Proposed tournament format

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I would like to get feedback on my proposed format for a new tournament that I would like to run for my club.

Portland Chess Club Class Championships

Format: 2-day, 5 round Swiss in 5 sections: Open, U1900, U1700, U1500, U1300. Players may play up in any section. (The point behind this format is to switch it up from the Oregon Class Championships which has sections at 2000+, U2000, U1800, U1600, U1400 and does not allow playing up) Two half point byes are available if requested before round 1.

Time control: Satuday G/90,d10, Sunday G/120,d10

Rounds: Saturday-10am, 2pm, 6pm, Sunday-10am, 3pm

Entry Fee: $40, $30 for Portland Chess Club members

Prizes: $1000 based on 40 entries. Each section-1st $125, 2nd $75

Several questions:

Should the prizes be the same for each section or should the higher sections have bigger prizes?

Should the tournament be called a class championship event though sections aren’t at the traditional cutoff for a class championship? If not, what would be a better name?

When should sections be combined? The Oregon Class Championships says that sections may be combined if there are less than 8 in a section. Also, if sections are combined, should the prizes still be kept separate?

2

First is that 50% of prizes needs to be guaranteed, since the based on amount is over $500.

IMO, it’s not really a class tournament since part of the classes are split. I don’t have a rule to quote on this, however.

Around here, players do not like it when class prizes are different amounts, they should be the same amount, but ymmv. Again, no rule to quote.

If the sections are combined, each division should still receive the advertised prize for their respective sections. As far as I can tell, the rules are silent on this, but it only makes sense to me.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen time controls such as yours.

The entry fee to 1st place prize ratio would not attract me as a player. At less than 4:1, I hope that most of your 40 players are local, and don’t have travel, and hotel expenses.

What are your past attendances like in your area?

3

You could call it a quasi-class championship. The Chicago Open uses a similar breakdown.

I generally see the open section getting a higher prize payout while the lower sections often have similar amounts that are smaller than the open section.

If sections are merged, you may or may not want to do “class” pairings in the final round. Doing them avoids having the lower section’s leader after four rounds be paired against somebody from the higher section and two lower section player’s a half point back getting paired against each other with the winner of that game skipping ahead of the player that had played a better tournament. On the other hand, since the reason for merging the sections in the first place was that one of them was so small, it may be very difficult to make reasonable “class” pairings then.

4

Thank you Jeff for pointing out that I doubled the time control time in the previous edition of this post. Obviously with G/90
it would take about 3.5 hours or so. You still could run to the
wire for the next pairing time. But certainly the time controls as stated, are doable. I have seen players make 20+ moves
with one second on the clock remaining with 5 second delay.
Certainly with a 10 second delay a few players could really drag it out (esp, if both are in time control difficulty). Again
thank you, Jeff.

Rob Jones

Rob Jones

5

For a class tournament like this, there is no strong argument for longer TC’s on Sunday. In a single section tournament, the early rounds tend to be mismatches with the “real” games coming later, but in a class tournament, the key games may end up being in the first few rounds, and some of the Sunday games will be rather quick draws.

6

G/90 d10 is about one hour and 40 minutes a side, not three hours a side. The round times look fine to me. You could add more time between rounds if you wanted to give the players a break.

Regarding Micah’s proposed tournament format:

I would call this an open tournament, not a class tournament, because players are allowed to play up as much as they want. In the CCA class tournaments, for example, rated players are allowed to play up only one class.

You might want to charge a higher entry fee to players who enter at the door, to encourage players to enter in advance and make it easier to start the tournament on time. You should also announce the time when registration ends, probably half an hour before the first round given the number of players you’re expecting.

I’d allow half point byes to be requested before round 2 instead of before round 1 because the first round can be hectic and players sometimes arrive late.

I agree with what Jeff and Terry said about prizes: Open Section prizes should be bigger than lower section prizes, and prizes should be at least 50% guaranteed.

In a tournament like this, if sections are combined I would treat the combined section as a section with place prizes and class prizes, without regard to what section a player originally entered, so if the U1700 and U1500 sections are combined a player rated 1499 would be eligible for both the U1500 prizes and what were originally the U1700 prizes and are now the place prizes in the combined section, regardless of whether he entered the U1700 section or the U1500 section. Ideally the original U1700 prizes would have been larger than the U1500 prizes, but that isn’t essential.

Six players should be fine for a five round tournament because you can pair it as a round robin, so a better rule might be to combine sections if there are fewer than six players in a section.

7

Doesn’t that give you 40 minutes between rounds?

Delay: 60 moves x 20seconds/move = 1200seconds = 20minutes

I tend to leave 20 minutes between rounds, so I would think about G/100 for both days with the same schedule: 10-2-6,10-2. It just makes things simpler having the same time control and round times both days. Players don’t have to reprogram their clock, the td doesn’t have to change their time control signs, etc. The fewer opportunities for mistakes in general makes for fewer mistakes.

8

I’ve generally found that you need to charge $10 extra at the door to get most players to register in advance. That typically gives me 75-80% advance entries (for entry fees in the $25-$40 range).

9

That’s weird. Once I saw Bob’s reply, I realized that I twitted out about how much time there was and took that paragraph out of my post. You must have started replying before I fixed it.

I also recommended one TC for both days for different reasons. I would strongly recommend that to Micah (whether it be G/90 or G/100).

10

To me the U would indicate Under which would make the 1300s or even 900s all the way down to 0 eligible for the U1900 prize. Is this what your intention is?

11

Those are sections, not “under” prizes in the same section, although as Micah explained sections will be combined if they have fewer than 8 players. By the way, no one has a rating of 0. Unrated players have no rating and are not eligible for “under” prizes unless this is explicitly stated.

12

Down to zero was only meant as an illustration. With the ability to play up Sections the U still seems to add unnecessary confusion. Normally with something like this you would see Class A, Class B etc. It would take more space but be clearer with Class 1700 to 1899, Class 1500 to 1699 etc

13

Even for 4 and 5? 4 points is likely to win money if not tie for the outright lead in sections that size. If you’re going to allow people to get a full point for skipping Sunday, you’ll probably want to tighten up the language to make sure those byes are irrevocable.

14

The only reason to do that would be if players weren’t allowed to play up, or had a limited ability to play up. Given the tournament design as Micah has described it, U1900 is both more accurate and simpler than 1700 to 1899.

Another suggestion for Micah: it might be a good idea to impose prize limits on unrated players, e.g. $50 in the U1300 section, $75 in U1500, $100 in U1700, $125 in U1900, no prize limit in the Open section.

15

Have the Oregon Class Championships had to combine sections from time to time? If so, you probably would expect that a first time tournament with relatively similar structure would be even more likely to have small sections.

16

As far as merging sections goes, if there aren’t that many U1700 players then a few could enter in the U1900 section and force the U1700 to be merged up with the U1900 (giving them the benefit of having strong competition while still being eligible for U1700 prizes).

17

Even though u1900, etc. aren’t prize related, it would still suggest that anyone rated below 1900 could play in that section. So, if the idea is to limit it to class pairings, it should be advertised as 1800-1900, 1600-1700, etc.

18

Although a lot of people have replied with good suggestions, let me weigh in:

I think I saw a similar tournament in Michigan called “Half-class”.

I think it is good to have more money in the higher classes. That will encourage players who think they are underrated to play up.

I’m strongly opposed to a ten second delay. If you must use ten seconds, please use increment.

I think two byes, especially when last round byes are allowed, is two many for a five round tournament.

Alex Relyea

19

That would be rather cheeky, wouldn’t it?

20

In the OP Micah Smith wrote “Players may play up in any section.”