I am thankful for the information on how to become a Tournament Director (thus, a key leader in any club), but is there a way to get US Chess Staff to assist in larger tournaments, as well as make this tournament nationally recognized under USCF regulations and possibly FIDE regulations as well?
By that, I mean we would have to partner with the city to provide the venue, but we would need help in running the tournament, as it would draw a large crowd, and we (the Fayetteville Chess Society) are not of the proper size to coordinate such a tournament on our own.
Tournaments are nationally recognized under US Chess regulations without needing any US Chess staff. The Tournament Director submits a rating report to US Chess and thatâs it.
For FIDE regulations you still donât need any US Chess staff, but you do need a FIDE National Arbiter (US Chess Senior Tournament Directors can apply to take the test to become FIDE National Arbiters) and there is a registration process which US Chess facilitates to register tournaments with FIDE.
US Chess staff, in their capacities as US Chess staff (rather than individually as tournament directors or arbiters etc.) tend only to work the largest US Chess national events. There arenât that many US Chess staff, as you can see from US Chess Staff | US Chess.org
It might help if we had some idea of what kind of tournament youâre thinking of holding such as invitational or open, whether you have sponsorship, etc.
Of the over 15,000 rated events held in the US every year, the US Chess staff only gets directly involved in running events like the national scholastics, the US Open, and major championship events. Most events are run by local affiliates, some in conjunction with their state chapter (for things like state championship events which the state chapter has control over.)
There are also some smaller national championship events that you can bid on, some information about them can be found on new.uschess.org under Play â National Events â Event Bidding
You could try to connect with a more experienced TD in your state (AR?, NC?), requesting assistance. To find TDs in your state, you could look in the list of SafeSport-certified TDs (https://new.uschess.org/safesport-certified-tds), restricting to your state. Alternatively, you could look at the TD search tool ( US Chess Federation ). (If that link doesnât work, go to your user portal, click on the orange âTD experience recordâ button, then click on the link for âSearch for TDs by state.â)
What do you mean by partnering with the city? Have you had contact with them and they are willing to put public resources into a chess event? Fayetteville has not had too much sustaining chess activity in the last 30 years that I have been in NC. Without much local interest in playing, organizing, directing youâd be importing it from other areas. Also, Charlotteâs success provides a lot of opportunities for folks in NC/SC to play in big, tournaments making it tough to even schedule things around them. My personal thought is that you should concentrate on building chess locally and maybe draw players from along the I95 area.
Iâd be more than happy to talk with you or other folks from Fayetteville about chess in the NC area.
US Chess staff will work events organized by US Chess. Some of the staff members are also TDs and work for other organizers as well, but there is no assignment list that US Chess does. Contact the other organizers in your area or your state affiliate site to see which TDs might be available. Or use your TD login to see if you can bring up other TDs in your state and hope their contact information is there.
Youâd have to ask Pete Karagianis, that might be the only bid they got on that event. Maybe you can do better than that for 2026 or 2027?
Looks like the 2024 US Masters used G/90;+30, I donât remember what time control was used when Helen Warren started the event, it was long enough ago that it might have been 40/2. I think the first few US Opens I played were 40/2.
The 2026 US Womenâs Open is already taken. I think the statement in the US Womenâs Open information that says âPrizes: Minimum $30,000 guaranteed. The winner receives a replica of the Edmondson Cupâ was only meant for the National Open and not the US Womenâs Open.
I didnât check on 2025, but Iâd bet it was probably G/90+30 as well.
As I recall, the bidding document says that exceptions to the desired conditions, eg, prize fund, will be considered. It probably comes down to whatâs better, to not have the event or to have it with a lower prize fund.
Even at the highest entry fee the $30,000 minimum would require 240 entries in the US Womenâs Open without covering any staffing, materials or site expenses. I donât think it has ever reached even 2/3 of that count, maybe not even half. The guideline says 40 to 60 players.
It looks like the prize fund is an unintentional copy of the National Open minimums.
Iâd have to research the EB minutes, but I think some years back they passed some ârecommendedâ prize funds for several womenâs chess events, as they were far below what was being offered in equivalent events that werenât limited to women participants.
The challenge is always figuring out a way to have the entry fees cover both organizing expenses and the prize fund and/or find sponsors. My hat is off to professional fundraisers, itâs not a job Iâd want.
This is getting off-topic, but even if you ignore all the legacy sites (that we hope to pull the plugs on some time this year), keeping a website like ours up to date would be close to a full-time job.
Staff are trying to review the website and deal with out-of-date or duplicated information. (Bryan Tillis said today that they recently dealt with fixing links to information about womenâs chess that pointed to 3 different documents each covering much of the same information.)
Phasing out the legacy sites (secure2.uschess.org and the current www.uschess.org) will help a lot, because thereâs a lot of out-of-date and often incorrect data there. Finding appropriate places for the files and other information that needs to be kept is a major part of the process of getting those sites ready to be phased out.)