Hey All. I’m getting back into Directing and organizing again soon. Our area has a 3SS G/30 $6 EF tournaments every sunday and monday night. There are a few (4-5) people that are wanting some regular longer TC Tourns g/60, g/75, or g/90. Any suggestions on how to set up the tourns? We have a good adult chess base in the area but about 50% of the players on Sun/Mon are usually scholastic. They draw anywhere from 30-50 a night. Thanks for any suggestions.
If you’re getting turnouts of 30-50 players, my first thought is “Don’t mess with a good thing!”
Would it be possible to hold your G/60 or longer events at the same time but spread out over 2-4 days? What hours is the site available? Could you hold more than one G/60 or longer round in a single day?
Assuming you have enough players to make it possible (players are quite good at asking for different types of events but not playing in them if you organize them), I’d organize it as 4 round swiss but with the condition that if the turnout is less than 7 to turn it into a Round Robin (by adding rounds) or using the ideas given in another thread recently on how to deal with events where the number of players is not much more than the number of rounds.
Or you could try organizing quads at longer time controls, first come first served for entries.
You could try a 4 round swiss with G/60 or G/75 for a full day on a Saturday so it wouldn’t interfere with your established tournament schedule and see how many people come.
It seems like this area is starved for chess activity. That 30-50 is an awesome number, but be careful not to tinker with a 2 day event.
We’ve tried to do the multi day at the the reg tourns and it doesn’t work. We’re wanting to do the 5 round G/45 or 4 rd G/60 or g/75 on Saturdays. We’re just looking for creative ways to get people there. Because they can play chess 2-3 times a week for 5-6 dollars (there are 2 other g/30 tourns during the week that draw 8-10 people ) most are frightened by ef’s over $10. But, if we don’t have an entry fee over 15 or 20, we can’t draw out some of the higher rated players to play for larger prizes. I’ve thought of spliting it into an open and a RBO setting the EF for open to $20 and the RBO at $10 and giving trophies at the RBO to bring in the younger ones at the lower ef, and some kids will come just for the trophies. Also thought of saying any brand new players u14 in the RBO get free usfc memberships? would lose $5 on those players but have em for the next tournament?, or conversly could say if they paid for their USCF membership, let em in for free?
Anyone tried or had success with these ideas?
What hours is your club open or the site available? That will pretty much define what types of events you can run.
I also think you’re seeing a phenomenon that others have seen: Players ask for events with longer time controls or higher prize funds but then object to playing in them because they last too long or cost more.
In our case, I have an event which has a 2 day open section and several reserve/scholastic sections on Saturday only. Attendance has been dropping, especially in the 2 day event.
A vote taken 2 years ago at our state meeting (held at this event) was overwhelming to continue the 2 day format, even though the number of players who actually registered to play in it went down again this year.
I will offer the 2 day format again in 2006, but if the number of entrants doesn’t go up I will have to make changes for 2007.
the Sunday/Monday tourns are at different McCallisters Delies in the city. For the Saturday Tourn, We have a 2-story McDonalds which will let us use the upstairs all day saturday. It can seat about 120, but with chess sets, you are looking at 35 games max. If we outgrew the site, right next door is the community college which will let us use the community room as long as we pay the janitor’s overtime ~$50-100. They do the State open tournament there every other year and they let em have it for free. We’re talking about doing this as a monthly tournament and replacing it once a year with a big tournament, possible at a casino 6 miles away (2-3 day Grand Prix style). If we do a Saturday Scholastic at the casino alongside the Adult, the Casino has a community fund that will help pay for the site fees.
That raises a question, would scholastic parents object to a scholastic at a Casino?
We’ve done Saturday Tourns at the MCD’s before. Only problem is if we don’t completely fill up the upstairs then they do let other customers up there with us, which has caused some noise issues when we had a regular pentecostal bible study meeting during 2-3 of the tourns.
Thanks
You can look at the casino as a great way to get people to come, especially parents. Why would a parent want to spend the entire day watching their kid play chess when they can have something to do?
I don’t know if people have tried holding scholastic events at casinos, but the Scholastic Workshop raised a big fuss at the US Open about the casino on the cover of the June Chess Life, so that may not be the best of sites.
We used to hold an annual December event at a local shopping center. It usually drew 150 or so kids from a three state region, and I know for a fact that their parents spent most of the day shopping there.
But I guess the shopping center decided they didn’t want to host chess tournaments. First they started imposing lots of conditions (such as proof of insurance), then they started raising the fees and making dates harder to get, then they finally stopped letting us hold events there completely.
I do most of my Christmas shopping at other malls these days, even though that’s the biggest mall in the city.
There was an organizer when I was in HS that did 1 tournament every 2 years at a hotel in town. He did a 2500 prize fund if I recall, and threw a scholastic beside it to help in case he didn’t draw enough to cover the prize fund LOL. I think one year he even had Kaidanov there doing a simul and odds blitz for cash/prizes.
Having longer time controls are nice. The problem with longer time controls, G/75 or G/90, it does force the organizer to only have 3 rounds per-day. It can be done with 4 rounds with G/90, it is not the best idea, as it has problems to draw players that have to drive. Than you have local players play with each other with longer time controls.
Two day events are fine, if you only have a few two day events per-year with a huge cash prize. If you have more, it only burns out the players. If you have a number of tournaments at this time, with low entry fees at faster time controls. Having a longer time control over a two day event can and will hurt your two day event with so many faster time controls.
If you have a two day event, with a larger cash prize to bring in the stronger players. You could find yourself with a top heavy tournament. If you already have players under 1500, there is little reason for them to show up in large prize money tournaments.
Players are only willing to play in so many tournaments in a given year. Having longer time controls over two days can be working against your best plans.