2010 in Columbus set a new record for the National All-Girls with 210 participants. Advance registration for 2011 (4/8-10 in Chicago) was at 218 as of March 31.
In 2010, 1920-rated Rochelle Ballantyne had the tie-breaks to win the UTD scholarship prize in the 18&under section. This year so far there are 13 advance entries for that section with two experts and three A-players over 1940.
I’m not sure how much of a difference there is due to the targetted player-group but, from a TD standpoint, in 2010 there were fewer disputes per player than normal for a tournament of that size or for a national.
The staff they have this year is probably going to include many of the TDs that have been at previous national all-girls events in Chicago. I’ll be checking MSA on Monday to see how things went (I’ll actually have the weekend away from chess, unlikely as that may sound).
I only directed at 22 weekend tournaments in 2011 (eight local K-8 scholastic, four national, three CCA, three local high school, two state scholastic, one FIDE scholastic and one totally non-rated). Even adding some CICL-rated league play (I do still play) and that comes to less than half of the weekends of a year.
Getting back to the all-girls, this year all six of the sections have at least 13 players. Last year on 4/4 (with a 4/16 start date) we finally had a fourth pre-registration in the 16&under section, still had only four on 4/12 and were worried that a double-round-robin would end up being done for that section (we actually ended up with 15 in the section and a normal Swiss). The TDs this year probably haven’t had that worry because all of the sections are fine for a Swiss.
I was looking at the listed 222 advance entries (3 need to join or provide IDs, 2 need to renew).
A quick count of unscientifically selected states shows (I think) 41 from IL, 41 from NY, 26 from CT (18 in 8&under and 7 in 12&under), 24 from MI (11 in 14&under), 13 from TX (4 in 18&under), 9 from WA (5 in 10&under, 3 in 8&under), 6 from CA (4 in 8&under).
The section breakdown is listed with 18 in 18&under (from 11 different states/provinces), 13 in 16&under, 37 in 14&under (11 from MI), 48 in 12&under, 43 in 10&under, 63 in 8&under (18 from CT).
Last year set a new record with 210, so it is looking good for that record to be eclipsed.
Yikes! With around 16 players in some of the sections, and 6 rounds, pairings are going to get extremely tricky in the last round or two. I hope the pairing program’s transposition limit is changed from 80 points to 0 for alternation, to avoid the small-tournament inter-camp effect caused by trying too hard to make colors work in the early rounds.
There is a slight difference between standings, cross-tables and wallcharts.
Wallcharts include the color information and are often in rating order (with computers they can now be printed by score and then rating but they do use up more paper and wall space, with the wall space/poster board space often being the limiting factor).
Cross-tables do not include the color information are are often in score order with each score group being in rating order (useful to determine raw pairings before any color-based swaps).
Standings are often posted after the penultimate and ultimate rounds, do not include color information but do include tie-break information, and are generally in score order with each score group being in tie-break order.
I know that scholastics have many special rules and procedures, but, IMHO, one hallmark of a large scholastic is the absence of a tournament wallchart. You would never be able to have a similarly sized adult tournament with no wallcharts.
The absence of any type of posted results (whether you call them wallcharts, crosstables, or standings) which show color information could increase, rather than decrease, the number of complaints from players about their assigned colors.
Most players know their own color history whether it is posted or not. A player given two blacks in a row may be less likely to question his colors if he can also see his opponent’s color history.
Incidentally, why shouldn’t crosstables, standings, etc show color history? The easiest way would be to add one new column, perhaps just before the round-by-round results columns, which would show the entire color history. This column might look something like this:
wbwbw
bwbwb
bwbbw
wbwbw
wbxwb
The column heading could simply be “colors”. An x or hyphen could be used for unplayed games (forfeits, byes, etc).
And if you wanted the chart to be really comprehensive, you could also have it display each player’s opponent each round, and show each player’s cumulative score as well.
Um, I was proposing a way to add colors to the single-line results charts (usually called “standings” or “crosstables”). My proposal would accomplish this, while still respecting space considerations and maintaining readibility.
Of course, as your facetious reply suggests, you could always resort to the traditional multi-line format (usually called a “wallchart”) – if you have enough wall space.
Hmm – does that mean due color in the next round, or the current round? If the current round, it seems to me that calling attention to the fact that a player has been assigned the “wrong” color could precipitate arguments.
It’s due color in the current round. A lower case b means the player is due black for alternation, an upper case B means the player is due black to equalize colors, and BB means the player is due black to avoid getting white three times in a row. It’s useful for the TD when checking pairings, but I agree that it shouldn’t be used in the version of the pairing sheet that’s posted for the players to see.
