I have a question…
Does the USCF require that the officially recognized State Champion play in a USCF rated event to determine who wins the champion title ?
In other words, does it make a difference if the Champion wins the tournament when it is unrated, or perhaps rated by a third party such as CXR ?
If it does make a difference, does it apply equally to all tournaments or would scholastic tournaments be exempt?
I don’t think there’s such a requirement. As it is now, I think the state simply reports to the USCF who their state champion is. It doesn’t matter how they got the title, including having been awarded by election or honorary title.
Is this just your opinion or is this the official position of the USCF ?
I would think that the USCF has (or should set) certain minimum standards that the state must meet in order to certify a USCF recognized State Champion. I would like to know what those requirements are.
USCF Membership should be a requirement.
Winning a USCF sanctioned event for the title should be another.
I’m not suggesting that past events be reevaluated because of a weakness in policy but it would seem that USCF’s best interests are not served if a State Affiliate decides to certify non-USCF members as State champions. This isn’t a hypothetical argument. I believe I know of one actual case where this has happened and I think it’s a disturbing development.
I believe the affiliate in question plans to purchase memberships after-the-fact to cover the membership requirement and deflect possible criticism. But the fact remains, the tournament itself was not conducted as a USCF sanctioned event.
While in general I agree that only USCF-rated events should produce USCF recognized state champions, there are problems in several states with requiring USCF membership in events that involve school-age players.
For example, I don’t believe the Illinois HS Championship can require USCF membership without violating Illinois athletic regulations that could lead to sanctions of the players or even the participating schools, possibly placing their other athletic programs in jeopardy.
In IL the IL HS Association does have rules for the various sports and activities that, among other things, prohibit requiring membership in another organization (like the USCF) to play for the HS team. The IHSA does not have any rules for the individual chess champion, so the IL Chess Assn can do its own Denker tournament and requires USCF membership for that.
JM,
That was my opinion, according to my experience in my own state. I can’t say for sure that there’s an official ruling on this.
Certainly though, for any state recognized champion to compete in any USCF rated event, they would need to be USCF members.
I don’t think there’s a prohibition from being able to “select” a state champion by agreement if, for instance, a state didn’t have a champion as a result of not having been active for awhile.
What about it? Does USCF have an official policy regarding this?
The state regulations are an interesting point but in this case no such restriction applies. If the state regulations do not permit USCF membership, there is no obligation on the USCF’s part to sanction the event. Certainly USCF can craft standards that work within state regulations but that is not the issue in this instance.
I don’t know what the reference to ‘selecting a state champion’ means. Please provide specifics.
Selection of a state champion is entirely at the discretion of the State Chapter. Whether the USCF chooses to “recognize” that champion is another matter. But what exactly are the perks of "recognition? Get your name in the yearbook and maybe get invited to an on-line blitz tournament? Be still my heart.
Setting “USCF standards” for selecting a state champion is a very dubious idea, because there are many equally valid ways of doing so. Open tournament? Tournament with sections? Round-robin tournament? Match? Cumulative results over many tournaments? Rating? The USCF should not be in the business of stifling local initiative. If you don’t like the way your State Chapter is doing it, run for office in your State Chapter and change it.
Sad to say, but as far as the IHSA (and the IL high schools) go, whether or not the ICA or USCF sanction or recognize the state HS team champion would be irrelevent. If the ICA and/or USCF created a new event to determine a USCF/ICA recognized champion then the team getting that title would be denigrated for claiming such a mediocre achievement (kind of like that recent “US Open” out west with pizza coupons for the first place prize).
Perhaps but there seems to be an issue of quid pro quo here. My comments were not in reference to IHSA but using them as an example, why not just call them the IHSA Champion? You imply the USCF title is irrelevant but obviously the recognition means something to the IHSA. The Denker tournament is obviously of critical importance for the IHSA kids to have the opportunity to participate in national events.
I freely admit to not being involved in the scholastic programs and my knowledge of all the subtle issues are limited. I’m not interested in debating the merits of various scholastics programs. It simply seems obvious to me the USCF has a vested interest in setting minimum standards that reflect what a state champion should be. Obviously there may need to be exceptions to allow for various regulations imposed by state law, but minimum standards are exactly that - minimum expectations - not an open-ended “anything goes”.
I started this thread asking what the minimum standards were. It seems obvious now there are none. I think that needs to be addressed in the annual delegates meeting. It makes absolutely no economic sense to have USCF recognize a state champion that was sanctioned by non-USCF entities. To do otherwise, borders on the bizarre.
You really can’t generalize from the Denker. That’s a special case with specific requirements to qualify. And, once again: This is the business of the individual State Chapters, not the Delegates. I don’t want someone from a state a thousand miles away telling us how to run our state championship, and you shouldn’t either. If you don’t like what your state is doing, run for office in your state organization and try to change it. If you’re outvoted – well, that’s tough.
USCF recognition means nothing to the IHSA for its team champion and the USCF isn’t even mentioned. The team winning the tournament is called simply the state team champion.
K-8 chess is different and the championship tournaments (and the bulk of the serious Chicagoland tournaments) are USCF rated.
States run their various championships as they see fit. Outside selecting a representative for the Denker tournament, the USCF doesn’t have formal process for determining state champions. Even with the Denker representatives the states have some flexibility in terms of how they select their representative. In NY the State High School Champion is our representative. The highest scoring female is our Polgar representative. Other states may not have a big scholastic program so maybe their high school champion is the highest scoring HS player in the regular state championship.
As other posters have said, if you don’t like how your state champion is being determined run for office, or offer to organize it for the state association.
Your point is well made. The problem is that most, if not all, of the state high school competitive bodies like IHSA and VHSL in Virginia have as an absolute rule that no paid membership or fee to any outside organization can be required for any event they sanction. Violations can lose students eligibility for other activities, penalize school programs, even jeopardize the recognition of chess as a sport at all.
This isn’t some minor problem we can make an exception for, and move on. If the essential “minimum standard” we seek is a USCF-rated event to determine who we recognize as a state champion, that is in direct conflict with the basic and immutable rules of so many of these state governing bodies as to suggest mutually exclusive events as the only solution.
USCF at some point decided not to make it all about USCF, but to promote chess in any way possible, which led to the current system. It’s not perfect, but neither is it so easily perfected.