Running rated tournaments online?

[Terry_Winchester]

@JorgeA

@Terry Winchester

@JorgeA

Setting up our club on Chess.com doesn’t look too difficult (https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-run-chess-events-online).

The tough part is that there appears currently to be no (practical) way to run a rated tournament for “real” ratings. For better or worse, a lot of players are interested in participating only in events where regular rating points are at stake: attendance at our club is dramatically lower when we’re running a non-rated event than when we’re running a rated one. Even Quick Chess events don’t do all that well for us. The question then would become whether people who play at our club would find it acceptable to play for an “online only” rating. Maybe if we get stuck in our homes for so long that face-to-face play becomes a faint memory…

I might contact the US Chess admins at Chess.com to see if there are plans to do this. (Worth a shot asking, anyway.)

Jorge,

Just a question that has nothing to do with your question, but regarding your club attendance. How does your club normally meet? Does it have it’s own building, or do you use donated space, like at a McDonalds, someone’s home, etc.? How long is your club open in a given meet?

Reason I ask, is if you hold regular rated events at your club, they must allow for no more than one game a night, if you meet for only a couple hours, is that right?

Terry, we meet Wednesday nights at a church. The club opens at 7PM and we have no set closing time.

Most of our rated events are one game per night (week) for 4 nights, with a good time control (40/90, 15/30) but sometimes we’ll run Game/30 quads and of course those are 3 rounds per night.

Thanks, Jorge, so how many players do you usually get for these? Would you care to say where you’re at?