Sunday, December 3, 2017

Thanks for signing up!

Thank you for filling out our Enter a Tournament! form. After hosting this event about 600 times, in the same building, using the same format, I know what the two biggest challenges are. If you are reading this, it's most likely that you don't need to read this, but we appreciate it if you help spread the message to any of your friends who are new to the world of scholastic tournament chess.

1) The "Enter a Tournament!" form that you already filled out.... it's required so we can do pairings! Thank you so much for remembering to do this. There is nothing harder than telling a kid, "sorry, you can't play." We want to be encouraging and offer a positive experience... please continue to fill out the Enter a Tournament! form every time you wish to play.

2) Parents/family watching games: We understand that parents want to watch their kids play, but this is simply not allowed. We don't want young players to be scared or distracted by their opponent's parent watching the game. Again, it's just a rule that most tournaments use in accordance with USCF rules. This rule is also very often forgotten by experienced parents because they are excited about their kid playing chess.All we can do is politely ask parents to stop watching (awkward) or we can forfeit the player because their parent broke the rule (I think most tournament directors would rather retire from directing than executing this option!).