The national high school championship begins today. Early registration was strong and then last minute/on-site registration filled the hall. Entry had to be capped due to space limitations and a waiting list started. If you waited to register expecting to just show up today, the only way you will get in is if someone cancels.
The largest prior number in a non Supernatural year was around 1500. We had capacity for 1700. So we were prepared for some growth. But this exceeded expectations.
Unfortunately the playing space is not carpeted. It was supposed to be. That is a major problem with convention space. That environment is very physically demanding on tournament staff. We hired extra directors this week to deal with the capacity crowd and the stress on the floor team from the concrete.
Thanks for the attendance and for patience with the issues such a record brings.
I know it is a bad idea to not have enough skittles space, but could more players have been added if some of the skittles space was used as playing space? You want to avoid kids playing (skittles) in the halls, but that is a well know thing at some scholastic tournaments. As with any event it is always a question of quality over quantity, and I am glad US Chess has a preference for quality.
Larry S. Cohen
ANTD
PS: Kudos to the hard working staff. I am glad I am not working the event as it was a bit of a [1700] madhouse when I stopped by Friday night.
That really wouldn’t work. We would then be working from two rooms and the event was not staffed to do that. Add in the throngs of people ending up the hallways and it would be a problem. The national events team made the correct call - the moral of the story is don’t wait until the last minute to register.
We had al least one team that came halfway across the country expecting to register all on site. They ended up on the first come first served waiting list. I don’t know if they got in or not.
The most accurate count is usually from the crosstable, at which point we can count unique IDs, not the number of entries in each section. (That’s especially true when trying to count players at events that feature multiple schedules or allow re-entries.)
Thank you for the answer Allen. I did state that was done was best [i.e. quality over quantity], and I am surprised by the at the door entries. I was under the impression that scholastic events usually did not have at site entries. I will say I did see on the tournament listing [under National events on the USCF web site] on Friday the statement that there was a 1700 maximum for the event. With such a statement I would think that if you were coming from across the country you would enter before the day of the event.
Our national scholastics have always had late entry options - even after the event starts. The price is double the earliest entry price. Children registered after a cut off time on Friday morning are given a be in round 1 and started in round 2. I have seen players show up Saturday morning to register not realizing it started on Friday. I have also seen local players who did not show up for Friday rounds, show up on Saturday morning because they thought it started on Saturday. When I have worked events we always tried to work those players back in if at all possible - and it has usually been possible.
I don’t know why one would travel from the East Coast with a full school team without registering ahead of time - at least some or most of the players anyway.
My feet were a bit tender but did not blister and had pretty much recovered by midday Wednesday (fortunately I have a desk job). There were a couple of times I took my shoes off between rounds. When I saw the concrete I was concerned that we’d be repeating the 2005 Supernationals with TDs sidelined with bleeding blisters on their feet.
There were a total of 852 boards in the room (1704 players). There were six two-board tables for the top championship boards and 84 5-table sets of 10 boards each. After round three started the section numbers were solid enough that we could skip fourteen boards at the end of sections and use those boards for the cross-sectional games between the odd-man bye players.