Where I work I’ve been working with the Single Marine Program to offer chess tournaments in the recreation centers on the base.
This year, the Single Marine Program Director is looking to involve the Managers of the recreation centers in running chess tournaments (non-USCF). My goal for the Managers is to create an introductory guide to running basic tournaments (mostly likely double elimination to start with to ensure clear 1st, 2nd, 3rd among other reasons, with short time controls), with basic rules (touch move, how to use the clock, cover en passant and castling, and other basic information).
Once these are more or less satisfactorily run without my supervision, I will be running USCF tournaments, working with the Marines so they can apply for the All-Marine team.
The help I need is suggestions, helpful advice, good concise clear resources on what tournament structures are easy to manage, what FAQ questions from beginners have been encountered that I can provide answers to in the guide, what basic introductory rules should be made upfront and clear to the players.
Consider that most have played while they were children but not tournament chess and they tend to leave without telling the TD if they consistently lose (the main reason for considering the double elimination - it’s a tournament structure they’re familiar with).
I appreciate any and all help and suggestions made. Please be as clear and concise as possible such that nonchessplaying TDs can read and understand after a short bit of practice.
Thanks!
Regards,
Sara Walsh
Small round robin sections are probably the simplest to run. Round robins run themselves. All the players need is an assigned pair number, a round robin pairing chart (these are in the rulebook), and a mechanism for reporting the result. If you didn’t want to deal with color assignments a double round robin resolves that issue because they’ll play 2 games (1 white/1 black) with each player in their group.
If you have a sense of playing strength you can set up the round robin groups by estimated strength. If you don’t, then the first one may be totally random in terms of assignments. After you run one or two of these you’ll get a sense of relative playing strength and be able to assign players to sections by ability.
It’s hard to tell from your post whether the participants in these non-USCF tournaments are military personnel, or their spouses and children. Different materials would be appropriate for children’s tournaments versus tournaments for military personnel. However the rulebook is an excellent resource for basic rules along with the more complex issues that arise in rated play.
The participants are military personnel. Eventually the tournaments will be run by the Recreation Center Managers who have little to no knowledge of chess. As simple as it might be to even create a little rating spreadsheet to keep track of the players, I doubt they would keep up with it for very long.
Need simple methods that can be used no matter how many show up or are easily adaptable. They often get large sign ups with only half or fewer showing up. I’ve tried swiss but many of the guys will leave if they’re losing without saying a word. The most successful tournaments that were run by a Lt Col were double elimination. Though he had the advantage of teaching at a financial management school and got his students to play in the tournaments. I think he bribed them with grades or something. 
Most of the players are casual ones and they get easily bored or lose interest if they lose too often. And they don’t like long games. They have no stake in the game - most don’t care about taking notation or beautiful games. They just like beating up on their friends. If they can’t do that then they leave. 
But hopefully with getting some regular going with the rec centers and then doing USCF tournaments myself, we can change some of the bad habits or at least get them into organized chess and onto the All-Marine team. That is if they’re not being dragged away on floats and tours for indefinite periods.
Given that your rec managers are non chess people round robins are good. You could have quads with 4 players. If you have 12 people then you have 3 quads. If you have a number not divisable by 4 then you can make different size. Round robins create a degree of peer pressure, because the guy who gets stiffed by person who leaves is going be annoyed. He might “lean” on the sore loser when they have the next tournament.
If you invest in pairing software like Swiss-Sys or Win-TD you could have it do ratings. Also with pairing software you could do swiss. I’m not not overly familar with double knockout format. 1st round winners advance, losers go to loser’s bracket. If they lose again they’re out. I’m just not sure how one slots a 2nd round loser from the main into the loser’s bracket.
There is a website that allows one to set up a league and run tournaments. You may want to investigate this site. myleague.com/
I’ve played in some online leagues that use this website. I’m not sure how well it works with offline activity, but it’s worth checking into.
How many sites are you trying to supervise? Or are you trying to write a guide for all Marine sites, and then you are going to hold rated tournaments at your site at a later time? (The reason that I ask that I don’t see why you would delay starting a rated program at your site; it isn’t like holding rated chess at your base will influence rated chess at another site.)
Have you contacted the USCF Military Chess Committee? They might have some things that could help you (and prevent you from re-inventing the wheel!)
I’m surprised that you see such a high drop out rate. However, I’m not surprised that they were not dumb enough to walk out on the O-5!
There’s 5 rec centers and the Single Marine Program director wants them to be involved in the running of the chess tournaments to get them involved in the process (especially if I ever leave the area) and to take some of the burden off.
That’s why I need a guide for the Managers.
And quads are okay, but with the tiers its hard to know when they’re going to end. And the tournaments need to end in clear top 3 for prizes (they’re going to have gift certificates - hard to split those ).
I’m off to work now. Thanks for all the help and input.
Oh, and as far as the US Military Committee I was on it last year. Their focus is more on the running of the US Armed Forces Open and the Interservice etc and trying to get military memberships, then the ground floor of getting chess started. Last year I believe MSgt Rollings (ret.) helped get MCCS to do Chess in the Box which is where I started helping at the local base to get those tournaments run.
Have to run to work now. Thanks again!
Good afternoon Sara!
What help do you need exactly? You already know how to run a tourni as well, if not better than I, so I won’t comment there. I have some rudimentary teaching materials if you need them…
Hmm… are you thinking about setting up an online tournament any time soon? I ironed out the CCL app, and it may do the trick if you are ever in need.
Take care Sara!
Gregory
I need help creating a manual to guide NON-CHESSPLAYING Recreation Center Managers through running a basic chess tournament. Doing the pairings (basically the tournaments right now are going to be double elimination), imparting basic rules (ie touch move, how to use the chess clock, etc.) Need step by step guidelines on how to administer decisions on basic rules questions.
I will be helping with the first couple but the goal is to have the Recreation Center Managers running small tournaments for the Marines without my help. Basically the Single Marine Program Director wants them more involved and knows that I won’t be around forever to help the program.
Basically I want to know what problems first time directors come across, what they wish they had known, etc.
That is a worthwhile goal; especially if we could share the manual to other institutions, such as universities and libraries.
If you write something up; I will help you edit it if necessary, and add my own comments. There is a TD in our area that has a great system of manual pairings using 3x4 cards. I will try to write up the key features of his approach that he uses in the next few weeks and will pass it along.
Take care Sara!
Gregory
PS For other readers out there, Sara is a very dedicated chess volunteer. She was very active at ChessLive, helped to run the former NCCL, and at my urging, she assisted me with expertise and helped to Co-TD some of the online college events. It is a pleasure working with her.
If you are looking for a good site to use for hosting Online Tourneys, I would recommend leaga.com
I am Leagues Support Director and we would welcome you to create a league there. We have a number of other groups that host both live and online tourneys and we can work with you in merging them together.
The President would assist you with merging the live and online tourney systems together.
Leaga offers Single Elim, Double Elim, Round Robin, Super Robin, Regular Swiss and True Swiss. Our Robin Robin format allows a max of 4 players for 1 vs 1 or 8 players for 2 vs 2. Our Round Robin format is a little different than the USCF Round Robin in that if there are 2 or 3 players with 2-0 win/loss, we have a Round 2 Play Off (1 more game is 2 way Play off or 3 more games if 3 way Play off). The advantage of this is that you are more likely to get one winner 80 percent of the time. I would not recommend the Super Robin for USCF Rated tourneys. Our Round Robin would work for USCF Rated tourneys. So would our Swiss System tourneys.
I used to be HA of a league on MyLeague as well as a member of MyLeague Admin Support staff; they do not have the Round Robin format or the Super Robin format.
I would be able to answer any question you have regarding the tourney formats we offer and on setting up your league and creating tournaments. You may email me at dmdesiderata@gmail.com for more information.
DMDesiderata
Leagues Support Director
Swiss Training Director
Leaga.com