Parent-Spectators at Scholastic Events

Running Chess Tournaments
21

jwiewel,

My complaint here in this thread wasn’t that parents are kept off the playing floor. I agree that some tournaments/playing sites can’t accomodate parents in the room. What I’m saying is that an ATTEMPT should be made to accomodate parents. TRY to find a big enough site that parents can watch from a distance. Let them set up video cameras. Use demo boards for the top games. Use some of those parents that you know to run the demo boards, the ones you can trust not to cause problems – with the understanding they wont come near their own kids. Maybe have the K-4 parents do the demo boards for the 5-8 section and vice versa (or whatever sections you have).

Rather than the consensus opinion which seemed to be not to even try to let parents have some chance of viewing their kids playing.

I’m glad you have tournaments with 200 - 500 kids. That’s GREAT! But lots of tournaments are smaller and COULD make SOME accomodation for parents if new scholastic TDs weren’t being told not to bother.

And rfeditor, the player in question CANT KEEP SCORE BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WRITE THAT WELL YET. He’s only half way through Kindergarden.

22

WOW ! I had no idea I would spark such a voluminous and extensive response ! I think this matter comes down to the cheating aspect, and it is possible for the threat of one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else. I’m sure that for 99% of the parents out there cheating never crosses their minds. But where thousands of dollars, ( $14,000 in this case ), are riding on an outcome which could be unjustly and illegally influenced by a single miscreant, I think I have a duty to protect all of the participants. Additionally, as this is the University Of Connecticut School of Engineering, and indirectly the State of Connecticut, such behavior might be construed as criminal intent to defraud and who needs such a fiasco ? Certainly not the TD ! It can be clearly ascertained that cheating has been a problem in tournaments all over the country. The right of the parents to spectate is clearly outweighed by the right to maintain the integrity of the event. Additionally, parents are still able to witness the games after the fact, i.e. with a scoresheet.
I’d like to thank everyone for their input so far; it has been a true learning experience !

23

Then the TD will presumably excuse him from keeping score. This gives no special right to use a sensory board, nor does use of a sensory board by itself excuse a player from keeping score.

I would allow a sensory board if the opponent did not object (and if it did not require the presence of anyone other than the player to operate). If the opponent did object … well, I’d have to see what was available.

Essentially, my position is that parents and coaches, like any other spectators, have no “rights,” other than the right to go to some other tournament. They are there on sufferance, and I won’t suffer for very long. The tournament is for the players.

24

I’m sorry but the (mostly non-existant) cheating problem is NOT a reasonable cause for banning parents from the room. Parents are allowed at spelling bees aren’t they? The difference is that there the organizers have been able to accomodate the parents by having adequate planning and facilities.

Unless you have very large scholastic tournaments and just CAN’T find a big enough playing site, you should try to accomodate the parents.

The head-in-the-sand attitude, parents will cheat and disrupt the games fears, “spectators have no rights” mantra, etc. isn’t helping promote chess. If you can’t accomodate parents without compromising the games, the knee-jerk reaction of banning them is not the only solution. TRY to get more parents involved as TDs, helpers, demo board runners, etc. (in other sections than the one’s THEIR kids play in). TRY to get better playing sites. TRY to accomodate cameras, etc. Yes, I’m asking you to do more work – I realize that for many that may not be reasonable. But, if you get more people involved then you may just save yourself some effort.

For that matter, try to get an “official videographer” or “official photographer” (a volunteer) – you might just raise more money for chess by selling a video of the tournament.

25

rfeditor,
The DGT board looks like a very nice wooden board. It definately falls in the “standard equipment” definition in the rules. In fact they are used at the top boards for some very large prestigious tournaments. I see no reasonable cause for not allowing it. Especially when the player wanting the board has black – it’s supposed to be his choice of standard equipment, right? Only if the organizer is supplying other equipment to all the players should he be prevented from using the board of his choice. Even then, I would be inclined to TRY to accomodate him, if I were the TD. I don’t see a down side, and there’ll be one less unhappy parent to have to deal with.

Yes “spectators have no rights”. You have the rule book firmly behind you there and I agree. But taking something that was meant to protect TDs and players from unruly spectators and (mis) using it make an arbitrary decision ISN’T HELPING PROMOTE CHESS. I’ve got to feel that if you’re putting forth the considerable effort to direct a scholastic tournament, that you care about the game of chess and the people that are playing. So I’ll just suggest that maybe if we made more accomodations to parents and spectators, chess might become more popular. That would be good, right???

26

I certainly agree with that part. See 21K2, “Beware abuse of power.”

If a player makes any reasonable request, I will generally try to accommodate him. If some third party makes a request … I’ll consider it if it’s not going to annoy any of the players, and if it does not take time from something more important.

While I tend to agree with you on this particular subthread, the original question was about parents/spectators in the playing area. There is certainly evidence that some of the players object to it. (Also, there is no question that some of the parents/coaches object to others doing it, and while not dispositive, this is a good practical reason for excluding them all.)

27

There are some parents willing to support cheating. There is a problem with cheating at the scholastic level. The parent can wave the ethical problem of cheating better than the scholastic player. Adults can cheat, steal, … or any unethical value better than a child. Cheating, has to be done with the support of the scholastic player. Even if the scholastic player does not understand … in time will understand … was used as a pawn in the act of cheating. In time, the scholastic player will have ethical problems with chess itself.

28

Every spelling bee I have been to was in an ampitheatre-type setting, with a stage (or at least a podium) and theatre seating for the spectators.

What chess venues are there which offer that type of seating for spectators and would support dozens if not hundreds of players?

The National Elementary was held in the basketball arena at Arizona State once, with the players on the basketball court and the parents in the B and C level seats (not the pull-out bleacher seats.)

They could see little Johnny seated at his board, though it would have taken a very strong pair of field glasses to see the position.

29

Answer: true.

Two years ago, I played in a high school (grade 9-12) league championship that consisted of 40 players. We played in the middle of the shopping mall. Parents, coaches, and even anyone who happened to pass by were allowed to spectate. They were allowed to watch the game from quite a close distance as long as they weren’t breathing down someone’s neck. There were big signs everywhere that said “QUIET PLEASE - violaters will be fined $25”. Most of the time if players felt distracted, we were old and mature enough to ask the spectator to move away.

At the high school level (9-12, but not K-12) I think the players themselves are old enough to handle most situations. Otherwise we just call the director over to deal with the problem. This is what is done in most adult tornaments too. It is always the younger kids that are the problem.

However, I do see that with big college scholarships on the line, some people may attempt to cheat. It is basically the same as someone trying the cheat at a big tournament where prizes in the five figure range are offerred. I mean after all, if people have been caught cheating on the SATs why wouldn’t these people cheat at other things too? There are athletes that take steroids and get recruited to college sports too.

But in general, I haven’t seen any major spectator issues in high school matches and tournaments. Most everyone seems well behaved, and those who get scolded by a high school player often leave the area ashamed. There was actually a very funny incident at an exhibition match where a rather large man constantly talked very loud. He was "shhhhhh"ed a few times but continued to talk and bump into players’ chairs as he walked down the aisle. Finally, a fed up player blurted out “Shut your dirty hole you fat f***!!!” Not a very nice thing to say, but he definitely got his point across. The man didn’t make a peep for the rest of the match. The kid wasn’t even warned about his language because obviously everyone was happy about it’s result.

30

rfeditor,

You made an important distinction, and I stand corrected. I agree that Parents should not be IN the immediate playing area during games. I think that ideally they should be allowed to SEE the playing area. Perhaps from a spectator area a few (or several) feet back from the tables.

I would like to be able to see my child play. I doesn’t matter to me if I’m so far away that my child can’t see me very well. I think a lot of parents feel the same. If we’re pushed back far enough to remove the possibility of “cheating” then that’s OK.

I still don’t think cheating is a big problem, but we don’t want a lot of accusations even if they’re unfounded.

31

Nolan wrote:

For a couple years, the Alabama Scholastic Individual Championship (~100 players) was held at a private school near Birmingham. The playing area for the Primary & Elementary sections was on the floor of an auditorium overlooked by a balcony. (High School & Jr High played in the library.) Parents were allowed to observe the games from there, and yes, binoculars were quite useful in viewing the boards. There were also webcams trained on the two top boards, and these were displayed on a screen at a separate theater across the hall from the auditorium. A chess master was on hand to provide running commentary on these games for all interested. A comfortable lounge area was also available for skittles and as a waiting area for uninterested parents.

I consider this arrangement to be nearly ideal for players and parents both. (The fact that the school also served an excellent lunch at a very reasonable price didn’t hurt either.) In fact, I’ve continued to badger our state chess association president about trying to secure this venue for future events.

I agree wholeheartedly with taanstaafl about allowing parents to view the games, if this can be done on a non-interference basis. As the new scholastic coordinator for the Huntsville Chess Club, this thread has given me some useful ideas. One is to attempt to use demo boards to show what’s happening in the top games during our scholastic events. The other is for the TD point me out during his pre-round 1 announcements as the go-to guy for all parent questions. I think this could help in making the whole experience more fulfilling for parents.

32

I’ve directed at events where there was a spectator section and the boards were roped off. Unless there are demo boards it is impossible to see individual positions, and the parents complain that they cannot see their kids’ games, especially if they CAN see some of the boards close to the spectator area but not where their kid is seated.

I suppose if you had a spectator aisle every two rows you might be able to see most of the positions, but that would probably double the amount of floor space needed at a tournament, plus it would be necessary to rope off all the spectator areas from the playing areas, which would add a lot of time to the tournament set up.

I’ve never been at an event where they had auto-sensing boards on the top games (or at least not one where those boards were working properly.) I’ve wondered what it would take to put the top games on the hotel’s cable system. I see three possible ways to do it:

  1. Auto sensing boards.
  2. Mon Roi (or similar) notation recording systems. FIDE has recent approved using these.
  3. Webcams.

It would take some coordination with the hotel to make sure we had the right equipment to get a signal into their cable system, plus rotate among the televised boards, since I doubt we’d get more than one channel.

33

Well, I’ve never directed or organized. I’m just a plain old (former) chess dad. My son played in scholastics for seven or eight years, and I drove out of town to a lot of tournaments, as well as going to a lot in town. We went to a couple of big Supernational-type tournaments and three Denkers.

In nearly all of those tournaments (the Supernationals being the exception), parents had free access to the floor. I spent a lot of hours standing behind my son watching his game. I also wandered around and watched other games. That was a big part of my enjoying tournaments.

In all those touraments (about 85 total), I never saw a problem with parents on the floor. That may be the nature of the relatively small population midwestern state in which I live-- we tend to be a polite and honest bunch. Or maybe it’s because most of these tournaments were reasonably small (50-100). Whatever the reason, a brief announcement before the first round by the organizer seemed to do the trick.

So, I hope organizers will be open to the possibility that parents on the floor can work just fine. It sure made those long drives and long days more enjoyable to me, and was a big part of my chess relationship with my son.

YMMV, of course.

34

What most organizers have as a problem, is the problem of space between players. As a director, like most directors … you always want to give as much room for the players. The standard is two or three boards per-table, with the next table around five feet away.

If your going to have a table set up ideal for the very top boards, just for the enjoyment of the spectators. It would be an eight foot table with two boards, with the next table being ten feet away. That would be a great deal of space to give up for every board of a scholastic tournament. As scholastic tournaments, parents do not want to watch the top boards, they want to watch their child play. That would be a great deal of space to give up even for any tournament. This is (one of the reasons) the reason organizer want the parents away from the boards.

35

You guys are going to scare me away from ever doing a scholastic event!

36

If you are going to be the director of a scholastic event, after the tournament and when you get home. You sure do want to have a good stiff drink. You will be past a beer, you will be past wanting to have a few shots … you just want to drink from the bottle.

37

Directing scholastics really isn’t that bad, in my (limited) experience. I was assistant TD at my first scholastic tourney about 20 years ago and I’ve only been to a few others. But I have never had or witnessed a real problem at one. The younger players are a bit more energetic than adults, but on the whole I’d say they are better behaved. Don’t let these guys scare you off.

YMMV.

38

<<Honestly, some of you guys sound like jerks with your comments about parents. I’ll repeat what I said earlier – what other organized activity for school children (name any other sport or competition) BANS PARENTS FROM THE ROOM! People would be rioting if you did this in a more popular activity like soccer. FIND A WAY TO ACCOMODATE PARENTS OR YOU WILL HURT THE POPULARITY OF CHESS COMPETITION. Sometimes you won’t be able to accomodate parents, but most of you sound like you’re opposed to even trying!>>

Yes, chess bans parents from the room. Every sport has its rules for spectators, and that happens to be the rule for chess (at least in these parts). You aren’t allowed on the field for soccer, are you? Do you expect to sit on the team side of the field during the soccer game?

We can split hairs and make comparisons, but chess is fundamentally not a spectator sport, especially at lower levels.

The way you accommodate parents in chess is to give them a decent skittles room where they can wait for their child and relax with their child between rounds. You make sure it’s easy to get registered. You have someone around to answer parent questions. You treat parents respectfully, and you expect them to respect the rules of your tournament and not look for exceptions for themselves.

Scholastic chess is not about the parent. Scholastic chess is about scholastic chess players.

<<I’ve had a friend of mine that’s constantly run into problems because he wants to video tape his child’s games. NOT the players, just the game. Even when he is able to set up the camera completely out of the way (sometimes even after he has made prior arrangements with the TD/organizer, and received prior permission) he has problems.>>

Good. He should have problems. Imagine a K-1 section where ALL the parents want to videotape their kids. Oi!

The kid’s in kindergarden. Is he having fun playing? Is he winning some of his games? Is he improving? Great! Within a year he’ll be able to notate his games; in the meantime there’s no need to videotape him.

This kind of person really makes me nuts…he goes and gets special permission for himself to videotape. You know, if a TD wants to allow parents in the room, and wants to allow ALL PARENTS to videotape, fine. That’s the TD’s call and I respect that. But why do some people think their situation or child is unique and demands an exception?

Need pictures of your kid? Then do what all the other parents do, and photograph the kid at the beginning of the round. I’m a firm believer in letting parents accompany their children to the board at the beginning of a round. Then, please leave!

<<Keep in mind that it’s the parents that bring the child to the tournament. How many parents have you turned away from chess?>>

Not too many, from what I can tell. Attendance is pretty heavy at our scholastic events, and parents stay in the skittles room.

I don’t hate parents…heck, I’m a chess parent, but I’m there for my kid not for myself.
[/quote]

39

No, I’m not allowed on the soccer field, but I can SEE the soccer field. Get real.

WHY isn’t chess a spectator sport? There seems to be plenty of parents that would LIKE to spectate! WHY is chess ONLY about the player? Parents are involved in virtually every K-3 sport I know of. People in other sports realize that children at that age (and their parents!) aren’t ready for sports or other activities that exclude parents! WHY do you feel that chess should be treated so differently from EVERY OTHER activity for children that age?

On the video camera subject. So you think it’s OK to lie to parents and give them one expectation of your event ahead of time and then change the rules on them after the’ve driven for hours to attend your event? He wouldn’t have had a complaint if he hadn’t been told ahead of time that he could videotape the game, and then (after entering in advance and driving his whole family for over 3 hours) that no, he can’t. He might have picked a different tournament to go to if somebody hadn’t LIED to him.

Maybe scholastic chess events shouldn’t be judged only on the number of players involved, but on the number of parents also! Don’t you think the parents would get more out of it if they could watch the games? How popular do you think little league, soccer, etc would be if the parents couldn’t watch the games but only got the scoring after the games were over? Probably not even as popular as chess! But you can’t even consider that we’re doing something wrong and that it might be worth while to try something different?

40

I didn’t intend to scare you. I’ve been directing scholastic for more than two decades (five to ten multi-hundred-player K-8 tournaments and two or three 100-400-player high school tournaments each year) and in all of that time I’ve only been physically threatened once (at an overcrowded national while denying a parent access to the playing area) and I only know of one case where a TD actually was shoved (also at a national). The local scholastic tournaments have gone fairly well. We did have more complaints by parents about other parents before the events grew so large that we had to close the floor. The number of parents that might cause problems are not that many and, as long as you are willing to explain things to parents, the situations can generally be defused.

I’ve had some parents come up to me after a few seasons and say that they realize that they must have been major pains in the neck in their first season with all of their questions and complaints. My response has been that I didn’t mind the questions because they actually LISTENED to my explanations. I’d rather have a complaining parent that listens than an upset parent that never asks a question and then gets frustrated and pulls kids from chess.

Those parents that listened often end up serving as a self-appointed first line of defense to answer similar questions that other new parents have. One advantage you get after a few years is that the parents involved realize that you are consistent and fair in your rulings. With K-8 tournaments, you have a number of parents who have been involved for some years to let the newcomers know that the TD doesn’t “pick on” kids (a common misperception when a TD has to rule against the kid because the kid didn’t know that the kid’s concept of a rule was wrong or even that a rule was being violated). That keeps replenishing the self-appointed first line of defense.

If you are not affiliated with a team or player then it is easier to be considered unbiased. In my case I had two decades of directing before my only child started playing in the K-3 section of a rated tournament. Even though I now have a kid of my own playing, I am still considered unbiased (as an aside, if at all possible, always get another TD to rule on situations involving your own kids).

I often tell people that I love doing the scholastic tournaments. I definitely love when they’re over, but I do love doing the tournaments.

I disagree with some that say strong drink is needed after a tournament. A couple of times I’ve been so exhausted that I crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately after getting home, but that still works out to only roughly once a decade. Sometimes I’m so pumped by the day’s events that it takes hours to fall asleep.