What is the policy regarding which tournaments are listed under which states in the TLA?
I am partially annoyed that out of state tournaments are being listed under Arizona, especially when they fall on the weekend of Arizona events. If players from a state are interested in out of state events, I’m sure they’ll look under the listings of those states’ TLA.
Is this an issue with other states?
I think any organizer can buy what’s called a ‘tag’ reference (ie, see XXXXX) in another state for an event. I don’t know of any restrictions on that policy. Are you calling for a change in that policy? If so, to what?
For Grand Prix events, the TLA fee includes one tag reference for the state in which the event is being held.
I guess I’m wondering why not a limit to the tag reference to only include the state in which the tournament is being held. But I’m sure there are other factors to consider. Perhaps this is a real money maker for the magazine. 
Perhaps many other people like having tags from other states listed in their state.
There are only a few Adult (Open) tournaments a year in Arizona. When I look at the TLA, and I see that 3 of the 4 listings are from out of state, I worry that players may miss one of the few tournaments that remain.
There should probably be some standards for “tag” TLAs, based on, for example, prize fund, Grand Prix status, and maybe even distance of the tournament from the state line.
Bill Smythe
I agree with Kiki - if TLAs are going to be listed “by state”, then all of the TLAs printed under a given state should actually take place in that state.
Players are generally aware of what other states happen to be nearby (it’s not something that changes monthly…) and are perfectly capable of checking all the states that matter to them.
The current practice wastes space (perhaps making money at it), is not particularly helpful to players, and has the potential to confuse some folk.
I think it was a bad idea - kill it.
There are. Paying for it.
I think you’re forgetting that TLAs are there to serve the players. Many states are small enough and close enough together that what makes no sense is strict segregation by state. The current setup is not ideal – in some areas, like New England, the old sorting by region would probably be more useful – but saying that no tournament can be listed outside of its own state is taking bureaucratic rule-worship to a preposterous level.
Sorting by region rather than by state doesn’t necessarily improved things if you happen to be near the border of two regions. Is PA more aligned with NY/NJ or OH/WV? That probably depends on which part of PA you’re interested in.
True. That’s why I said “in some cases.” There isn’t a lot of overlap in the player pools in Region XI.
No, I’m not.
There must be something about this time of year. Almost 1 year to the day I am once again annoyed that out of state TLAs appear in Chess Life. What is the point of sorting by state? Wouldn’t Chess Life save money by just listing all tournaments in one section?
Who is the best person (or group) to bring this up with
a. Dan Lucas?
b. Delegates?
c. My state affiliate?
If the policy can’t or won’t be changed, so be it, but at least I’ll know I tried.
I’m an Illinois resident living 20 minutes from the Wisconsin border. I’m interested in attending events in Wisconsin, and I’m interested in attracting Wisconsinites to mine. What’s wrong with cross-border advertising? The majority of our state borders are pretty stupid and arbitrary anyway.
That’s fine, but what’s preventing you from looking up Wisconsin tournaments in the Wisconsin listing yourself? If someone lives 20 minutes from St. Louis would you mind sorting through their tournaments too?
Personally, I don’t think someone trying to organize an event in Peoria shouldn’t have to fight for space in the IL listing with the surrounding states. If someone wants to look at neighboring states, let them.
You say “fight for space” like it’s a zero-sum game. It might bother me if the space were limited and I couldn’t get a TLA of mine run at all because all the space allotted to Illinois had been taken up by the Leviathan Indiana Tournament Machine, but that doesn’t happen, and if I see a listing for a tournament in Indianapolis, I’ll simply skim past it.
Since you’re in Arizona, I’m guessing that the tournament listings that are bothering you are from California, Las Vegas or both. Personally, I wouldn’t see this as a threat, I’d see it as (a) an opportunity, reminding Arizona players that they don’t have to stay in-state to play organized chess, and (b) a challenge, daring Arizona organizers to step up and create more events for their fellow residents. Maybe this is a sign that you need to take over the Arizona Chess Federation and use that position of power to flood the calendar with events in Arizona, for Arizonans.
That being said, I sympathize with your frustration when an out-of-stater schedules a big event on the same weekend as one you’ve been planning for a while. But that kind of thing happens in-state too – I checked the Illinois Chess Association website dutifully before planning an event on July 10, and then the very day after I reserved the site, not only did another event suddenly pop up on the calendar on that same date, it was at the club whose tournaments I most often enjoy traveling to play at. What can you do? You do your due diligence, and then something goes wrong anyway. Murphy lives.
Rather than try to get Chess Life to change its TLA policy, if you’re having a recurring problem with one or two high-volume organizers’ scheduling events on dates that conflict with yours, maybe you should just contact those organizers directly and demand a line of communication so that these things don’t happen in the future.
I too find it annoying to have other state tournaments listed in my state. I have lived and worked in different parts of my state over the years and there are times I was really interested in the St. Louis part of Missouri for tournament play. There was also a time when I wanted to know about Iowa and Missouri. There was also a time when I could look to go to Indiana fairly easily, and Wisconsin. Currently I could look at Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana for activities I might want to attend. I most likely would not think of Missouri at all at this time in my life.
When I look up a state in the TLA’s I want to see the tournaments in that state and none else. As mentioned by Enrique, I don’t care to have to wade through all the Missouri tournaments for Illinois ones.
If I know I will be in the St. Louis area, as I might be in the next 8 months or something, I’ll look at the Missouri TLA’s. If I want to see Iowa listings, I’ll thumb over to Iowa.
I certainly don’t need or appreciate the forced, bureaucratic advertising of other states in my state’s listings.
If I want a tournament in a state, I’ll look in that state’s listings. I certainly don’t want or expect to look in Illinois for a Michigan listing.
Isn’t that why we have separate state listings to begin with, you know, to identify what tournaments are in what state?
Umm… yeah. When there are a bunch of out of state tournaments listed, it makes it harder for potential participants to find the tournaments in their area. As stated above, if someone lives near a state border, they can go check that state’s listings themselves, if they’re so inclined. But I really don’t see the logic of having tournaments in Pennsylvania listed under Florida. (yes, really)
Well, yeah, that’s pretty bonkers.
“Bureaucratic”?!
I just used the term in response the the following, which makes the same amount of no-sense:
I still think there is humor in life.
Indeed. I often find your posts humorous, though probably not the ones you intended as such. I’m afraid your posting history made it hard to determine that you were not serious is suggesting a virtual moat around your state. I only vaguely recall that discussion, but what I wrote then was obviously correct.
Uhmmm, not so obviously correct…
I wonder if it’s date or location that’s more of a draw for players (I suppose prioritizing in-state dates first would be confusing and unhelpful.) But more importantly, I wonder how much more money it would cost to list the city and state location in the same bold type at the top with the date and and event title. Would that help players ‘zoom in’ on where an event is happening more quickly?
But then again, I don’t rely on the paper TLAs all that much in deciding where I want to play.