When a club meets one night per week, what has everyone’s experience been with tournament fomats? The old fashioned style is one game per week at a fairly slow time limit. More modern, but not necessarily more popular, is an entire tournament in one night, at G/30 or faster. Which do your members prefer? Is it best to alternate both formats so you have something for everybody?
Bill Goichberg
USCF Executive Director
Our club has done mostly Blitz and G/:10-29 one day tournaments, but at least once a year we run a 1 game per week RR G/:70-G/:90 tournament, which attracts roughly 80% of our weekly attendance. We’ve had RR tournaments last 13 weeks with 14 player RR’s.
Currently, we’re running a couple year long Ladder tournaments, which is well attended also.
I’ve just recently got more involved in one of the local chess clubs since I quit my second job and the other local one got squeezed out of where we were meeting.
But anyway, I plan on having a schedule of events. Like a couple weeks ago we had a G/15 tournament and this past week had 2 quads for non-USCF and USCF. And next week I plan on doing a lesson.
The full schedule is probably going to look like:
1st Tuesday: Lessons
2nd Tuesday: Match Play
3rd Tuesday: Solitaire Chess
4th Tuesday: G/15 Tournament
5th Tuesday: Wild Card chosen from a list of events
I would eventually like to host a ladder once I’ve guaged the regulars and how feasible it would be based on how often they come.
I downloaded a Club Program to keep up with attendance and member listings. Since the club is on a Marine Corps base, I hope that they will be able to use their participation in their resume to compete for the Marine Corps team in the InterService Championships each year.
I’ve also been handing out surveys asking about their interest in a) what events they’d like to see (eg lessons, match play, tournaments) and b) what they would participate in (eg. hosting a lesson, writing for a newsletter, fundraising). I’ll post the results in the Chess Club organization section when I get home.
When I get home, I’ll also post the monthly schedule of events I’d like to host on the weekends.
curtsy
Sara Walsh
Princess , what did you download exactly and where? You help would be appreciated !
absolutecontrol.net/moddb/pr … &menu_id=2
I’m only using the demo version right now, but I haven’t seen any other club programs that are better suited for the money yet.
I’m working with a Marine Chess Club and to meet the Marine Corps Team Requirements to participate in the All-Marine Chess Team for the Interservice Championships they have to submit a resume. So I figure having a club program to print membership reports and attendance reports that they can submit with the resume is a great tool. With the notes and user fields I can keep track of the interests of the members as well as USCF and Club ratings so they are easily and quickly available for any interested party to view.
curtsy
Sara
We’ve had some success with G/15 tournaments (usually four or five rounds) at Friday night meetings, but there are those who don’t enjoy Quick Chess tournaments. For regular controls, we’re better off playing one game per week at G/90 or slower.
With the Jackson Chess Club and the Ann Arbor Chess Club, for both it has been a round robin G/10 events, with six games to be played with each other. If not at six games with each other, then a even number as everyone has a equal amount of whites and blacks.
With the Jackson Chess Club have had the event be a G/30, we are going to change the format to a G/60 with four rounds. Do perfer having a event with a even number, as everyone should get equal color, with three rounds to many problems with a tie, then the problem of given someone two blacks to one white.
Earnest,
Douglas M. Forsythe, Local TD
12313120
I belong to the Chaturanga Chess Club in Hatboro, PA. We run 4 tournaments throughout the year at traditional controls, 40/90 15/30; our Spring Swiss, Summer Swiss, Club Championship, and Team Championship. The Swiss tournaments are 4 rounds, the Club Championship is somewhere around 10 rounds and the Team Championship is also around 10 rounds. The Team Championship is non-rated and the other three are rated.
In between, we have various G/29 tournmaments and a few G/15 tournaments, all rated.
I think the preference is pretty evenly split for traditional time controls vs. quick time controls.
Steve