Information for players and parents/carers

If you haven’t been to one of our tournaments before, you might want to have a look at our information about events, including a welcome video, how we run things, and what you need to do.

Welcome video for new players

Welcome Video

Safeguarding

Please read carefully about what we do to keep everyone safe on the Safeguarding Page, and the notes below.

Things we announce at tournaments`

Notes for my own benefit! But might benefit you… Comments invited.

Things to say that are not about chess

Things to say about chess

The playing room(s) is here, the rest room is there.
No fire alarm practice is planned for today.
If the fire alarm goes off, that means somewhere is on fire. Follow the green signs out onto the playground. Walk, don’t run.
You will be looked after by one of the control team in the playing rooms and by your parent or someone else in the rest room. If your section controller can’t see you and your carer can’t see you, you are not being looked after. Stay where someone can see you.
You are allowed outside today as long as someone is outside with you and can see you.Walk through playing rooms (don’t run) and as quietly as you can.
Mums and Dads and other carers – not in the playing rooms please.
Please don’t leave the venue before the end without telling us. Players are expected to be here all day.
Toilets: boys here, girls there; adults use the staff loos over there.
Food and drink – food in rest room only please – drinks OK in playing rooms – food stall by the book stall.
LUNCH: there is no lunch break, so eat when you canLook after this venue, please – we might want to come back! No litter except in bins, no muddy feet from outside, no swinging on chairs, put chairs and tables back where you found them at the end of the day.
Look after each other, please – there might be some people here who haven’t played in a tournament before, so help them out if they aren’t sure what to doLocal club representatives/leaflets are here/there.
Please support the bookstall!

There will be (6/7) rounds. [Round times: (1) 9.45 (2) 11.00 (3) 12.15 (4) 1.30 (5) 2.45 (6) 4.00]
The younger sections may finish earlier and we may have an earlier prizegiving for them.
Everyone plays in every round. So don’t leave if you lose, you will get another game. If you lose, you have a chance to catch up! Everyone plays a different person in every round. If you are paired with the same player twice, someone has made a mistake! Please let the controller know.
Pairings will be done on the Swiss System, which means you will play people who have (about) the same number of wins as you. That should mean that, even if you lose the first two games, you will then be meeting players who are on the same sort of form as you.
Find your board number on the pairing board — left-hand player will be White — and go and sit down.
Check that the board is set up properly: white square on the right, ranks 1-2 white pieces and 7-8 black, Knights to the outside of Bishops, Queen on square of her own colour
We will play using all the rules of chess – including: touch move, touch take, en passant and castling king first.
If you have a problem, put your hand up straight away – don’t wait until after the game, when it will be too late!
After you have agreed a result, fill in and hand in a result slip. The slip is the result, so if you win, make sure it says that you win and not your opponent.
After the game, please reset the pieces (and clocks) and then leave the playing room.
Please start and finish the game with a handshake – the first handshake says that you’re both going to be fair and follow all the rules, and the second handshake says that you both did and you accept the result.
Please do not interfere in other games. It is up to the players to notice an illegal move, or a clock flag fall, or whether it’s checkmate or not. Controllers can interrupt if they see something important.
Three illegal moves lose the game (not just two, as in adult chess).
BYES: If there is an odd number of players in your section, the player left over will not get a tournament game but they will be given a point. The bye is usually given to the player with the fewest points who has not yet had a bye. Don’t go away though, because if we have a spare player in another tournament, we might put you together to have a friendly game.
PHONES: If your phone or other device makes a noise during the game, you lose. Turn your phone off, or leave them in the rest room with your parent/carer. Or stamp them under your heel…
TIME CONTROL — UK Chess Challenge: There will be 7 rounds of 40 minutes each. We won’t be using clocks, just one big clock to let us know when 40 minutes are up. After 40 minutes, if you haven’t agreed a result, we’ll come around and agree a result with you. You need to be at least a piece up – or 3 pawns ahead – to win.TIME CONTROL — Other tournaments: we will be playing with chess clocks. Each player gets 30 minutes to complete all their moves (analogue clocks), or 20min + 10s extra per move completed (digital clocks). If your flag falls, you lose – even if you have five Queens and your opponent has only one! Press the clock after you move, using the same hand as you used to move your piece. (Because when you’re short of time, and you try and use two hands, sometimes you press the clock first!)If there are players here who haven’t used a clock before (hands up), and you are playing with them, look after them please – maybe remind them to press the clock a couple of times if they forget. You don’t have to, though, and team players should remember!

Swiss system charts and cards

You will see tournament charts at our events and controllers using pairing cards.

Here’s a little video about it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaXjNXW2ScM

The Swiss system

Most of our tournaments are played on the Swiss System. Players play in every round, and are paired as far as possible with opponents who have the same number of points. It’s one point for a win!

So, in Round 1, everyone has no points, and plays a game of chess. (If there is an odd number of players, the odd player gets a point anyway).
After Round 1, we have players who have one point, and some still on no points (assuming no draws).
For Round 2, the players who have one point will play each other, and the players with no points play each other.
At the end of Round 2, we have players on 0, 1 and 2 points. The players on 2 points play each other; the players on 1 point play each other, and so on. If there is an odd number of players on 2 points, then someone with one point gets an ‘upfloat’ to meet that odd player.
Repeat for subsequent rounds.

The top of the tournament works a bit like a knockout, but players come up out of the pack to challenge them as they win their other games. It’s possible to lose your first round game, then win all the rest, and win the tournament with 5 points out of 6!

Draws count as half-a-point.

The tournament chart

Parents can follow the tournament in the rest room from the chart.

The charts might be online, using a link from the Event page.

Paper and online charts work in the same way.

The scores for each round are progressive i.e. your total score so far. So Viacheslav won with 6/6, Ben and Dan tied for 2nd on 5/6.

Here’s a close-up of a couple of rows from a tournament, half-way through:

		1	2	3	4	5	6	Total
6	Ann Dunkel	0 B 7	1 W 15	2 B 3
7	Tom Cobleigh	1 W 6	1 B 1	1½ W 8
8	Anne Dawl

In round 1, Ann (player 6) played Tom (player 7) and lost(0); Ann was Black(B). Ann won her next two games, going to 1 point then a total of 2 points.

In round 1, Tom played Ann and won, as we know. He lost his Round 2 game, staying on 1 point, then drew, moving to 1½ points.

Pairing cards

Players will see these in the playing rooms.

These are used by controllers to pair players on the same score, making sure they haven’t played the same player before, and trying to give fair White/Black sides over the rounds. We also try to avoid pairing players from the same school.

No.6	Ann Dunkel
	School: St.Riving High
Opponent	7	15	3
Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Colour	B	W	B
Result	0	1	1
Float		/\
Prog.Score	0	1	2

Results are recorded onto the cards after each round.

Results are then sent through to the rest room for the tournament chart.

Pairing boards

These tell you who is to play whom in each round, on which number board, and with which colour.

WHITE	No.	BLACK
Ann Dunkel	1	Tom Cobleigh
Anne Dawl	2	Peter Gurney
Bill Brewer	3	Jan Stewer
Peter Davy	4	Dan Whiddon
Tom Pearce	5	Harry Hawke
Arya Malhotra	6	Abu Al-Suli

Find your name — find which number Board you will be playing on — go to that board and sit down behind the right colour pieces.

So Peter Gurney looks at the board, remembers he is Black on Board 2, and goes and sits there, and waits for his opponent, who should magically appear and sit down.

We actually use the pairing cards in slots to make up the pairing board.

Trophies

We thought we’d do the trophies differently this year. We’ll offer prizes for 1st/2nd/3rd as before (and maybe 4th) but we won’t share places, and instead use tie-breaks. This will mean the prize-giving should follow much more quickly after the last game is played (because Mr Onions won’t have to sort how many trophies get which labels), but it does mean we will be awarding fewer prizes.

(We’ll still be doing girls’ prizes if we have more than one girl enter a section and where they meet a minimum score.)

So, previously we might have had five trophies awarded in one section after 6 games:

1st= PlayerA & PlayerB 5/6;
3rd= PlayerC, PlayerD and PlayerE 4/6

This season we will do something like:

1st PlayerA 5/6;
2nd PlayerB 5/6 (worse tie-break score than A);
3rd PlayerC 4/6;
4th PlayerD 4/6 (worse tie-break than C).

…with four trophies awarded and PlayerE (with a still worse tie-break) goes home with just an achievement certificate.

The tie-break procedure for Swiss System tournaments will be:

Tie given to Sum of Progressive Scores (where there are enough rated players to enable realistic seeding), and, if that is tied:
Tie given to player with the highest score for “sum of opponent’s scores”, but not including the lowest-scoring opponent (a score known as Buchholz Cut 1)

For any All-Play-Alls we will apply Sonneborn-Berger scores: summing the full score of each defeated opponent and half the conventional score of each drawn opponent.

Hope that all makes sense and is agreeable to everyone.

EPSCA tournament rules

We follow the tournament rules set by EPSCA, although we are usually more generous about illegal moves, particularly for the younger players.

FIDE Laws of Chess

Otherwise we follow the FIDE Laws of Chess.

DJCA Events