Its the spirit of the director, for having a tournament as fair as it can be. After any event, the players will pack their bags and go home. The director must look at the event, not looking what went right, but how minor errors happen. The director should be their own worst judge.
The problem of any director, is finding the errors the director has zero control over. Like noise comming into the tournament hall; the room being to hot or to cold; the noise that comes from people talking. It could be a booked party in the next room, the director did not know was going to happen that day. It could be the noise from the heating or cooling system, or some noise outside the room like mantance cleaning the hallway. Even if the director has no control over the problem, its still the error of the director. If the director booked the room, whatever bleeding in noise or problems from the room – its’ the unfairness caused by the director. If that happened at my event, as it has happen in one way or the other during the years. For the final assignment, it is my error, my unfairness, my quilt – as I booked the room.
Then there are other problems, just to make it fair for one party that effects someone else. Like at my last event, did have 13 players. With it being less then 20 players, was going to play as the house man. With one player being a scholastic player, was going to play him in a extra rated game – since adults feel its unfair to play a scholastic player. One player made a statement, he would withdraw from the tournament if the director (myself) did play in the event. Just to make it fair for this one player, did give someone a bye during the first round. During the second round, the event had a withdraw, making the field an even number of 12. Was it fair to give someone a ‘bye’, it was forced and legal, but it was not fair. Some times, the director has no other choice, then to be unfair to someone.
Even if the players do not have a problem with the room, with them accepting the noise or whatever can go wrong. It is still the error of the director (myself), as the room was booked, the director needs to accept all problems that did happend during the event.
For the common good, and the good works. That is what as directors we should give back to our society. That is the spirit of being a director. It should not be a question of why run a tournament, but what is the spirit of being a director.
That sounds nice, but what if you still have ambitions as a chess player? If your answer is “then don’t direct tournaments” think about the fact that our area went from 1 tournament in a calendar year to many after I started directing.
I’ve already got a few people signed up as club directors, but there is definitely a leap from directing to organizing. Regardless, no one wants to give up playing to just direct, including myself.
Judging from how many nearby states to here have fewer tournaments than us this isn’t an uncommon problem.
Have you thought of building a pool of directors in you’re state. The problem is always this, an area of whatever size you want to make it – will have a number of people willing to play over-the-board chess. Not that many chess players, are willing to drive more then 100 miles for a one day event.
Not that many players, with provisional players being the ones at this risk, not willing to drive hours just to find a one day event. If you find yourself, as a player thinking why join a over-the-board event, when the director is miles away from his home, or only going to have events when the director feels like having a tournament.
As you (Douglas L. Stewart) are the President of the Mississippi Chess Association. Have you thought of finding the stronger players in you’re state. See if they are willing to become tournament directors. See if you can make a deal with them, to perform as a director in their area.
Check and find, what part of the state has directors, and what part does not have any. It is not always good, just to have tournaments in one part of the state, and the rest of the state without any. Start to build a network, build it so all the directors know were they are. Build the network, so the directors can support each other. Make sure to find areas of you’re state, fill regions of the state with a active director. Just build a network of directors, and let it grow by organic means.
True. If you have other TDs, but not other organizers, you can continue to be the organizer, then hand over the TDing to somebody else on the day of the tournament. That way, you can concentrate on playing your own games while still contributing to the chess culture in your area.
A playing TD should bend over backwards to be fair to the other players. For example, if the TD’s opponent violates the touch-move rule, the TD might want to simply let him get away with it, especially if there is a high likelihood that the opponent will deny the violation and there are no witnesses. It could be a cop-out to turn the ruling over to another TD, while still claiming “yes, the TD witnessed this violation!”.
Similarly, a playing TD might want to concede a draw to his opponent just a bit sooner than he would if he weren’t the TD (just as you stated you have done). Of course, using the 5-second delay greatly reduces the possibility of a problem here.
Bill, if the TD is playing a game in which the 5 second delay is an important factor RIGHT NOW (ie, after the SD time control has been reached), it’s pretty likely that he isn’t paying ANY attention to any games in progress other than his own.
Did check the tournaments rated in you’re state, only did see seven active directors for the year 2004. If you do get more directors active during 2005, it takes a longer time to build the skills for being the organizer then being the director. Do see you being the most active director in the state, can see how you feel alone. Building the base of organizers with some understand of being a director, with directors having some understanding of being a organizer.
It can take a organizer or a director years, just building the trust of the players. Finding new directors is needed as you say, having a new director does not mean the players will trust the leadership of said director. It does take time, with good works it takes a longer time building the trust. With a selfish act of the director, all the good works are forgotten.
The problem of an organizer, is knowing how many people would show up and will not show up. The organizational skills are more different for a director in a town then at the state level. If you’re looking to build the pool of directors, with it building the skills of the directors knowing how to organize a event. That will take you years, with a process no state has ever finnished.
Well my main goal is to build up adult chess in Mississippi, which to a certain extent contradicts with building up your director pool. People wants to have confidence that the tournaments they go to are going to be run well. We’ve got a couple of people around the State that organize tournaments but have ratings below 1000. I’ve had to essentially take over running a couple of tournaments mid way through to avoid disaster.
I want tournaments to be as well run as possible here, so any veterans or out of state players are as impressed as you can be crammed into a 15x20 room with a bunch of chess players.
I’ve built a pretty filled up calendar here, with at least one tournament a month somewhere in the state (not including club tournaments). My goal now is to repeat the calendar in a consistent fashion every year so all of the tournaments are a known quantity with regular locations, structures, and dates, and then turn over running tournaments with a history of success to others so they get some experience both organizing and directing.
True, new directors with their first few events will make critical errors. Have noticed (MSA data) you had a great year (2004), it looks to be the same for this calander as well. With any leadership, some day we all have to leave the stage and move on. As you have made clear, you have a limited amount of active directors, with limited amount of experience, with limited amount of organizing.
If you resigned today, what will happen to chess in Mississippi? When you’re term comes to an end, are you sure the person that takes the office will perform as well as you did?
Well we’re fortunate that my main directing protoge is also the most active player in the State, so he never has a problem with going around the State to attend tournaments so I’m sure he could direct them. My plan is to turn over a tournament or two to him this year to run so he’ll have more experience with submitting the paperwork. He’d probably be the person to take over.
We also have a Vice-President who is an experienced player and becoming an experienced directory, but he’s a doctor who is on call a lot and his chess enthusiasm comes and goes. He could help keep things alive during a transition though.
Now that Cajun Chess is under new ownership I know they’ll be running tournaments in Louisiana and possibly southern Mississippi, so that will keep chess alive there.
There is a guy who runs a tournament once a year in central MS and another one who runs a tournament in northern MS, and there is no reason to believe those wouldn’t continue. There is a new guy in northern MS who is going to run it looks like at least 2 tournaments a year in his location, but he’s not a director yet, just an organizer.
So tournament chess might take a slight hit, but it would stay alive.
The website is another deal. While it’s not too hard to learn how to maintain a basic website (I’ve helped the Louisiana president and if you look at louisianachess.org I think you’ll agree they’re doing well), I’m the sole person maintaining the website right now. Part of the reason for that is we use a friend of mine’s machine to host the site so I have to be careful about giving away access. Eventually I probably just need to bite the bullet and pay for a site, although $120 a year or whatever it might end up being is a lot by the standards of our treasury. Plan B (me being Plan A) is putting the site at a basic hosting provider and buying a copy of Microsoft Frontpage. The site might not be as rich as it is right now since I annotate every game played in the State that I can get my hands on, but I think it’d be serviceable.
We don’t send out a newsletter anymore. It costs too much to mail and I stopped trying to make an electronic one when I took over as MCA President. I just consider the website a living newsletter these days.
That’s certainly true. My original post jumped around a bit, so maybe the contexts got mixed up (mea culpa).
My remark about the 5-second delay had nothing to do with the TD paying attention to the other games in the tournament room. Rather, it had to do with those “conscience” situations where the playing TD is trying to decide whether to concede the draw to his opponent.
Suppose the playing TD has a slightly superior position, one which is theoretically drawn, but which contains a pitfall or two into which the opponent might conceivably fall. Suppose further that the opponent has only a few seconds remaining on his clock.
Surely the player with the superior position (in this case the TD) has the right to test his opponent, to see whether he will fall into the trap(s). If there is a 5-second delay, there is no problem here. The TD can keep playing until he is convinced his opponent isn’t going to blow it.
But if there is no delay, the opponent may feel forced to claim a draw (e.g. because of insufficient losing chances) against the TD. This can put the opponent into an extremely uncomfortable situation, to say the least. The TD, recognizing this, might struggle with his conscience, and might even offer a draw he really didn’t want to offer just yet.
There were two issues in my original post. Sorry I didn’t distinguish clearly between the fairness issue and the neglect-of-TD-duties issue.
