I am not advocating having the parents or coaches hovering over the games or standing AT the tables.
At the US Junior Open, for example, there would have been plenty of room at the front of the playing room to have a row or two of seats. If parents are told that they are not allowed to get up except to exit (at the front of the room) and are not allowed to talk inside, I think they would have complied with the rules. Any that didn’t could be asked to leave. Since they would have had all of the strongest players near them (many of whom were there without their parents), there would be little chance for cheating.
Yes, this would be a little more work for the director.
Yes, the playing hall would be a little noisier (more like a normal tournament than the ultra-quiet event it actually was).
Yes, there would definately be a down side.
I’m not sure there wasn’t more disruption from having the parents completely out of the room: they felt no need to moderate the volume of their speech (they were outside the room, right?), they were constantly ducking their heads in the door to look for their son/daughter, …
Again, I contrast this with the one event where I was allowed in the same room where my daughter was playing. All of the parents were seated across the cafeteria from the players. I couldn’t get close enough to clearly see the position on the board and I didn’t try. The parents were quieter (I wonder if part of the reason for that was that they were more comfortable).
I think the positives have the potential to outweigh the negatives if you have proper planning and preparation. What bugs me is that few people seem interested in trying (possibly because of negative historical experience, which I can sympathize with).
Things that work well in a tournament with 30 players tend not to work as well in one with 300 players, and not at all in one with 3000 players.
Among other things, sites don’t scale well. Had there been chairs in the playing halls at SuperNationals for the parents, the parents in many cases would have been 50-100 feet from their kid’s game and with lousy lines of sight.
No, in my area I’ve had students with their full names and the school they attend mentioned under pictures taken for articles about chess activities, and I’ve never had to sign a release for the kids in the three years I’ve done this.
I, on the other hand, as a parent volunteer, have had to be fingerprinted and my background checked in order to run the school club!
Actually, there WERE chairs in some of the playing halls there. I know, because I had to sit in one when I got tired waiting for one of my students to finish his game. It was on the sideline and since the playing hall was mostly empty at this time, I was able to see him clearly, although I couldn’t tell how the game was going.
I also watched as adults wandered in and around the tables, in some cases standing right over them. And I was really irritated when a hotel cleanup crew came through to empty trash in the hall and was talking and laughing like nothing was wrong with it. As they passed by I issued a loud “shush” and it kept them quiet for about two minutes. Even though there were few players in the hall, those who were there had been playing for a long time and needed all the quiet they could get to play through some tough games.
jwiewel, Newspapers (and magazines, to a lesser degree) have a sweeping amount of freedom. Any public competition is fair game (even kids). Especially at a national championship, but even a local tournament could still be considered “newsworthy”.
Radishes, It’s good to hear that some adults are well behaved and don’t cause a disruption. As for the others… I’m pretty sure that spectators weren’t SUPPOSED to be moving through the tables – they were supposed to stick to the main aisles.
It’s great that they were eventually allowed into the room for SOME of the sections (not the ones with the youngest kids). Spectators were, in theory, allowed to see the games at the US Junior Open also. In practice, I was actually allowed in the room (though not closely watching the game) for about 5 minutes once while my daughter played. That’s 5 minutes total out of the entire tournament.
If cheating was such a big concern, why be allowed in the room at all? The explanation I got was that by then there were so few games still going in her section that it was easier for the TD to keep control and insure that no cheating was taking place. I’m not saying I completely disagree, but couldn’t there have been other, less obstructive, ways to achieve the goal of a fair competition?
The director has to be in control over the boards. Every director has a level, how the director will deal with noise and spectators. If being a player, want the director to stop spectators from talking or in some times being over my board. Would have to say tournament players as spectators are different then parents as spectators.
Radishes, in Nashville most of the adults authorized to be among the games were the floor TDs (obviously, but some of the assistant chief TDs wore suits rather than the vests and may not have obviously been TDs to someone looking from a distance), the back room TDs (especially late in the round when they were looking to see how many games were truly left before they could pair the next round - they did not wear vests), photographers and media approved by the USCF, and non-TD floor staff (primarily collecting results slips from the TDs and transcribing from the slips to the pairing sheet). There was a constant low-level battle to keep spectators in their authorized areas (keeping the old story about the camel’s nose in the tent from occurring). Kids could be spectators as long as their games were still going on, but once they finished they were asked to leave the playing area until the next rounds pairings were up.
It seemed like the parents and coaches at Nashville behaved a bit better than at the average National. At the start of a couple of rounds the pairing boards were placed closer to the playing area than they should have been, and a number of parents were crowding right up to the boards thinking that was the current boundary. They generally took it well when, not only would I go up and explain that they were in an area that was off limits, but I would also draft them to join me in moving the boards back to the real boundary. Over the decades I’ve found that if you want to draft a parent to help for a minute or two as a volunteer then phrasing the request as a request, but in a tone of voice that simply assumes the volunteer-to-be would naturally want to comply, then you almost always get the momentary aid you were looking for.
I think the real reason that video cameras shouldn’t be involved is so the TD doesn’t have to deal with the following (hypothetical) situation: The last round games have just started, and in races a parent with a video camera in hand yelling ‘stop the games! stop th games!’. His claim of course is that his son, who supposedly “lost” his previous game, should now be playing for the championship and he has exclusive videotapes proof that his opponent the previous round violated some rule and now the pairings have to be redone.
Or worse - all the office support at the USCF gets so disgusted and quits when the first VHS tape in introduced as evidence in an appeal so that Johnny can be rated 425 instead of 413…
Video cameras, at the family level do not have a problem with it. Can understand the enjoyment of going over video tapes, as it points out past memories or show how the family looked at that time and place.
Some people, they hate to have a picture taken of them. If the organizers are going to have video cameras or pictures of the tournament – they are wide shots not pointing out one of a few people. If they do have a close up of a few people, the organizer needs a modeling contract if they want to published the pictures.
Since video cameras and camerias can have the image placed onto the internet. If the picture gets on the internet, its’ almost fair game to say anyone can take the picture and use it. If a family member use a video camera, place the picture on the internet with you on it. Some hacker can take the picture, use the picture and say you are a sex offender, ect. ect…
By your argument, they should also ban video cameras at football games, little league baseball games, youth soccer games, etc.
Fat chance. I’ll also point out that if the player is too young to keep score (if a preschool player hasn’t learned to WRITE yet, it’s unreasonable to expect him to keep score) a video tape is the only opportunity a parent or coach will have to go over the game later and point out mistakes, etc.
Forsythe,
A chess tournament is a PUBLIC competition. You don’t have to pay or have any kind of permission for most uses of photographs of a competitor at a public competition. Any news-releases, news stories, magazine articles etc. are fair game.
Guys, when you assume that an item (camera or other) is going to be used improperly and make this the basis for banning that item you’re going too far. To take your arguments to the logical conclusion, we should ban the public carrying of cameras – no telling when some child pornographer will take a picture of “little Jimmy” on the monkey bars at the school playground, after all! Come on!
Yes, I noticed the floor TDs and those collecting the slips, but I also saw some spectators who were obviously not in any official capacity, just like I wasn’t, standing over chess boards. From what I could tell, the men looked like someone’s grandfather!
But everyone was well behaved. Maybe they didn’t clear out of the playing rooms as fast as they should have. I know I was running all over the place myself making sure all my players had their (non-delay) clocks if they wanted to use them. The worst offenders, as I said, was the cleaning crew who came in to empty the trash. I was surprised no TDs tried to quiet them , because they were making some noise in the hall I was in.
The Supernationals they had here in Kansas City was better, because all except kindergarten played in one hall, and there were bleachers set up at one end for parents. No falsh pgotography was allowed, but many had camcorders. The parents did a fine job, I thought, staying in the skittles area which was like right next door to the playing area. It was very easy to get from one to the other and no kids got lost!
I was standing next to the first tripod as the floor TD was discussing the issue with the parent. The floor TD and I had both discussed the three different request to film the individual games and we were both in agreement that they would not be allowed. As I stood there listening to the discussion, one player in the tournament almost fell down as a result of tripping over one of the legs of the tripod.
I personally didn’t want anyone getting hurt as a result of them running into the three different camera’s on tripods. While I have seen more injuries in soccer and lacrosse games than I have in chess tournaments, injuries do happen at scholastic chess events.