How to Run a Successful Chess Tournament for Kids

Youth chess tournaments can be a fun, rewarding experience, both for players and organizers. Not everyone has the chance to play in "official" competition, but with a little preparation, you can make your local tournament feel like a special event. If your local school, library, or youth group has been looking to host a tournament, but not sure quite how to do it, this guide should help you run a successful event.

One important note: This guide assumes you will be hosting a fun, informal tournament, not a tournament meant to be rated by the USCF or other chess organization. While some tips will still be helpful, you should contact the rating organization for a guide on how to run a tournament to their specifications.

Before the Tournament

Your first consideration should be the desired size of the tournament. If you are holding this tournament for a local club, you may have a firm idea of how many children will be attending, which makes organization rather simple. If the tournament is meant to be for any interested local children, it may be best to require registration before the event, and to set a maximum number of children you will allow to participate. This will prevent you from being overwhelmed on the day of the tournament by a sudden influx of participants you can't handle.

Next, you will need to find a suitable site for your tournament. Libraries, schools, and recreation buildings often have rooms large enough to host many children, and these make excellent playing venues. You'll need enough tables and chairs to accommodate all your players, and another area for parents (as well as for players whose games end early). You'll also want to obtain enough chess sets and boards for your tournament. It's also fine to ask the children to bring their own sets, but you will want to have some on hand just in case there is a shortage. Good, affordable sets can be purchased from many online vendors, including the United States Chess Federation, and Cajun Chess.

Prizes should also be taken care of well before the event, to allow time for them to arrive. You may purchase trophies, medals, or smaller awards, depending on your budget and your needs. For youth tournaments, it's often a good idea to get some small token for every child who participates, along with awards for several winners. This allows as many people as possible to feel like they've achieved success, and lets everyone remember the good time they had at the tournament. You may choose to give 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes for different age groups, for boys and girls, or for any other designation that makes sense in your situation.

On a related note, you should decide early on if any entry fee will be required. If you do need to collect fees, you should keep them to a bare minimum. Donations and/or sponsors, or drawing on an existing budget for expenses, is preferable.

One last consideration that needs to be made is whether your tournament will be held on one day, or over several weeks. Both have their advantages and drawbacks. A single day tournament requires more organization and faster turnaround between rounds, but insures that all participants will stay for the entire event. A tournament where the children play one or two games per week - for instance, at a weekly club meeting - makes organization a bit easier, but may force some children to miss some rounds.

Finally, a week or so before the tournament begins, you should hold an orientation session for the children and their parents. Let them know what kind of behavior is expected during the tournament, answer any questions they may have, and explain what rules the children will be expected to follow - which brings us to our next topic.

Rules

For an informal tournament, you may keep rules to a minimum, and design them to create as little confusion as possible. For instance, in a formal USCF tournament, players would be required to move a piece that they have touched. Since you will have many novice children in your tournament, a better rule to use may be that a player's move is only final when they release the piece; until they let go, they can change their mind and make a different move.

You may serve as tournament director, or you can find a local, experienced chess player to volunteer their time. Make sure the children know that it is not up to them to settle disputes, but that they should instead ask the director for help. You may also recruit some parents to assist in this task, though no parent should make any decision about a game their child is playing in.

Chess clocks will probably be unnecessary, as children tend to play quickly anyway. You should have a set beginning and end time for each round; an hour per round should be more than sufficient to let all children finish their games. If there are any unfinished games at the end of the allotted time, you can handle this in several ways; all remaining games can be declared drawn, an experienced adult player can decide what the result should be, or the person ahead on piece count can be declared the winner. For the latter method, simply add up the values of each person's remaining pieces to decide the winner; pawns are worth 1, knights and bishops are worth 3, rooks are worth 5 and queens are worth 9.

You'll also need to decide how you will keep score and declare your tournament winners. An elimination or double-elimination tournament is possible, but you may prefer a method that lets all players compete until the very end. A simplified "swiss system" tournament is ideal for this. In the swiss system, wins are worth 1 point, draws are worth a half-point, and losses are worth 0 points. Each round, you should pair players with opponents who have the same score, or as close a score as possible to them. For an informal tournament, you don't have to be precise; just try to make sure the leaders are playing each other, the people in the middle of the pack are paired together, and so on. Don't let anyone play the same person twice, and try to give players the white and black pieces a similar number of times. Depending on the size of your tournament, you will probably need to have a minimum of 3-5 rounds to get a clear winner. You may have some ties, which you can break using any number of methods, such as a quick tiebreaker game, or by comparing the scores of the tied players' opponents; whoever faced the tougher opposition finishes higher.

Finally, the most important rule you should remind everyone of is to be courteous, and to have a good time. After all, everyone is there to have fun and enjoy themselves, and rudeness or arguments can mar an otherwise fun event.

During the Tournament

Finally, the big day has come! If you've appointed someone else to be the tournament director, your work is nearly done; if you're directing the event yourself, you still have some responsibilities.

Before each round, you'll need to tell the children where they need to go, what color they are playing, and who their opponent is. The easiest way to make things more organized is to assign each game a board number; use clearly marked index cards to show where each board is. Once the games begin, things should be quiet; you may choose to let parents observe, but it's often easier to have them wait in another area - not to mention, less stressful for the kids!

Walk around the playing area, looking for signs of trouble or any raised hands. Try to settle any disputes in a way that seems equitable to both players, but stick to the rules you've set. When a game ends, go to the board to confirm the result, mark it down, and allow the children to leave the playing area. Once every game is completed for a round, you can figure out the pairings for the next round.

The waiting area for parents should have some sort of refreshments available. You may also want to have some chairs and tables, so that children can play games while waiting for the next round to begin.

Before the final round, remind all the players and parents to stick around after their games for the awards ceremony. After the final games end, quickly (but accurately!) figure out who should be receiving awards, then bring the parents and children back into the playing area for the presentation. Be sure to thank everyone for participating, as well as pointing out anyone who may have given you extra help along the way. Give each participant who did not win an award their small gift for playing, individually, so that they can receive a round of applause. Finally, present your winners with their awards, finishing with your overall winner.

By following these tips, you should have no problems running your tournament. Remember, if there are any problems, try to find a solution that is easy for your players to understand, seems fair to everyone involved, and allows the tournament to proceed smoothly. Good luck!