club?
I can come with a ladder system. Maybe a speed ladder and slow ladder. We are a skittles club. But that is about it.
I noticed a thread over the USCF issue forum about encouraging non-tournament players, at least in part. So I thought I would bring topic over here. We have had rated tournaments at the club venue this year. Somewhat successful
I can’t come up with anything else. Can anyone else?
Last year our club put on a play written and acted by several of the members for Halloween. It was loosely based on the plot lines of the classic horror novels “Dracula,” and “Frankenstein” as well as the infamous Frankenstein-Dracula variation of the Two Knights Defense. The play was good, the costumes campy, the acting so bad it was funny, but everyone there, including the management of Borders Books had a great time.
We have also had a summer party/picnic. A Xmas or holiday party is also a good idea.
Why not have someone in the club draw up artwork for your tournament flyers? In the Dayton Chess Club, there is chess related art on the walls as well as other memorabilia for players to see.
Have one of your up and coming kids hold a simultaneous exhibition. Or have a member try to play multiple blindfold games.
Put a team in a chess league. If there is no league start one.
Sponsor some kids to a state scholastic championship. You can find people to help out, chaperone, handle travel logistics, etc.
There are lots of things non-tournament players can do for your club. Maybe they can help out with computer mailing lists, membership file updates, keeping club records, doing publicity, making food to sell at tournaments, setting up the club each night, handle trophy and t-shirt purchases. You don’t have to know how to play chess to do these things. Get more people involved, especially women. A “mom’s perspective” usually deals with details better than many men will. Some things we forget or don’t consider important; moms never forget anything and pay attention to little things. Plus they make cookies!
One of Bill Goichberg’s ideas was a chess variant called “Doubles Chess,” where a team of team of two players faces another team of two players, and the players alternate making moves (not after every single move, but something like every two or three moves, and White and Black switch at different points, so each player had a chance to face both members of the opposing team). Unlike Bughouse, the teammates were not allowed to suggest moves, give advice, etc. The teammate who was not “on move” just had to watch in amusement (or horror) as his/her teammate followed up on the player’s original combination (often following a very different track than the originator of a complicated sacrifice, for example). We had a few doubles tournaments at the World Open, but all I recall are a lot of “World Open” type disputes (claims of the wrong player on the other team making a move, instead of his teammate; teammates giving advice, etc.).
I ran a more low-key, weekly “Mixed Doubles” tournament with some guaranteed prizes on Friday nights at the Marshall for a few months, as a way to try and get more women involved in the Chess Scene (to be eligible to compete for the prizes, each team had to have one male and one female). The idea was to try and create a demand for the guys to find women players to team up with so they could then enter the tournament, and ultimately increase the supply of women players.
We started off drawing about six to ten teams a tournament (the really young brother/sister teams were fun to watch), but when I stopped guaranteeing the prizes, the interest ultimately waned, unfortunately. Maybe something like that would be popular again, perhaps at a different time or with more extensive promotion (a good idea would be a customized scoresheet with special markings indicating each time the players on each each team would switch).
A game of Kriegspiel always attracts attention at an informal club, or on an informal night. The two players play on different boards, out of sight of each other, and are not told where the opponent’s pieces are. A referee, on a third board in the middle, keeps track of the true position and announces “white has moved”, “black has moved”, etc. The ref also announces (to both players) captures (by square) and checks (on the rank, file, NE-SW diagonal, NW-SE diagonal, or knight). It’s a lot of fun (especially to be the referee!).
Bill Smythe