- Parings
- Bytes
- Withdrawing
- The Awards Ceremony
- Tiebrakes
- Ratings and the ASCF
- Tournaments
- Registration
- Tournament Director
- Parents
- Open Events
Parents should expect to console their children when they lose and encourage good sportsmanship regardless of the results. Children play chess best when they are not surging with adrenaline (or sugar) and when they know that their primary aim is to play their best, not necessarily to win. The ultimate winners of every event are the players who do not get too low after a defeat, or too high after a win.
What is a Swiss-System Tournament?
Pairings: Most chess tournaments are set up using a Swiss-System
format. This means that players are paired against others with similar scores. The pairing system is quite complicated and leaves the
director almost no room for discretion. At the Chess Emporium and at tournaments
we direct, we use a computer program that does the pairings for us. Although experienced directors will review the pairings for accuracy,
the director never arbitrarily makes changes in the pairings the computer assigns.
In short, the Swiss System operates by ordering the players by rating, and playing the top player with the player just under the half-way
mark. The second player is paired against the next player under the opponent of the top player, and so forth.
Players earn one point for winning, a half point for drawing. In each round after the first round, the players compete with others who have
the same number of points. If there is an odd number of players in a score group, the lowest ranked player in the group is paired against
the top available player in the next group down.
Players never compete against the same opponent twice in a tournament, and efforts are made to alternate the color of the pieces the player
uses each round.
Nobody is eliminated in a Swiss System tournament. All players hopefully will compete all of the way through the tournament, except
for byes.
Byes: A player with a bye does not play in a particular round.
There are two types of byes. When a tournament has an odd number of players, the bottom player does not play one round. Instead, that
player is awarded a full-point bye meaning that the player receives a point, as if s/he won a game. No player receives more than one forced
bye per tournament. Sometimes, the player receiving the bye will be paired against
someone else, who either is not enrolled in the tournament or is enrolled in a different section that also has an odd
number of players. In a rated tournament the game will count for ratings, but the players both receive a point for the tournament.
In a rated tournament, a player competing in his/her first tournament will not receive a bye, except in very unusual circumstances. This is
because a player will not earn a publishable rating until s/he has played four games, and we want players to earn rating as fast as
possible.
Players unable to be at the tournament for a certain round may request a half-point bye. This second type of bye awards a player the same
score as would a draw. In most tournaments, half-point byes must be requested before the player begins to play in the event and are not
changeable. They are most often taken in the first round, when a
player cannot get to the tournament by the time it begins.
Withdrawing: We strongly discourage withdrawing from tournaments.
Players who leave because they lose are missing some of the greatest benefits of the game. Learning to come back after a defeat is very
important is much more than just chess. However, if an emergency arises and a player must leave, it is crucial
to inform the tournament director that the player will not attend the next round. It is unfair to the others in the tournament to leave
without telling the director, as it means that at least one other
player will not get to play a game.
The Awards Ceremony: Similarly, we think that all players should remain for the awards ceremony. Those who win the top prizes, naturally, feel better knowing that their efforts are recognized by others.
Tiebreaks:
In most tournaments, a pre-determined number of top prizes (usually trophies) are awarded at the end. In a four-round tournament
(which is most common) there will always be ties. When two or more players have won all of their games, we will have a blitz chess
play-off, in which the co-champions play each other in a game of
five-minute chess to determine 1st place trophy, while the others will be determined by tie-breaks. When the tied players did not win all of
their games, we use a tiebreak system that determines the strength of the players competition by counting the number of points the opponents
earned. (Ratings are irrelevant to tiebreaks.)
Ratings and the ASCF: All of the chess tournaments we sponsor, and
tournaments elsewhere, are sanctioned by the American Scholastic Chess Federation
(ASCF). Nearly always, membership in the ASCF is required in order to participate.
Annual membership dues for players under age 20 are $17 for the rating service and $28.85 for the rating service plus six issues of the
The Chess Scholar. Membership in the ASCF may be purchased at any time
through their web-site or through an affiliate, such as the Chess Emporium.
The ASCF uses the worldwide popular ELO rating system for its members, named after it s creator, Arpad Elo. By playing in tournaments,
players earn a rating, which rises each time a player wins, and falls each time a player loses. The rating of the opponent is a major component of the
formula.
Children place great value in their ratings, a fact we at the Chess Emporium find mildly disturbing. Players sometimes play considerably
below their capability when they notice that their opponent s rating is much higher or lower than their own. As a result, we make every effort
to reduce the significance of a player s rating.
Contrary to the belief held by some, a chess rating has no relationship to the child s
value as a human being. It takes weeks for a rating to be computed. The results of each tournament are sent to the ASCF
web-site, where they get rated. Then the ASCF plugs the results into their computer, which computes new ratings. Ratings are published the
1st and 15h of every month. Players may learn their ratings by looking them up on the web site. Sometimes a player s rating does not go down,
even though the player is losing a lot. That is the effect of the rating floor. Once a player earns an established rating (after
playing 20 games), that rating will not fall below the next hundred point group, rounded down to the next hundred. For example, a player
with an established rating of 1180 has floor of 1000.
How do I learn about tournaments?
Tournaments rated by the ASCF are nearly always advertised in the web site of Chess Emporium. Most
tournaments geared towards young people are also advertised in the back of The Chess Scholar.
How do I read the Tournament Life Announcements? The codes used to save space in the Announcements (TLAs) can be quite confusing. Please use
this as a reference:
-
#-SS: Swiss System. The number that precedes the code tells you how many rounds (games) each player will play.
-
#-RR: Round Robin. A round-robin tournament means each player in a section will play every other player.
-
TC: Time Control. How much time each player has to avoid being forfeited. G/30 (also known as action chess) means each player has 30 minutes for the game, so an entire game will last one hour or less; this is the most common time control for scholastic events. 40/2 means that a player must make 40 moves in the first two hours, and then the player receives more time to make additional moves.
-
Reg: Registration. Players who have not pre-registered must come during
the hours specified to sign up for the tournament. -
Rds: Rounds. What time the games will start.
-
EF: Entry Fee.
-
$$: Prizes (G, under prizes, means Guaranteed, as opposed to b/#, which
means based on a certain number of entries.) -
NS NC W: No Smoking, Computers may not play, Wheelchair accessible.
-
Ent: Advanced registration should be sent to the person listed.
Registration: Some tournaments offer a reduction in price for players who register in advance. It is in the interest of both the organizer and the players to register early, as long lines form of players who have waited until the last minute to sign up. Normally, once a player has paid an entry fee, the player need only show up at the time the first round is scheduled. If the tournament is free, players must come at the registration time to let the organizer know that they intend to play and should be paired with an opponent.
The Tournament Director: The Tournament Director (TD) makes the pairings each round and settles any sort of dispute that arises during a game. TDs rule on claims of time forfeiture and claims of draws. TDs have the authority to punish bad behavior or other rules violations by adding or subtracting time from a player, or by forfeiting a game.
Parents: In general, parents and coaches are required to stay out of
the room where the children are playing. They can serve several useful functions, however. Tournaments last a long time, and parents can be
very helpful by providing food for their children. Although many kids can plan a power lunch and choose foods that will allow them to play
their best, others need guidance in this area, lest they eat nothing but candy and soda. Parents offer encouragement and consolation between
rounds, and some provide help analyzing the games their kids played. Children are not well served by having parents argue about such things
as pairings or rulings of the TD. Such arguments delay the entire tournament, which goes on long enough as it is. A four round
tournament with a G/30 time control will last more than five hours, including registration, a lunch break, and the awards ceremony. Usually the
advertisements for a tournament will give some indication of when the event is expected to end.
Open Events: We encourage people who want to improve to play against the strongest competition available. Players learn much more by losing than by winning. Some kids very much enjoy the feelings of equality that are found playing against adults in open tournaments. An open tournament, unlike a scholastic event, is open to anyone, and ordinarily most of the players are adults. There are 3 open tournaments a week at the Chess Emporium.