Do the US Chess rules allow a rated tournament that has only a single round? The players would be listed by rating then paired 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and so on. Have you ever done it? Do you have any constructive comments or suggestions?
I don’t see anything in the rules prohibiting it, nor does there seem to be anything expressly allowing it. Perhaps it depends on whether chess follows:
The English system of law – The citizen may do whatever is not expressly prohibited by law;
or
The European system law - The citizen may do whatever is expressly permitted by law.
I know I could do this as a series of matches, but then the cost goes up significantly because of the $3 minimum rating fee. And there are restrictions on match play that I wish to avoid, namely the requirement of a published rating. I don’t think it would really be series of matches anyway, because players do not play each other more than once, and the pairing is not pre-arranged by the players. The pairing would depend on who walks through the door waiving a $5 bill for his entry fee just before I close registration.
For those who want to know why I would consider this idea –
My idea is to meet the needs of players who would like to play low cost, rated chess, on Sunday; but don’t want to spend the entire day playing chess. So I am thinking one game at G90;d5 or 40/90,SD30;d5 on Sunday afternoon. In the morning the player can go to Church, sleep in, work in the yard, play with the kids, or whatever; then have time for a rated game in the afternoon; and still get home in time for Sunday dinner.
There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re not using this to hide an actual or de facto match. Clubs routinely submit for rating ladder games which are effectively one game weekly “tournaments”. Rather frequently those are batched together into a month’s worth of games, but that’s only for convenience (of the TD) or to avoid minimum fees.
Thanks for the feedback Tom. Poking around in my copy of WinTD for the Mac, I just now noticed a “1-2, 3-4” section pairing method option that looks like it will be handy for this tournament, if I decide to do it, and if anyone shows up. I don’t really know whether there will be a demand for this. Thanks again.
Michael Lilly
Portland, OR
It may be easier in some situations for some TDs to upload the results from pairing software rather than enter the tournament by hand. ESPECIALLY for a one round tournament.
In WinTD, USCF-Update from Web Site will update the expiration date to be almost completely up-to-date. Since it just updates expiration date (and state), you can save time by selecting only the players who have expired memberships.
I guess a format I would have about this format is that it would not be particuraly difficult to slip in several
matches between players who do not meet USCF match rules. There have been some unnamed TDs, since
reprimanded who have
run such tournaments. I guess a question is this - how many people must participate in a one round tournament for to be considered a tournament as composed to a match??
A one-round-per-week event doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a single-round tournament. Are you doing this more than one Sunday?
Here’s an example of a tournament that ran one round per week for seven weeks. Doesn’t look like anyone played anyone else more than once in the main section; the director moved the game to an extra section if it was a repeat matchup, probably when there was no way to pair those who showed up without a rematch. Notice how many byes and skipped rounds there are; some players showed up for all seven rounds, others only came once. If you don’t have prizes you can (IMO) be a little artful about how you award byes to create decent pairings and get late-arriving players into an appropriate score group faster.
How you set this up will depend on your players. You could do it as a Swiss, but if you had a distinct set of very committed players, you could do it as a round robin instead.
Thanks for the additional feedback and constructive suggestions. I am still having a debate with myself about the wisdom and practicality of this for our particular situation.
Michael Lilly
Portland, OR
This is a slightly unusual idea, but I can see how this might work. As has been noted, the Pittsburgh Chess League sends its results in each month for rating rather than batch all seven or eight rounds at the end of the season. It is an idea that we pushed for so that ratings would not get stale in the meantime. The players appreciated it. They were encouraged to play more often and it gave local organizers up to date information on a wider pool of players. Because we have an alternate games pool playing, too, we often have a few of the players playing more than one game per round, but never against the same opponent.
We have several tournaments in the area that are 6 round events, with a round per week. Players have to wait a month and a half from the time of the start of the tournament until the finish to see their rating. It should be possible to send in each week’s games for rating. That might change some pairings, but players would have more timely rating information on their opponents. The only downside is that there might be an increased rating expense if the number of games is below the minimum rating fee.
This Sunday rating tournament with but one round is intriguing. I can see doing this periodically. There is one bugaboo, however. If you get the same people showing up each week, they may be paired with someone they played in a previous week. This is the same problem you have when holding quads. Most players want to play a variety of other players, not just the same old crew each week.
I don’t see why your reason implies the event only has to be one round. I’ve often played in club events that are one round a week, over several weeks. You could even charge the EF per round played, with no prizes, effectively putting you at a similar place, but theoretically solving the problem of people inadvertently playing the same person every week… I don’t really see where you could do this as a series of matches – IIRC don’t matches have to be at least 4 games between the two players?
The definition of the word tournament precludes a one-round event (“tournament” implies a series of contests.) So if US Chess rates tournaments, not events, and the common usage of the word tournament is implied, then your event would need to be at least two rounds.
