Proposal for the Clubs’ Championship Event

Author: Larry Eldridge

December 1998

Note: This document was prepared just after the completion of the Stan Crowe Memorial which ended December 1st, 1998. The Stan Crowe was a one section, five round event with 72 players. Accelerated Pairings were used for pairing the event.

I. Championships:

A. Of course we should continue to have a championship event. I personally would rather see co-champions, since if two guys battle it out for six rounds (or whatever) and wind up tied, it seems a shame for one of them to lose on the luck of a speed game or whatever tie-breaking method is used.

B. Format. This is a toughie. All the various proposals make my head swim! I'll summarize my position:

1. The club championship should be decided via a round-robin tournament involving top players. Ideally, it would be a double round robin to provide true color fairness. If this would take too much time, or limit the field too drastically, I suggest a single round robin with an odd number of participants, and thus an even number of rounds (each player gets one bye). That way you at least have some color fairness, though not as complete as in a double round robin, since there's still the luck factor of who you get which color against.

2. There should be several ways to qualify for the championship final, just as there are in the U.S. Championship, the world championship. Basically, it should be an invitational, with the majority of the players qualifying by rating. But some small number of participants should get in via performance. Possibilities here are:

a) A qualifying tournament preceding the final, from which the top one or two finishers advance;

b) Yearlong performance at the club.

C. All of this would have to be worked out in order. In other words, the first thing to do is decide how many players you want in the final, how many rounds, what structure (round-robin or Swiss), etc. I don't even know what I think is the right number. I'd love to see a double round robin, but I'm afraid it would take too long or limit the field too much. And I hate to see the color problems of the traditional single round-robin.

D. My first thought, therefor, is a seven-week championship final, stretching over the better part of two months, during which a couple of ordinary tournaments would be held for the majority of the members. I think there should be seven finalists playing a six-round tournament (it would take seven weeks, since each player would have one bye). But it could be the traditional eight finalists, still taking only seven weeks, but with color problems.

E. Now, assuming seven or eight participants, I would hold a qualifying tournament for two places, maybe seed one player on the basis of yearlong performance at the club, and put the rest in by rating. You could play around with this formula, but this is one idea.

F. In the case of year-long performance, however, you would have to have some sort of weighting system so a guy who wins a lot of U1400 sections doesn't sneak in. The whole idea of this structure is to get a few top players together to battle it out. Maybe, unless a good formula is worked out, the idea of yearlong performance isn't a good one. Maybe just a qualifying tournament (this gives everybody a shot).

G. I won't answer all the questions, but skip now to: What does the champion get? I think we'd have more fun and excitement if the club championship were an "amateur" event with no entry fee for the final, and only the title and a trophy up for grabs. No one would be excluded, but such a setup would undoubtedly discourage all or most of our "professionals" from playing in it. These guys play for the money, and they win plenty of it (and all or most of our tournaments) throughout the year. I think there should be one tournament each year for "glory." Our invitations would go to club members on a rating basis: Curdo, Foygel, etc. If any of them wants to play, fine; if not, we just keep going down the list until we get the required number of acceptances -- presumably people like Slater, Epp, Newman, Chamberlain, Ryan, etc.