When will it be available?
How many pages?
Is it possible to have a short version for the player to have and use? as well as the Club TD?
I had thought it was at the publisher’s now. Why would it be to the advantage of a club TD, or a player for that matter, to have a shortened version?
Alex Relyea
As I recall, they were hoping for an e-book version to be out this summer and the print version in the fall.
I don’t recall there being any plans for a shorter version. Some years ago Bill Hall proposed splitting the rulebook into two parts, I don’t know if the publisher was even asked about that possibility for the 6th edition.
The publishers plan on an e-book version release in early June (see Amazon for details) and a paperback version several months after that.
While a short version does not exist, a plain language version does exist. USCF owns the rights to it. It was commissioned by former ED Bill Hall. I am the author. Bill’s idea was much like yours; i.e., that version would be for players and Club TDs (with some revisions to the certification rules). Various lawyers have determined that the plain language rulebook may be a derivative work. That caused some concern regarding the 6th edition publisher contract. The plain language rulebook is now in limbo. I doubt the new ED even knows it exists, but I could be wrong.
I could see a possible value to having a shortened version of the rulebook for players. There are some sections of the current rulebook that, I suspect, are of little or no interest to players (for example, all of chapters 7, 12, and 13).
But it’s hard to imagine anything worse than a Club TD trying to direct a tournament with anything other than a full rulebook. Many of the TD Tips are designed primarily for inexperienced tournament directors.
Bob
I doubt the publisher would conclude that having two rule books is going to be financially beneficial.
You’ve also pretty much demonstrated why club TDs SHOULD have the full rule book and ONLY the full rule book!
And I’m reminded of the saying: A man with a watch knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never sure.
A few years ago, someone showed up at the US Open workshops with no less than 7 different versions of Roberts Rules.
Players perfectly capable of directing 2 section Blitz or Quick Quads are quite reluctant to take a paper exam to renew their Club certification or even apply for a Club TD certification at my club. A 370 page book is appalling to them and I suspect the new Rulebook will not be shorter.
Tim, I hope you will bring up the plain language rulebook idea to the ED.
More than a few NTDs have argued at US Opens that the USCF should not permit ANY TDs to be certified without passing an exam.
The above post could be seen as adding fuel to that fire.
If I wanted to referee high school football or basketball games in Nebraska, I have to attend a clinic and pass a test. Other than chess, how many sports allow their officials to work at events with no training or test of their knowledge of the rules?
If they are reluctant to even read the rulebook then I am not as sure as you are that they are “perfectly capable” of directing any chess tournament.
It is about the same as a basketball player or coach attempting to referee. They know how to play, but generally do not know the nuances of the rules. I know - I’ve done that too.
We are not talking about NO knowledge or training. Most if not all of our possible TDs are players and some have actually directed tournaments in the past, but their 3 year certification has expired. A topic about a year ago got significant support for excluding certain portions of the Rulebook for the testing requirements for Club and Local TDs.
I’ve lost count of how many experts, masters and senior masters do not actually know all of the rules that come up when they try to handle a situation. I’ve corrected GMs that were also CTDs when they made what they thought were logical rulings.
I recently did a non-rated event for somebody and the organizer had a couple of experienced players to assist as floor proctors. They would check with me before making some of their rulings and were surprised about a dozen different times, learning that they were incorrect on what they thought the rules were.
Since they were dealing just with floor issues that didn’t even touch the possibility of their being fuzzy on the pairing rules (with proper settings, WinTD and SwissSys are generally considered to pair at least as well as a Senior TD, while with improper settings they will make a number of errors). A TD that does not understand the pairing rules is less likely to notice that there is a problem in the program settings.
We are not talking about “any chess tournament”, but club events which are entirely Quick or Blitz at the once a Tuesday night club meeting.
An atmosphere of casualness or less formal or serious play among less experienced players is often when some of the messiest rules issues come up.
A baseball umpire should know what to do if a runner is passed by another runner on the base path. I’ve watched hundreds of major league games and quite a few minor league games, all the way down to Single-A ball, and I have only seen it happen once. However, I know someone who umpired small town high school games, and he had to deal with the situation several times each season.
Quite true! Most of the rulings I’ve been called upon to make as a TD have involved relatively inexperienced players.
But there’s currently no reason a club can’t have Quick or Blitz events at its once-a-Tuesday-night club meetings without having a TD who’s read the entire rulebook. You just can’t call it a USCF-sanctioned tournament, or have it rated. But why would you want to when you have no idea whether it was conducted in accordance with USCF rules?
Bob
We have 3 former Club TDs who are strong players and only one current Local TD who is getting old at 81 and has medical problems. Those 3 are who we hope will renew or move up from Club to Local or become reinstated as Club. We try to have one rated event a month because players like to see their Blitz and Quick rating and hopefully our non USCF members may join USCF so they can get a rating. I think the expired Club TDs would renew if the exam were online or the specific sections to be tested on were identified. We feel our events whether rated or not rated are conducted in accordance with USCF rules.
While I do agree that much in the rulebook does not apply to the “basic” small club event (rules for correspondence chess? how the rating system works?), I find it difficult to be sympathetic to this complaint.
So the exam is not online. Is it truly so onerous to complete the exam on paper and return the exam by United States Postal Service?
The passing grade for the Club TD exam is 70%. Stop and think about that for a moment – 70%. How terrible an obstacle is that? In real life, can you imagine a tournament director getting only 70% of his rulings right? An error rate of 3 in 10?
I really don’t think it’s such a stretch to guess that knowing the rules in the first part (rules 1-24, which include rule 10 [touch move], rule 11 [illegal move], rule 14 [how a game is drawn], rule 15 [recording of moves], rules 5 and 16 [the chess clock]) and how to do Swiss pairings (rules 25-29) and distribute prizes (rule 32) would cover practically all of what would appear on a Club TD exam. That’s the “bread and butter” of a TD’s work. And it’s an open book exam. Honestly, I have concerns about a TD who can’t scrape out a passing grade of 70% for such an exam. (And, yes, I am one of those NTDs who believe any certification should first require passing an exam.)
I’m just glad that we don’t require airline pilots to be right only 70% of the time. 
Oh, how did we ever run tournaments without certified, exam approved tournament directors? There once was a time when we did that and accepted the rating reports from the affiliates and TDs. Many TDs were “grandfathered” in without having to take exams. If Club TDs are required to take an exam, then we should immediately certify them as Local TDs upon passing the test. Wasn’t it the purpose of not requiring the exam for a Club TD to give them some time to acquire some practical experience and mentoring before taking the test?
There was a time when drivers’ licenses weren’t required before hitting the open road, either.
In all seriousness, though, I don’t think it’s too much to ask a Club TD to be able to pass an open-book test with 70%.
If a director can’t answer 7 out of 10 elementary rules questions correctly even with the rulebook on hand for reference, I’ll politely decline to participate in any tournaments run by said director.
Maybe we should make the TD’s test score part of his MSA profile? 