Why was the tournament changed?

 

There are a few changes enacted from last year’s tournament, some were forced and some were by choice. Please be open minded about the changes and remember that we are considering what is best for chess in Alachua County. If you have any comments (positive or negative) or suggestions, please email them to info@gainesvillechess.com. WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK!


  1. Q.Why aren’t we playing at St Patrick’s School like last year? Isn’t it a much better venue to host this tournament?

  2. A.Yes, St. Patrick’s is a much better venue than Kanapaha. Unfortunately St. Patrick’s is unavailable during the fall semester. Once their parking lot is resurfaced, we hope to be back there next Fall.


  1. Q.In the K-1, K-3, K-5 sections, why are the children only playing 3 games instead of 4 games like last year?

  2. A.We are restricted at Kanapaha to 3 hours of over the board playing time.  With this said, there are some parents who are much happier with a three-hour time commitment vs. the four hours of last year. The length of time per day is still much longer than, say, playing a one-hour soccer or basketball game, but there are only 3 tournament days in the fall so the time commitment is about the same as, say, for a soccer season.


  1. Q.In the K-12 open section, only 2 games are scheduled for each tournament day. Why did we reduce the number from 4 per day?

  2. A.First, the number would already be reduced to three due to the same time reduction as noted above. Second, we made a decision to run the games in the open section with 45 minutes per player instead of 30 minutes like last year. Most of the tournaments that open section children will be playing outside of Alachua Country (states, nationals, other adult tournaments) will have an even longer time limit than 45 minutes. We believe that this change will help our children be more competitive in these other tournaments.  In other words we believe it better for our children to play two 90-minute games than three 60-minute games. As always, we welcome feedback from parents and coaches on this change.


  1. Q.Why is the open section not rated?

  2. A.There are a lot of issues here with claims that the children will not try as hard if it is not rated, that the tournament will be less significant, etc. We don’t believe there to be much validity to these claims. On the other hand, the down side to having this section rated is that it hampers our efforts to recruit two different types of middle school and high school players: 1) The ones that are already rated very highly and may fear losing rating points playing against mostly lower rated players or 2) the ones that are unrated but would have an additional burden of joining USCF just to try out the tournament. Recruiting of these older students has been a difficult issue for many years and will continue to be difficult. However the benefits of rating this particular section are not substantial enough to out weigh the problems in recruiting.


  1. Q.Why don’t we have independent tournaments each day just like last year?

  2. A.The problems with independent events without history is, ironically, that the history is not used. Each day starts with a clean slate and the 4-0 players from the previous month could easily be matched against the 0-4 players in the first round of the next month.  The two 4-0 players from the same section may not even get to play each other in the next month. This creates a lot of uncompetitive games. The continual swiss style format in use this year is designed to match players with similar strength (i.e. similar records during the season). This creates MORE COMPETITIVE GAMES for everyone.


  1. Q.Why are there two tournaments (fall and spring) instead of one full year version like last year?

  2. A.The fall and spring format provides a number of advantages. For one, a player that is undefeated in the fall can now move up to the next highest section. This creates MORE COMPETITIVE GAMES for everyone. Another advantage is that more players will be in the running for trophies since the winners from the previous season move up and the remaining players have a chance at winning a trophy.  Another advantage of the two seasons is that some of the children’s playing strength can increase dramatically during the year. The games played in September can be very different from those played in March. Having a champion for each season is a more accurate method to judge playing abilities of the children. For instance poor performances in September and October will not destroy a child’s chances at a trophy in the spring. Another advantage is that some children only start playing in the spring and they would not feel left out of a chance to win a trophy. The only obvious negative to the fall/spring approach cited by some--if it can even be called a negative--is that there is not one full year champion. This is a small sacrifice in the interests of more competitive chess games.


  1. Q.Will the lowest daily score be dropped in determining the champion like last year?

A. No, with only 3 tournament days it no longer makes sense to drop the lowest score. However, ½ point byes may be awarded if either the first or second tournament days are missed.