Turnout Exceeding Capacity

Running Chess Tournaments
1

You’ve rented a nice meeting room for a tournament, and carefully arranged the tables and chairs to make maximum use of it for chess, but it still has a finite capacity. Lots of people show up on tournament day to play - more people than seats! What do you do now?

Possible courses of action:

Advertise in advance that only so many seats are available.
Pros: * No one can say they weren’t warned.
Cons: * People might assume there’s no room for them and not enter, maybe leaving you with empty seats.

  • More people may show up anyway, so the problem still exists.
    Turn away excess entrants at the door.
    Pros: * You don’t have to figure out what to do with them.

Cons: * People came to play chess, and they will be bitterly disappointed if they are turned away.

  • If there are no-shows or withdrawals later, there will be empty seats where there could be more players.
    Set up additional tables outside the playing room.
    Pros: * Everyone gets to enter and play.
    Cons: * Additional tables and chairs may not be available.
  • Host site may not allow it.
  • Playing conditions (lighting, noise, etc.) may be undesirable.
    Assign byes to excess players.
    Pros: * Everyone gets to enter.
  • Nobody gets more than one bye.
    Cons: * Some people will be unhappy to receive a bye, especially if there is an opponent ready and willing.
  • It’s against the spirit of the tournament rules to assign byes for this reason, if not the letter.
    Have the excess players play an abbreviated game when a game finishes and a spot becomes available.
    Pros: * Everyone gets to enter and play.
    Cons: * Players who come expecting G/90 may balk at playing G/65.
    Have the excess players play a full game when a game finishes and a spot becomes available.
    Pros: * Everyone gets to enter and play.
    Cons: * May delay the next round.

If the excess players are accepted, how do you decide which ones to inconvenience with late starts, hallway seating or byes? If it always falls on the lowest boards, the same player may be hit several times in a row, which would be unfair to him and illegal if the solution involved byes. Maybe a rule analogous to that for byes - lowest boards in which neither player has yet been hit - is more fair. Thoughts?

If there are no-shows, this adds more complications. If there is a board empty because neither player has arrived, the solution is easy, put the excess players there, and if the no-shows arrive late, they will be the ones hit for that round. But if only one player is absent, is it better to make the excess players wait or move for a game that could end up as a forfeit, or put them in that spot and inconvenience the on-time player who was originally going to play there if his opponent arrives late?

My own inclination would be to accept the excess players, and have them play an abbreviated game when a spot becomes available, but do not disturb any games in which at least one player is present.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

P.S. Please no suggestions like “get a bigger room”; that may be impractical and is certainly completely unhelpful on playing day!

2

If I think there’s a chance my turnout could exceed capacity, I advertise my limit and encourage advance registration to ensure entry. I’d rather run a quality event and have to turn some away (or have a couple empty spots), than take all comers and risk a reputation for being a poor planner and/or running tournaments people don’t enjoy.

3

Supposedly (I wasn’t there) the New England Open had this problem about a decade ago. The organizer crammed the tables together as much as possible, and there still wasn’t enough space, so he rented some hotel sleeping rooms, had the hotel move the beds out, and placed extra players in there. He, of course, bid for the tournament the next year, and got about half the turnout.

Alex Relyea

4

Sometimes you can come up with additional space on the day of the event.

The first year I was president of the Lincoln Chess Foundation (1986, I think) we were the co-organizers of the Region VII Championships in Omaha. Advance registration was around 100. I got there about a half hour before the first round started, there were well over 100 people still waiting to register on-site. We had space for about 60 boards. I think the final count on turnout was around 220.

Fortunately, the hotel was not using two other rooms on that floor, and they were able to set them up for us quickly while I took charge of on-site registration. The first round started about 45 minutes late, which, under the circumstances, was pretty good. I’m trying to play my first round game while trying to negotiate with the hotel for skittles space, complete the accounting (my only official responsibility under the way the event was organized), with several thousand dollars in cashed stuffed in my pockets. I paid the hotel’s bill, including the extra rooms, in cash.

The National HS in Albuquerque was another event with turnout that far exceeded expectations. In one of the lower section playing rooms they had boards literally end-to-end so there was no space for a clock or scoresheet. If the fire marshalls had shown up, I don’t know what they would have done. (Not that many players had clocks, players had to hold their score books on their lap.) The tournament plan called for a skittles room in an outdoor tent, but it was windy and rainy and the skittles tent was unusable.

The closest Dominos was bring in stacks of pizzas on luggage carts all evening long, and one of the drivers told me that they had shifted most of the orders for locations other than to that hotel to another Dominos location because they were just barely keeping up with the orders coming from the tournament.

5

I would advertise the limit and encourage people to advance register in order to hold a spot. Yes, you might have a few empty spots from no shows, but most people who say they are coming will…especially if paid in advance. I’d rather run a quality event with a few empty seats than cram people in or provide a less than adequate playing experience.

Just this weekend, we turned 20-30 players away at the door for a scholastic event that I directed. Of course, we had advertised online registration only with a limit of 200 so they were given adequate notice. We actually accepted 220 but couldn’t hold any more than that.

6

Once when a top GM came to town, many were excited to come and play. Too many for the playing space at the time.
We hot-seated–that is when a spot became available, another pair hopped in. Made for an interesting and long night.

Rob Jones

7

After the 1992 US Open, the organizers had scheduled an Edsel Insanity tournament. 9 rounds, G/30, starting at midnight.

They asked me to help with getting people situated and crowd control. In return, they offered me free entry and free breakfast the next morning. I was feeling pretty good, having won part of the Class A money, and decided to take my shot (my exact thoughts: “maybe I’ll get lucky/hot, knock off a few masters, and get over 2000”).

Why would they need help with floor organization? Well, there were people sitting in the hallway, on the floor, playing rated games. The organizers expected 40 players. They got over 80. The last five or six boards were in the hallway outside the playing room.

The tournament ended up only being six rounds, and ended at 9am. Probably a good thing for me - I refunded a good chunk of the rating points I’d spent the previous two weeks earning. :blush:

8

We had multiple scholastics that advertised a limit. Some of them eventually ended up receiving entries prior to their first tournament information mailings. Since they would end up turning away advance registations, it was no problem turning away at-the-door registrations when they were advertised as advance registration only.

At one of them the organizer would call registered schools to see if they would reduce their number of entries to make room for another school to compete.

9

Just this past tournament, I had advertised 52 spaces and asked for email pre-registration without payment. I started turning away email registrations the night before. The morning of the tournament, anyone who showed up to register on site was put on a waiting list. I plugged some of the waitlist people into spaces left by “no shows” from the registration list. The rest of the folks who showed up the day of the tournament will be more likely to register in advance next time, and they were understanding about being turned away. We got started a bit late, but it all worked out.