Help organizing school chess match for at-risk youth

All Things Chess
1

I am tutoring chess at a residential facility for high-school age juveniles who have severe substance use disorders. Most of my students learned to play chess at our site. We have run five in-house, Swiss system tournaments per year for the past 2.5 years. Recent tournaments have involved about 25 (male and female) players each.

We are exploring the possibility of having chess competitions against other specialized facilities who serve at-risk youth. Our hope is to start experimentally with one event against a nearby residential school.

Specific concerns that have occurred to me are as follows:

–if we use a standard format of, say, seven players per team, there is a concern about how to constructively occupy players who finish their games early. Some students with time on their hands can become difficult to manage.

–most of the games played at our site are completed within about 20 minutes. This seems like a short time for a competition to last. Perhaps each pair of players could play two games, with alternate colors?

–I am assuming that we will not be able to use chess clocks, mainly because right now we only have access to one of them (mine).

I would be most grateful for any and all suggestions as to how this event could be best structured and run.

Thank you so much for your help!

2

I have no experience with this kind of situation. Best you talk with someone with experience of chess at a criminal institution. I vaguely recall something here in Illinois at the Jolliet correctional facility, but don’t know the details.

Here you are dealing with children, which has the added dimension of what to do with them when they are not playing. Having 2 games one with each color is a good idea. You should get multiple adults in to supervise the kids. Ideally you should set up (in a separate room) a skittles area, and an analysis board to go over the games with the kids. Having a strong (or even weak) experienced player go over their games will be good for all of the players.

Larry S. Cohen