Apr. 1-2 First Annual Third Coast Chess Championship Tournament
5SS, Game/120. Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel, 933 Skokie Blvd., Northbrook, IL 60062. Free parking. $$4,100 b/175 paid players. 3 Sections: Open: $600-400-250-200, top 2200-2399 $275, top U2200 $275 FIDE. Under 2000: $400-200-150-100, top U1800 $175. Under 1600: $400-200-150-100, top U1400 $175. $50 biggest upset. EF: $60 postmarked by 3/20; $65 by 3/27; $70 at site (no checks at site). Play up one section if within 100 points for $10. GMs & IMs free with advanced entry ($50 from prize). Reg: 8-8:30 AM. Rds: Sat. 9-1:00-5:30; Sun. 10:00-2:30. Re-Entry: $40 with ½ point bye rd 1. Byes: max. two ½ point bye: rds 1-4 in advance, un-retractable rd 5 at reg. Entries: Renaissance Knights, PO Box 1074, Northbrook, IL 60065-1074. Checks payable to Renaissance Knights. Info: Rknights.org, or (847) 526-9025. HR: $89-$89, (847) 498-6500.
Now gander at the TD status of the Chief and Assistant TD:
I was under the assumption that a Club TD could not be Chief over an event expected to draw more than 50 people? The based on was 175 people so the TD was well aware of the issue. If they weren’t they didn’t read the rule book and hence should not be a TD.
This event was advertised as a FIDE rated event. My understanding according to the rules were that a Club or Local TD cannot be the Chief over a FIDE rated event and that the signoff of an FA, IA, or IO are required in order for the event to be FIDE rated.
Can someone from the USCF clarify this position. I don’t think it is fair that the rest of us follow the rules and others are allowed to circumvent them.
44 events and he’s only a Club-level TD? THAT looks strange.
If they split the duties up, one handling the largest section and the other handling the other two sections, then it’s not that big a deal, IMHO. A club TD can direct an event of up to 60 players (with SW pairings), right? Why not 2 sections that total about that amount?
They might have planned to have a more experienced TD there, but decided (based on pre-entries) that they wouldn’t need one. Or a TD might have stood them up, gotten sick, had an accident, etc. There are lots of reasons a Club TD might end up directing this event. Let’s not jump to conclusions.
Another possibility is that the ID shown as the ‘chief td’ is the TD who uploaded the event, not the actually chief TD.
Sometimes this is done because the chief TD is not authorized for that affiliate. I need to improve how this works to acknowledge that chief TDs may not be ‘backroom’ chief TDs.
We don’t currently check whether TDs are exceeding their certificate status authority, I don’t see that as something that’s really needed, and TDCC has not requested the USCF office to act as the ‘tournament police’ in this respect.
Having a properly experienced chief TD is something the organizer should do as part of providing a quality event to the players. It’s in the best interest of the organizer to do so, as well as in the best interest of the players.
That is not a problem, not all directors care to become a local.
The chief tournament director gets credit for both sections. If section both sections have 40 entries, the chief tournament director gets credit for 80 entries. With 80 entries, the director gets credit for one tournament with 80 entries.
What the director can do, is have two tournaments with one section each. But, that will be a red flag for the USCF office, and the players in the tournament. If the director split the tournament into two tournaments, you got to ask why.
I’m not saying he did anything wrong. It just seems strange to me that somebody would direct that many events and not go to Local or Senior TD status. After all, it’s just an open-book test to get to Local.
One time the USCF did not force club directors to take the local test. Than in the late 1990’s, club directors had to take the local test. If the club director did not take the test, than you lost your right to be a director. Problem was this, the USCF lost a number of good club directors.
Think this way, if your a club director you can a director with 50 entries or 60 entries with a computer pairing program and one assistant director. Not all directors care to be a director for than many players. Number of directors do not have the membership base to support 40 entries or 50 entries. Why become a local director when the best turn-out you can ever dream is 30 entries?
I go to a different club, but I suspected that a specific senior TD was actually on-site as well. When I checked MSA it turned out that the chief of the under 1600 section was that senior TD and the assistant of that section was yet another TD. That gives a Sr. TD and at least 3 other TDs for an event expected to draw 175 players.
Based on a thread on the IL chess web site’s forums,
The players had a good time.
The event got rated within hours of finishing. Thus there were no outstanding membership issues.
The correct proportion of the prize fund was paid considering about half of the based on actually attended.
A Senior TD can be the chief of a 300-player event (or 360 in this case since it was almost certainly computer assisted), so the tournament had TDs of the appropriate level.
Mike’s comment about the uploading TD defaulting in as the chief TD seems to be the most likely explanation.
I notice that Chapter 7, number 24 says that a computer-assisted club TD can be the chief of up to 60 players with one assistant TD. Although that apparently means 60 players with any positive number of assistant TDs regardless of the assistants’ levels, I wonder what a truly appropriate number would be if there are three assistant TDs including a Senior TD. That may be an issue for a future version of the rulebook.
I’m not sure why this particular tournament was singled out, but the appropriate staffing level was there (actually significantly more than technically required). The initial post seemed a bit strong for a complaint about the manner in which the tournament was uploaded (granted, the initial complaint was about the tournament NOT having the appropriate staff, but that was not actually the case here). Since the upload requires that the chief TD check a box certifying that the information is correct, it looks like there was a choice between:
a) uploading immediately with the back room person doing the upload listing himself as the chief and checking that box.
b) uploading immediately with the back room person listing the Sr. TD as the chief and checking the box on that TD’s behalf (which would seem to be a questionable practice - I know I wouldn’t want somebody else doing the checking of a box saying that I had validated something).
c) sending it in on disk and delaying the rating of the tournament.
I wouldn’t blame anybody that chose option a as the least imperfect option.
I know of several TDs who have given their login IDs and passwords to someone else to do the uploading. (In some cases it is a spouse, in other cases it is someone who is not a relative but is more computer-saavy. I’m not sure whether some of these individuals are certified TDs or not.)
It’s not something we can prevent, and I don’t see that it’s worth worrying about much, either. TDs who give someone else their login information are assuming that person is trustworthy, the same assumption they make if they give that person their credit card to use.
We should probably change the upload procedure to track the chief TD and the submitting TD separately and change the compliance section language appropriately. I don’t see that as a high priority task, so it probably will have to wait until I work on that module again, which will probably be when I implement a second upload format option.
I was mentored in directing by a National TD. Another thing that could have happened is that when I was a club TD, I would help him direct a 300 player scholastic and he would list me as the Chief TD because he ‘didn’t need credit’ when he submitted them. He would list himself as my assistant. I wasn’t aware of this until i found it on MSA and it was only a few tournaments so no big deal. The USCF doesn’t care what the paperwork says until they get complaints of violations. Only then does it matter if the TD rules were followed accordingly.