Hi,
Can someone direct me to a document or anything on how to get started on being a club tournament director? I have absolutely no experience and no chess club for that matter. I’m trying to start a club and want to host club tournaments. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
If you go to the ‘forms’ section under ‘Activities & Interests’ on the website, the form for becoming a club TD is there, you need to send or fax it to the office in Crossville.
There are also a few pamphlets there dealing with chess tournaments that might be instructional.
Tim Just has a number of videos on his website: the80-20td.com/
But the best thing may be to try to find an experienced TD nearby and see if that person will mentor you.
Buy the USCF Official Chess Rulebook, 5th ed. Go through this website and find/copy the updates to the rules. Download the TD certification requirements. Read the rulebook thoroughly and carefully go through examples and TD tips. Then go find a tournament and ask a TD if you could assist him. If he is a reasonable sort, he will be happy to show you the ropes and give you a chance to run some events or sections of a larger event. That is how many TD’s get started.
When you start your club, make up a binder with all of the tournament forms you will need, copy of a scoresheet, sheet on chess notation, rules and suggestions on how to set chess clocks, arrow signs to direct people to the chess tournament or club, club letterhead, publicity sheet to hand out to new members, club registration form, and whatever else you can think of concerning your club. These will be your master copies. As your club grows and you get a good handle on tournaments, buy a Swis-Sys or WinTd pairing program. The program can be kept with the binder as well. Good luck! Running a club takes time and energy, but it can be a lot of fun if you get others to help you.
I second this. I’m an 80/20 TD myself, in the sense that I learned 80 percent of what I know about tournament organization by looking over the shoulder of Bernardo Iglesias at the Boylston Chess Club and asking him questions, which he patiently answered. The other 20 percent I learned the hard way. 
Hi,
I thought I posted this, but now I can’t find it.
Is there any documentation this website on how to get started being a TD?
I’m wanting to start a club and have club tournaments and eventually do bigger independent tournaments. So, I’m looking for any information on how to become a tournament director. I read on some post all you have to do is buy the rule book and agree to use it. Really?? Is there help anywhere with how to do pairings and all that tournament admin stuff? Anything would help. Thanks!
Thanks everyone. I did ask a local TD if he had an apprentice program, ha, but he said it was best to maybe start a club and try to do a club tourney. He’s on the executive board now, so he maybe a little too busy to mentor me. That’s actually why I want to become a TD, to get more tournaments in my area. I’ll start my reading. Thanks.
Check the TLAs for events in the area, then contact the organizer.
I’m sure you’ll find someone willing to have an unpaid volunteer TD helping out, starting with the duties nobody else likes to do.
You posted it in the USCF Issues forum. Maybe you need to log in again to get access. (Or maybe the topic needs to be moved over here.)
In the clubs forum you asking about doing the pairings. One option is to get a pairing program (WinTD and SwissSys are a couple of the major ones).
If you don’t plan on using a computer then you’ll need to understand the pairing section of the rulebook (and if you do plan on using a computer then it would still be very beneficial to understand that section so that you have a chance of answering the inevitable questions of why the round was paired the way it was). You may want to do a dry run of your pairing ability by going to MSA for an existing tournament and see if you can pair as well as was already done.
When doing a dry run though, some things to remember are: if you choose a scholastic tournament then it would be better to go to the sponsor’s website as that would be more likely to have the team codes that also affected the pairings (to avoid teammates playing each other); the first round may have some re-pairings that were done (between players whose first round opponenets were no-shows); a major event may be better as that is more likely to have competent pairers (maybe something like a smaller section of the Chicago Open, National Open or World Open - possibly 20-50 players); a very small section can result in interesting pairings (like the 6-round 6-player lowest-rated section of the 2010 Chicago class).
Yes, this topic needs to be moved from the USCF Issues forum to either this forum or to the Chess Tournament forum for discussion/information.
The rulebook has what you need to know to do pairings. It also explains tournament organization. If it still seems unclear, go to a small to medium size tournament (25 to 50 player) and ask the TD or the organizer how they set the event up, what the process is like, what problems they have in organizing and/or directing. The events you direct in the future for your club will be about this size or smaller. Think of things you would like to do better. For example, providing snacks, coffee/tea/soft drinks for the players. Most events do not do that. Or have door prizes. Or get local businesses to provide some merchandise prizes or help pay for trophies. Be creative to make people want to come back to your event.
To get experience with the rules and mechanics of running an event, try a quad event first. Almost too easy to run this type of event. The quad forms have automatic pairings on them. Then try to run a small swiss, keeping in mind that you are trying to at least break even. I have seen new organizers that no one knows attempt to run a grand prix tournament with guaranteed prizes. They had no idea how few people would turn out for it and they lost a wad of cash. Build up your reputation as a TD that knows the rules and runs decent tournaments.
If you feel you are not ready yet to run events, then get some experience helping out at other tournaments. You might not get paid, but the lessons learned will be invaluable in the future. Learn how to do pairings with pairing cards first. Then you will understand what computer pairing programs are doing and how different pairings come about.
The problem with bench testing your pairing skill against data on MSA is that you don’t know what ratings the TD was using for everyone. Generally, most active players will have a different PUBLISHED rating than they have as their most recent rating for that event, and those differences could result in significantly different pairings.
Also, the TD may not have been using the current published ratings for players. (For example, the CCA minimums.)
Hi,
Speaking of prizes. I don’t know if this is covered in the rule book(just ordered a copy), so I’ll ask here. If you can’t guarantee a prize, you just do it based on entries, right? So, my question is, if you don’t know how many people are going to show up, how do you determine a prize prior to the event for your fliers or advertisement? I’m definitely not in a position to dish out my own cash for prize money.
Hi,
Speaking of prizes. I don’t know if this is covered in the rule book(just ordered a copy), so I’ll ask here. If you can’t guarantee a prize, you just do it based on entries, right? So, my question is, if you don’t know how many people are going to show up, how do you determine a prize prior to the event for your fliers or advertisement? I’m definitely not in a position to dish out my own cash for prize money.
Advertise your prizes as a percent of entries: 1st: x%, 2nd: y%, etc.
That’s one of the things I learned from Iglesias: Take the total of entry fees; subtract site cost, rating fees and whatever you’re paying your TD (if you’re a Club TD running your first tournament, that number should probably be zero); and divvy up the rest two or three ways.
The drawback of doing it this way is that, without a fixed dollar amount or percentage of entry fees, you can’t run a TLA for your event. The Boylston Chess Club gets away with it because it never runs TLAs – it just advertises its events on its website, and people show up. That’s one of the perks of being a metropolitan flagship club.
In my area, TLAs don’t drive people to our events anyway. Our players have mostly come because of calendar listings on state and regional chess organizations’ websites. A couple have come because of calendar listings in newspapers. Word of mouth is also a huge driver.
Remember that a based-on prize is still 50% guaranteed, so if you advertise $500 based on 50 and you only get 20, you’re still on the hook for $250.
Actually it’s only 50% guaranteed if the prize fund is over $500. If ithe based-on prize fund is $500 or less then the amount is just the actual number of entries vs. the projected number. Unless the Delegates slipped something else into the 14H rules this year, during all the shouting about the 5-minute deduction.
You’re correct, Steve, it is for events with a prize fund OVER $500, I thought it was $500 or higher.
As far as prizes go, you can just say, “Prizes based on entries,” without giving a fixed number of entries. This gives you more flexibility. However, chess players generally want to see some indication of the number and size of prizes.
For example, let us assume you are charging $20 to enter a one day, four round swiss tournament. Your fixed costs are $1 per player as a TD fee, estimated rating fee of $20 to $25. Hopefully you can find a room or hall that is free or at a minimal cost, say $50. If 20 players enter, you can have a prize fund of around $300. That would be 75% of total entry fees. If only 10 enter, then you still have about $75 in fixed costs, and can have about $120 in prizes and still break even. That means a payout of 60% of entry fees. Your biggest cost is if you have to rent a hall for the day. That can be expensive. Some places require you to carry insurance as well. If you must give a “based on” number of entries, you should err on the conservative side. A first tournament that has “Prizes based on 1000 players” will likely not draw very well and get you killed financially. Keep it simple and reasonable; find out how many players are really available in your area. Have plenty of flyers, e-mail and phone players to invite them to your event. Advertise “door prizes”, too.
Wow, now I’m scared. lol
I have a lot of research and figuring out to do. My goal is to start a club and see what the turn out is. If successful, I’d like to have a closed club tournament. Hopefully that will be easier to figure out and get me started before I dive into an open tournament.