Tournament & Membership Submission Ideas

Running Chess Tournaments
1

I have found myself in the frustrating position of waiting on someone’s USCF membership to clear.

A player recently emailed me that he wanted to play in my tournament. Fine, I told him. Just renew your expired USCF membership on site.

He replied that he had already renewed his membership at another
tournament over a month ago, and would bring proof of this with him at registration. I verified online that this person had indeed played at the
said tournament (a rather large one). The player did bring proof with
them of their renewal. It had been 41 days since that tournament.

So our tournament is completed; it is ready to submit online, but there is
nothing for me to do but wait!? It is extremely frustrating, as I pride myself on getting our tournaments rated quickly.

I have a few questions and points. First, is it an official “rule” that tournaments be submitted within seven (7) days? I know it is printed on the tournament submission form, but I can’t find it in the rules. Second, is there a timeliness rule about membership submissions? If not, there should be.

I can understand that larger tournaments may have a problem getting their tournaments rated as quickly. Who knows, maybe they are waiting on previously sold memberships to clear as well.

However, I see no reason why memberships cannot be taken care of immediately. I guess one could argue that they are “waiting for the checks to clear.” Failure to submit memberships in a timely fashion
can literally affect hundreds of players.

Perhaps I am too worried about punctuality. I just want to give our players the highest level of service. This is impossible if other TDs do
not follow through.

If there was an option to just pay 5 extra bucks and get our tournament rated, I would do it. The USCF could make extra money with this.

Perhaps USCF could even make this a requirement: any player who
cannot show a current temporary or permanant I.D. card must pay a
“renewal insurance” charge. This would encourage players to renew in advance, or automatically.

“Renewal insurance” should only be good for one tournament. If the charge was perhaps $7.00 or $8.00, it would be a strong inducement to
just renew. What if the player never renews? Who cares? The USCF
would still make plenty of money on that player, who would receive no
benefit other than getting just that one tournament rated.

I welcome your thoughts and opinions.

Sincerely,

William “Tom” Hales, TD

Asheboro Chess Club (Asheboro, North Carolina)

2

I had a somewhat similar situation. When I submitted my tournament for rating I received an error message for a player who renewed elsewhere. There is a place to override the error by selecting the button that said the player renewed with another affiliate and that you saw the receipt. You will need to enter the other affiliate’s ID as well. It shouldn’t take too long for that exception request to be confirmed and for you to be able to get your tournament rated.

By the way, by the next tournament of mine a month later that membership had been processed and there was no problem.

3

The ‘receipt’ option on the Membership Exception Request form will honor a receipt from another affiliate for 45 days from the date of the receipt.

We do track such requests for abuse, as well as whether or not the membership eventually comes through.

For memberships submitted online through TD/A, we have a separate tracking system, one that has annoyed at least one TD with bi-monthly e-mail notices until the TD provided documentation to the USCF offices to show that the memberships had been received but not processed correctly. (Obviously, if they’re paid by credit card, the memberships are activated immediately.)

In my original proposal for TD/A, I wanted to post on MSA any new memberships (and renewals) that were entered online with payment promised but not yet paid, so that players and other TDs knew what TD and affiliate to contact. That idea may yet get implemented. (However, in that case we will probably have to be less tolerant about honoring receipts from those memberships.)

4

Had a problem like that at one of my tournaments. Wanted to make sure the tournament was going to be rated that day. Gave the member a trial membership, it did cost me $25. He was happy, so happy he came back for the other events.

5

Thanks a bunch for that information! Our tournament is submitted, and
should be rated soon.

Sincere Thanks,

William “Tom” Hales

6

I’ve found myself in this same situation. I’ve had memberships come out of my pocket too. Usually this does serve to build up my club…

Regards,
AJG