My club is looking to increase our community’s interest in chess.
Very few USCF members locally and I thought that an open tournament for
unrated players only would be beneficial to our club and ultimately for the USCF.
I have numerous contacts that can provide a venue for the tournament.
I’m not sure about what the game format/equipment requirements should be and would
appreciate it if anyone who has experience with this please let me know.
Nick Omregcik
Wheeling Chess Club
You can run a Swiss tournament even without ratings. A lot of newcomers assume a knock-out format so advertise it as everybody plays every round (arrange for a house player so you don’t have byes).
The time control will be dependent on what you think the player base will accept.
You might have to be a bit of a philanthropist to get this idea started.
Award U.S. Chess membership(s) to the top finisher(s) – perhaps only to 1st place, or, in the event of a tie, to each player in the tie.
Time control should probably be in the G/30 to G/60 range. Anything slower would bore some of the newcomers. Make it a 1-day event on a Saturday. With G/30 (maybe even G/40) you could have 5 rounds. If slower than about G/45 make it 4 rounds.
Allow rated players to play too, even though the event itself is non-rated. That would increase other players’ interest in becoming rated. But don’t allow rated players to “win” (extensions of their) U.S. Chess memberships – award those only to the highest finishers who are not already U.S. Chess members.
If possible, furnish at least one clock. Games can be played without clocks if neither player can furnish a clock. If a game without a clock drags on too long, slap a clock on the game midway through, splitting the elapsed time equally between the two players.
Ask your players to bring chess sets and boards (unless your club can furnish them).
I see that you are a life member, but you have not played in a rated event since 1990. I assume that’s part of your reason for wanting to do this – to make it possible for you to eventually run rated events in your area so that you can play in them. I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor.
Bill Smythe
The CBSA report that was posted earlier this month only shows about 10 members in the Wheeling WV metro area, but the demographic search tool on the TD/A page shows 110 members within 40 miles of Wheeling, most of them in SW Pittsburgh, and around 500 members within 50 miles.) There are also members in Morgantown and Steubenville.
Due to opt-out procedures you can usually reach about half of the membership in any given area by email, and around 80% by postal mail.
Site costs are what usually drive tournament expenses way up.
Part of what format to use will depend on the space and general area of the event. If you hold this in a well traveled area, then may want a much faster time control to get people/players into your site. A high traveled area means that there will those passing by who may be interested, but can’t spend the time for a long tournament. Depending on the expected turn-out you may want to limit the total number of rounds for the event as well. A 4 round G/60 tournament may be too long for many of the people you hope to attract into (or back into) chess in your area.
Remember to get the word out about your event through as many mediums [i.e. newspapers, facebook, local cable access, etc.] as possible in areas where you hope to attract people. If possible a large sign outside directing people to the tournament may be beneficial. Most important of all is to have plenty of material on your club and chess to hand out to those who show interest. Maybe have some kind of prize(s) that are either chess related or for local area businesses.
Hope this helps at least a little.
Larry S. Cohen
Cheap and easy. Make up an attractive flyer with clip art and tournament details. Post them at local establishments that will let you do that. Put flyers in local library, municipal recreation facility, senior center, and if the tournament is in the fall, at local schools.
Mailing to local and not so local chess clubs in WV, OH, and PA asking them to post tournament information. Use the USCF website to find clubs. If you have a club website, ask other clubs with websites to link with yours. Build up an e-mail list of contacts. Build up a list of addresses of people/players to contact. Go to other events and make contacts with club people, TDs, and others in order to have a network of contacts. If you go to their events, they may come to yours.
Does this take work? Yes. Does it take a lot of time? Yes. But if you are dedicated to this idea, you have to do the leg work and build up slowly to get a reputation for putting on a quality event that people want to come to year after year. You can hold a USCF rated event with an unrated section. You can also just hold an unrated event and allow USCF rated players to play just for fun. Emphasize the fun part. Have drinks and snacks available. Give out inexpensive door prizes that are for showing up, not for performance. You might be surprised at who will show up.
Thanks to all who have offered their advice thus far.
Nick
We do a monthly unrated round robin blitz tournament that pulls in some new people, some of whom then come to the club every week, and some of whom just come for the round robin once a month. Either way, it shakes things up a bit and gets some new faces in. It also forces our “regulars” to play people they don’t normally play at weekly open chess.
It’s very informal. Show up by 7:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month, add your name to the round robin chart. It’s free to play. One game per round, g/5;d0; our house rules are “clock move.” The guy who runs the tournament reads the pairings off the Crenshaw-Berger tables each round, and makes sure the results get recorded on the chart.
We fit as many games in as we can before 9 p.m., then award two small prizes to the first and second place winners. The prizes are edible treats I buy at Aldi; the most popular of which are Reese’s peanut butter cups, mixed nuts, and packages of AA batteries.
We do it during club time, in the space we already have for the club. Total cost of the event is the prizes. Yesterday we had 18 people, so split it to two round robins of 9, with the odd men in each round getting paired against one another (cross-round-robin-pairing?).
This could easily be done as a 4-round quick tournament, say something like G/15 or G/20, either with d3. You could fit four rounds in an evening if you started by 6:30 or so.
Which of your players is it that eats batteries?
Bill Smythe
My players don’t, but their small appliances (chess clocks?) do. 
Perhaps “consumable” was the better word.
I used to just have chocolate as prizes. Then I realized I had several diabetics in the group, so I added the mixed nuts (figuring that chess players are what they eat) and the batteries.