Perhaps I’m being naive, but how about just having any tournament run by the state affiliate/chapter get a little icon or whatever in the TLA? Is there really that much of an issue if a separate affiliate is hired to actually run it, but funnels the TLA and whatnot through the state affiliate? You want your championship marked as “official”, you take the effort to be a bit involved…
If I were running a tournament bid out to me by the state association, I would not want to rely on the state association to come up with the TLA. I would want to make sure I did it myself.
Bill Smythe
Can we nominate someone from Missouri to be an American Chess Ambassador and get these folks to work together?
There are states where the state chapter runs tournaments, including ones that do not award any state titles. There are also states where the state chapter runs no tournaments at all.
As a result, this really needs to be handled separately for each event.
Perhaps if someone ran a “Free” US Open, less than a 150 miles from Dallas, on the same days, and with a similiar prize fund, then the USCF might stand up and take notice. ???
Ron
Since anyone doing that would lose around fifty grand, I don’t think it’s a serious possibility. If you leave out the “free” and “similar prize find,” someone did. Stan Vaughan ran something he called a “U.S. Open” last year in Nevada. The USCF ignored it, as did most players.
Of the 32 players in the free event in Missouri, all but 4 live in the KC metro area.
Of the 55 players in the class championships event in Columbia, 7 were from the KC metro area. There were 9 players in the 2007 Missouri Class Championships (also held in Columbia) from the KC metro area. There were 6 players from the KC metro area in the 2006 Missouri Class Championships, which was also in Columbia.
It appears to me that players were not duped into thinking the free event was an official state championship event. They just chose to go to the closer event, one with a similar prize fund and a lower entry fee.
Based on past history, most of them wouldn’t have gone to the event in Columbia anyway.
Find it amusing that the “Free” Mo Class winner is from Kansas. He was given the award and the title.
Ron
In 2008, there were 49 players in Columbia, not 55. In 2007 there were 58 players, almost a 20% decline. While a majority of the players in the Free tournament were from Kansas and likely would not have made the trip to Columbia, the Free tournament made an impact on the Official turnout.
I do not think 1500 codes is a large number. That is, after all, why computers were invented. However if the state can do more to prevent this by notifying the USCF then that is fine with me. But something fell through the cracks, human error, since the Missouri State Association did what they could to correct the problem. Therefore, why not use computers to help monitor the situation? Your idea of a checkbox, and trigger a special ‘tag’ line on the TLA, is at least a step in that direction. A human may allow two State Class tournaments, but may hesitate at two Official State Class Tournaments. But then, maybe not… 
I was counting the ‘extra games’ section by mistake. However, that doesn’t change my conclusion that the tournament in Columbia seldom draws many players from the KC area, which was where most of the players in the ‘Free’ event came from (28 out of 32.).
Since in my proposal the state chapter would have to give explicit permission for a TLA to have the ‘State Championship Event’ tag line if the TLA comes from an affiliate other than the state chapter, that should give sufficient control over it. (Of course, if a rogue officer or former officer of the state chapter has access to the state chapter’s TD/Affiliate Support Area login or their email, that’s a problem in its own right.)
BTW, what did the state chapter do and when did it do it? The June issue went to press on around May 8th, after that it was too late to change what was printed in the magazine.
Mike, given that the USCF has state associations, and given that their role has changed recently, wouldn’t it be a really good idea if there were a clear definition of the state championships that were immediately recognized by USCF as the official sanctioned state championships of USCF?
For example - a starting list:
State Open Chess Championship
State Invitational Chess Championship
State Class Championships
State Rapid Chess Championship
State High School Team Championship
State High School Individual Championship
State Grade School Team Championships
State Grade School Individual Championship
State Team Chess Championship
State Women’s Chess Championship
State Junior Invitational Championship
State Denker HS Championship
State Polgar HS Championship
State Amateur Chess Championship
There may be others, and some states may wish to add to the list. But should’t defining these as USCF sanctioned championships to be recognized as such when sanctioned by the state affiliate be a key right that should be defined by the bylaws?
Perhaps what should be discussed here is a DM.
Kevin - It seems self-evident to me that an official state chapter is recognized by USCF for a variety of purposes, one of which is designating official state champions. But why should states be somehow restricted to declaring such champions only in categories defined by USCF itself?
Mike’s idea of allowing the state affiliate to add a designation to any event to in some way show that it is an “official state championship event” seems to allow state affiliates complete freedom, and - if applicable to any event regardless of who lists the event - can be applied by any state to any event within that state, and we can then see the results.
Related to that, as Mike also described, work has begun on a mechanism that can be applied to keeping track of such data and making it available in an orderly manner. I know that various of us have been discussing how aspects of this might work since April, and Mike has recently been able to begin implementation.
I know that it may seem frustrating at times that one cannot simply will some new services into existence, but as Mike points out, they need to be clearly defined, and then work needs to be done to implement them.
I don’t know the full extent of Mike’s list of potential projects, but I know this is one of them, and so is how such information will be published effectively to the web site.
Hal Bogner
USCF Web Team
I don’t think the USCF (and that includes the Delegates) should be telling state chapters what championship titles they can award in their state. (There was an attempt a few years ago to REQUIRE state chapters to award certain titles, I was opposed to that as well.)
I think the state chapters should tell the USCF office what state titles they choose to award and who the winners are. (I"m working on a web interface through TD/A to do that as an extension of the USCF yearbook process.)
Now, we could standardize some of the titles, but even that could have problems, because any list someone other than THAT state chapter creates may have nomenclature issues.
Does elementary mean grades K-5 or K-6?, What is considered primary, middle school, junior high or high school in one state might be different than what it is in some other state. What age is someone eligible for the ‘senior’ title or the ‘junior’ title? What’s the cutoff for ‘amateur’?
And if a state wants to award some title that isn’t on the standard list, more power to them.
At best I think we could create a ‘shopping list’ of titles somewhere, but there needs to be an option for titles that a state chooses to award that aren’t commonplace.
From the standpoint of TLAs, I don’t think the USCF needs to care just WHAT titles are being awarded at an event, the person submitting the TLA requests the ‘State Championship Event’ banner and the state chapter approves it (if the event is being run by an affiliate other than the state chapter.)
The USCF office would probably need to monitor for abuses, such as a state chapter calling EVERY EVENT IN THE STATE a state championship event, but for the most part that should be a self-correcting process because any state chapter that chooses to do that is devaluing the banner for their state.
Hal, it is possible for a state championship event to be held outside of a state, Nebraska held its state championship event in Council Bluffs Iowa, once, just over the Missouri from Omaha.
I think several of the New England states have combined forces to award several state titles at one mega-event a few times, too.
However, those may need to be cases that the office handles with some kind of override. (As I recall it took a phone call to get the office to put the TLA for that Council Bluffs event in the ‘Nebraska’ section of the TLA pages.)
I don’t believe I said this. I said that there were categories that would be immediately recognized by USCF - i.e. default categories.
For example, a state might also wish to award a bughouse championship. That’s fine. I’m not 100% sure USCF officially wishes to recognize bughouse champions, but the state could still award it and USCF could consider it - the state could apply for it to be recognized. The state might also wish to award a Fischer chess title, maybe USCF would recognize that also. Or maybe an atomic chess or Andernach champion. Well, maybe USCF isn’t so hot to recognize those.
All I am saying is that USCF would DEFINITELY recognize the ones on a stated list. There is nothing saying that the state can’t do more than, or less than, the list.
Agreed, so we address them. I don’t see that as a reason not to do this.
Senior should probably be standard, as should amateur, etc. I understand your concern on primary, elementary etc. and it may be that those have state variances. But notice that the list doesn’t break down that far - just to grade school and high school. Yes, I know there is 9/10 issue in some states. Again, I don’t see that as a reason to not do this.
Somewhere we need to define the powers and purposes of affiliates, or no one will care about them. And their first function must be to award state titles on behalf of USCF.
It is encouraging to read these posts. I was glad to read the issue has already been thought about since April. There has been a few skirmishes in some states with groups competing for the ownership of official USCF State Association. The titles are the main motivation for these inside battles. Perhaps this is democracy at its finest, but the USCF is not helped by this nonsense. We the players want to know the real significance of the title, and we look to the USCF to provide that information - clearly…
Thanks.
I don’t see how USCF can necessarily address “skirmishes” within states, but certainly USCF can support state chapters and perhaps also offer “models” for states to adopt, so not every state has to reinvent things that work well elsewhere already, or - perhaps in some case - to maintain consistency with national policy if that seems wise.
Not only CAN USCF address skirmishes, they MUST address skirmishes. Otherwise there is no point to the state association concept.
OMOV has weakened state associations, and this appears to have had a direct negative impact on grass roots chess. Though this relationship is difficult to prove, it does make sense, just as the loss of SASP due to the ever-ongoing budget crisis has weekened state associations, and again, has weakened grass roots chess.
Not only CAN USCF address skirmishes, they MUST address skirmishes. Otherwise there is no point to the state association concept.
OMOV has weakened state associations, and this appears to have had a direct negative impact on grass roots chess. Though this relationship is difficult to prove, it does make sense, just as the loss of SASP due to the ever-ongoing budget crisis has weekened state associations, and again, has weakened grass roots chess.