Internal Club Tournaments

[Trefor Owens]

Hello again,

for my sins, I have been asked to organize the internal league for our club next season.

We are a small club, maybe 12 players will participate, and the consistent problem each season is with unplayed games. I would like to know what other clubs, meeting on a weekday evening, do - we would like the games to still be eligible for grading purposes but at a speed that cuts down on adjournments. We currently play 28/60 and play most external matches v other clubs at 35/75 then a 15 min QP.
I know one option is to play internal games at 35/75 with a quick play, but the we have some players who don't want a serious game to be decided with quick play and a 3 hour game would only be possible if players didn't get delayed at home/work/in traffic.
of course I could be Draconian but we are all simply there for enjoyment

Thanks

[Alex Holowczak]

Our internal club tournament is a KO tournament. The time limit 30/75 back 15. If you lose in the first round, you go into a "Wooden Spoon" competition. We have about 26 players in the whole event, and I lost in the first round... That was three months ago, I'm still waiting for my first round in the plate.

Our competition has the problem of needing replays if there's a draw, and players who can't be bothered, so just default in the early rounds.

I would suggest 30/60 back 20.

[William Metcalfe]

At Darlington we play 5 round swiss each round has a 6 week period to get the game played as we have the club venue 2 nights a week that is 12 nights at the club players can also arrange to play the match at a players home if they prefer.
The time limit is 30 in 75 mins and back 15 mins
We went to the swiss format 2 seasons ago and the amount of defaults has reduced grately before this format we could play players at anytime but that favoured players that managed to arrange the most matches

[Peter Rhodes]

I play at two clubs ;

at South Norwood we play 60/40+20 (quick play finish).
at Coulsdon we play 75+30"increment per move.

I much prefer the Coulsdon time control - the only problem is that you have to have electronic clocks which probably rules out that time control for many clubs.

I guess if you have a mixture of clocks - you could offer both time controls - and the people who don't mind playing a qp finish can take the old-style analog clocks.

[Neill Cooper]

at Coulsdon we play 75+30"increment per move.

I much prefer the Coulsdon time control - the only problem is that you have to have electronic clocks which probably rules out that time control for many clubs.

One other problem with the Coulsdon times is that you can have very late nights, which does not suit all players, or clubs. I had one game (over 100 moves) finish after midnight.

[David Lettington]

At my club it's 35/75 +15, but it wasn't particularly the time limit that caused us problems last year, it was that players had to fix up a date for their matches between themselves. This year, I published a fixture list saying that player A would be up against player B on a particular night and if either of them were unable to make the date then they had to speak to each other and to the tournament secretary (me).

I organised it so that all of the fixtures were due to be played on the same evening, with two free weeks before the next "round" of fixtures. This gave people the chance to catch up or to get ahead of the fixture dates. There were also 3 free weeks at the end to try and persuade the more recalcitrant members that they really must get their fixtures completed.

At the beginning of the season I had also given out an etiquette guide and a copy of the rules of the competition to all of those taking part (we had several new members), I'm not sure if it had any effect, but it made me more confident that if I had to default someone that at least they knew the rules beforehand.

Anyway, we cut the number of defaults from 14 down to 2 (both caused by the same player) so I suppose the new method worked.

[David Lettington]

Oh, I forgot to say that we don't allow adjournments.

[Sean Hewitt]

Our experience was exactly the same as David's.

Previous events fell foul of lots of unplayed games. When I took over, I published a fixture schedule with all games scheduled for certain evenings. If a player couldn't make a game he could bring it forward (it couldn't be postponed) as long as it was agreed by the opponent and notified to me.

In the past 5 years, the number of games defaulted could be counted on one hand.

For a time control, we used the same one as that in our league matches - 35/70 + 20.

Last year we changed to 35/60 + 20 with 10 secs increments from move 1. This has gone down so well it's now been incorporated into the league rules.

[Roger de Coverly]

Last year we changed to 35/60 + 20 with 10 secs increments from move 1. This has gone down so well it's now been incorporated into the league rules.

Pedantic rules questions

1) Do you add the extra 20 minutes when the clock has been pressed 35 times by each player or when one of the clocks first indicates zero time?

2) Do you have any rule to stop players playing for ever on the 10 second increment ? - There's no scoring needed with less than 5 minutes remaining, the increment rules out 10.2 and the lack of score sheet rules out 50 moves or repetition.

[Sean Hewitt]

Last year we changed to 35/60 + 20 with 10 secs increments from move 1. This has gone down so well it's now been incorporated into the league rules.

1) Do you add the extra 20 minutes when the clock has been pressed 35 times by each player or when one of the clocks first indicates zero time?

When the clock has been pressed 35 times by each player.

2) Do you have any rule to stop players playing for ever on the 10 second increment ? - There's no scoring needed with less than 5 minutes remaining, the increment rules out 10.2 and the lack of score sheet rules out 50 moves or repetition.

No. But the lack of a score sheet does rule out draw by agreement, certain draws by repetition, or indeed draw because of a dead position!

[Adam Raoof]

2) Do you have any rule to stop players playing for ever on the 10 second increment ? - There's no scoring needed with less than 5 minutes remaining, the increment rules out 10.2 and the lack of score sheet rules out 50 moves or repetition.

No. But the lack of a score sheet does rule out draw by agreement, certain draws by repetition, or indeed draw because of a dead position!

Does not

[Sean Hewitt]

Last year we changed to 35/60 + 20 with 10 secs increments from move 1. This has gone down so well it's now been incorporated into the league rules.

1) Do you add the extra 20 minutes when the clock has been pressed 35 times by each player or when one of the clocks first indicates zero time?

When the clock has been pressed 35 times by each player.

2) Do you have any rule to stop players playing for ever on the 10 second increment ? - There's no scoring needed with less than 5 minutes remaining, the increment rules out 10.2 and the lack of score sheet rules out 50 moves or repetition.

No. But the lack of a score sheet does not rule out draw by agreement, certain draws by repetition, or indeed draw because of a dead position!

[Scott Freeman]

Peter Rhodes has already stated the CCF (Coulsdon) time control (75 mins for all moves (90 in the Premiership) plus 30 second Fischer increments. (It's 90 in the Premiership because 4 of our 7 divisions are FIDE rated and we require the longer time control in the top division to fulfil FIDE rules).

The issue of getting games played is a regular problem for club championships but one we overcame. By using the old church principle of "moving the piano 3 inches every week for a few months to get it from one place to another without an argument" we steadily developed a divisional structure and adjusted rules each year which now sees me (as the organiser) setting fixtures every week and players being obliged the check the web site to see who they are playing. Basically, I coordinate everyone's activity within the parametres of the weeks they are available to play. A decade or more back the idea was not popular with some because people didn't like the idea of others telling them in which order they would play their games. But now we are in that situation, everyone likes the system. I would recommend it to any club as the controller can then ensure all games are played and once that happens, the competition is valued more by those who play in it. OK, I do it as part of my full time job but I believe a club of 12 players (as opposed to 70) should not be too much of a problem for 1 controller in their spare time. Have a read of the rules on our web and see what you think:

http://www.ccfworld.com/Chess/ChessClub ... _Rules.htm

The other idea to recommend is that you use the 3-2-1 (or maybe 4-2-1 as we use) system for scoring points. It's something we started using in junior chess back in the mid n90's and it seemed to work well, so we developed it into the adult club, as it allowed us to give 0 for a default. If everyone plays all their games, then a win is, on a pro-rata calculation, twice the value of a draw (it is basically a 2-1-0 system with a point given for playing). The advantage is that even a defeat helps your points tally so every game played should be valued by all the players.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Redhill operates a system whereby we start with an all-play-all for 20 or so players, played at 35 in 75 minutes plus 7 moves per 15 minutes, so adjournments are possible. In about mid-January, the top six qualify to play an all-play-all championship final at 30 moves in 1 hour, and all in 20 minutes. Top qualifier this year got about 11/13, last qualifier about 5/6. So if you don't play, you don't qualify, and nobody is inconvenienced. Everyone else goes to a different all-play-all section to play for the "Minor Trophy" at the original time limit. Games played in any of those, plus games played with reverse colour from the original qualifying event count for a "Handicap" tournament, where players score more points for beating higher-graded opposition. There is also a KO event at 75 minutes for all moves, and rapidplay at 25 minutes, and an annual lightning/blitz tournament.

And we still find time to play in local leagues somehow... The local leagues have lots of different time-limits so the internal events aren't as confusing as might appear, and people can double up and play a KO and championship game as one game.