday night slow chess and weekend action. They only refer to their club’s gold membership and mention nothing about USCF membership. In fact, I can’t find a single reference to the USCF on any of the main pages of their website. The FAQ page instead refers to the ASCF.

Michael Aigner

10

Are there ramifications to an affiliate promoting events on the USCF website (and I assume CL) and running those events, but not sumbitting the results to USCF?

I have not been to Chess Emporium in nearly a decade, so I don’t know if those events are actually occuring. But if they did, what can (should) happen to the affiliate?

  • Enrique
11

There are multiple issues here.

First, I’m not aware of any Chess Emporium events being promoted on the USCF website. (The USCF does get occasional queries about Chess Emporium memberships and ratings, they apparently use an 8 digit ID that starts with a ‘2’, though I’m not aware of any cases where those conflict with assigned USCF IDs.)

However, if an event ihas a TLA but is not submitted, the TD and/or affiliate can be sanctioned. (The Board took such an action in November, for example, suspending both the TD’s membership and his TD privileges.)

If the event is advertised elsewhere as USCF rated but is not submitted, the USCF may not even find out about it, and there may not be much they can do. (The participants might have different options.)

The by-state TLA pages are intended for USCF-rated events (though occasionally non-rated sections are mentioned in TLAs that also have rated sections.) I think there has been a separate non-rated event category in the TLA pages in the past, but I can’t find any recent examples.

I don’t know of any cases where organizers have bought display ads for non-USCF rated tournaments, but I don’t think it is explicitly prohibited.

I would think a tournament that was being held in the USA and was to be rated by some rating service in direct competition with the USCF would not be allowed to buy such an ad. (I would not consider a FIDE-rated-only event direct competition, especially since the USCF must sanction any FIDE rated events held in our jurisdiction.)

There has been some consideration by Bill Hall to running TLAs for certain types of non-rated events, notably Bughouse tournaments. (Chess960 tournaments might be a second possibility.)

When I was in high school (back in the 60’s), I subscribed to Chess Review. At one point, I wrote Al Horowitz a letter asking several questions. One of them was about what the USCF was (there were references to it in tournaments ads.)

His two word response on my letter (which he sent back to me but I have unfortunately lost): My competitor.

12

The C.E. events listed here are for Chess Emporium.

Looking at the April TLA proofsheets, these events appear on pg 66. I’ll check my back issues of Chess Life when I get home.

Does this statement mean C.E. was previously sanctioned? Or was it another case that you were just simply referring for information purposes?

  • Enrique
13

Several of their weeknight tournaments are currently listed on the TLA page (uschess.org/tla/yState.php?st=AZ) and in the March CL. It doesn’t say they they are USCF-rted, but readers would certainly assume so. Probably someone in the office should check.

14

The November EB action was against Rich Jackson of CT. (This should be in the minutes for that meeting, as the vote was in open session.)

I’ve asked Joan to check on the Chess Emporium situation.

15

Update on Chess Emporium: Several events from them have been on hold due to missing data on the events. 7 of them, from events held in September-November 2006, have now been rated. There are probably others still awaiting information.

16

What kind of information can hold up a tournament 7 months?

  • Enrique
17

I don’t know the specifics, but I’m told the reports were VERY incomplete, and it took several requests to get the missing information.

In early February we received and rated an event held in December of 2004 (not from Chess Emporium, I should note.) I can only speculate as to why it was over 2 years late.

18

Out of curiousity, if a member was a member when the tournament was held but not when it was reported would the tournament still be rated? I was just wondering if a non-member should have been the reason for the hold up.

  • Enrique
19

I do not know the specifics for those events, and it may not be appropriate to discuss them here if I did know them.

A separate topic has been opened to discuss the issue (without reference to this specific situation.)