Does any state other than my state of Indiana run regional qualifying events for their state scholastic championships, or does everybody else have an open championship? If anybody else has regionals, I’d be interested in hearing how you organize it.
Massachusetts does, but not regional. There are four qualifier events for the 8 & under, 11 & under, and 14 & under championships. There is a series of tournaments in which the cumulative points winner earns a fifth spot, and the last five are awarded by rating. HS is open as there isn’t enough interest to have qualifiers. I remember more than once (before this change) directing a four round HS qualifier with three entries.
Someone else can speak to Texas, but I know they have regional championships at least.
Alex Relyea
The IHSA is adding sectionals next year in order to control the event size.
Kentucky has Quads throughout the state, but I’m not up on how they work. Maybe Allen or Ryan can help there?
The quads are to qualify for the state team championship. The state individual championship is an open tournament.
the state team is 4 sections by grade with 16 teams in each section. Each regional qualifies 4. If a region does not have 4 then the 5th place teams are invited then 6th place etc until all the slots are filled.
The team tournament is 4 board with up to 6 players on the team (so there is a side event for the alternates)
Do you award prizes in the side event? In Massachusetts we have a side games section for games between players who have no opponent in a round for various reasons (alternates, players whose team has a bye, players who win by forfeit because the opposing team only has three players) but it’s ad hoc, with no prizes. The team championship is an open tournament while the individual scholastic is an invitational with qualifiers as Alex described earlier - just the opposite of what you’re doing in Kentucky.
Georgia runs a qualifying event for the K-8 Team Championship, but not for the HS Team Championship or College Team Championship. It’s actually only a qualifying event for the metro Atlanta folks. It has four sections, K-1, K-3, K-5, and 6-8, and typically draws about 1000 players. The format for the Qualifier is as an individual/team event paired according to rule 28N1. The K-8 team final is a true board ordered team tournament.
There used to be two different regionals for the east metro and west metro areas, but the numbers got to be where we were blowing capacity at the sites, so it went to three regionals (east, west, and north.) Holding three different tournaments got to be too much of a challenge logistically, plus the schools (our sites) started jacking up the prices. The decision was made a few years ago to move to one large tournament. However, there are very few places that can hold a tournament of this size. The place we have been using is an exhibition hall better suited to cattle than people, and the prices for that have skyrocketed as well. What will happen in 2018 I cannot say.
Yes there are small trophies in the side event.
Everyone in the team event who has a perfect score gets a trophy. IF someone plays a couple of rounds in the team event and then is substituted out they go into the alternates side event. If they win all four games between the two events they get a perfect score trophy.
We don’t put players who may happen to not have an opponent because the other team only has 3 players into t he alternates tournament for that one round. We rarely have a team with a bye as this is an invitational event basically.
In regard to Texas, we have 10 regions throughout the state. Each region has a regional director. The Texas Chess Association now has two state championships. A “Southern” zone, and a “North/Central Zone”
Every three years, TCA will host a “unified” state championship, instead of the two separate championships.
Any K-12 resident living or attending school in the state of Texas is eligible to participate in either state
championship event. The regionals do not serve as a “qualifier”. Any K-12 player who resides in or attends school in the state of Texas is eligible to participate in the state scholastic championships.
Rob Jones
Region III Director Texas Chess Assoc
For Kansas:
The Kansas Chess Association (KCA) authorizes our scholastic organization, Kansas Scholastic Chess Association (KSCA) to run the annual state scholastic tournament.
It is an open to all Kansas residents attending a K-12 school. (Thus, I suppose “closed” to other states).
There has been talks about having regionals since our state tournament has grown to nearly 600 players. The regional winners would seed into the championships and thus the state championships will be smaller and can fit in most hotels/schools. So far, we have not broken the 600 player attendance yet but hope so soon.
Problem: Not enough organizers / TDs winning to support such systems. (not support in voting, but actual physical support - KS only has at most 5 active TDs?)
Best,
~Ybriang
Brian Yang
KCA President / 2017 KSCA State Chief TD