MetroWest
Chess Club’s Summer Scholastic Program:
Second
Edition Builds on Success of First
There’s a song that says things are better the second time around. That certainly proved to be true for the MetroWest Chess Club’s summer scholastic program, which took place on Tuesday nights from June 26 through August 21, 2001 at the Kennedy Senior Center in Natick. While the program in 2000 was uncharted territory for the Club (Chess Horizons, September/October 2000), the 2001 program benefited from the experience of that inaugural effort and was designed to remedy its shortcomings. By all accounts it succeeded splendidly.
A total of 55 players participated in this year’s program, ranging from a handful who attended on only one or two nights to a hardy few who didn’t miss a single round. While Natick supplied the largest contingent of participants (22), the program attracted players from 18 communities, ranging from Braintree to Lowell to Framingham — a testament to the level and extent of interest in scholastic chess in this area. And, as a result of a novel prize structure (described below), we are happy to report that 42 out of these 55 players were prize winners! But the most noteworthy aspect of the summer program is without a doubt the enthusiasm for the game that players of all ages and skill levels showed week after week.
MCC’s summer program was quite unlike the typical scholastic tournament. For example, there was no particular recognition of top-place finishers. MCC’s essential purpose was twofold: to provide an opportunity for players to play as many games as could be reasonably accommodated within the constraints of time and space, and to ensure that most players won something. The remainder of this article deals with some of the specifics of the program’s structure and might be of most interest to those who organize scholastic events.
A quick look back will provide some useful context for discussing this year’s program. The 2000 program was promoted as a single, ten-round event in which players would play only one game per night and only six players would earn prizes. Despite relatively extensive promotion efforts, this program attracted only 19 players for the first night, and only eight more over the course of the summer. Seeking greater participation in the 2001 program, the MCC board of directors accordingly adopted a radically different approach to achieve three particular objectives:
The evidence indicates that MCC’s approach paid off. The total number of players who registered increased from 27 in 2000 to 55 in 2001, and average attendance was 33.4, compared with 18.4 last year. Perhaps more tellingly, over the course of the program 20 new players entered after the first night. This dramatic increase in participation happened despite the facts that efforts to publicize the program were more modest than last year and that only nine veterans of the 2000 program came back for a second year. Clearly word of mouth was an important factor in drawing people to the event, suggestive that participants liked the program’s format. Moreover, surveys from both players and their parents were unanimous in endorsing the program’s structure. But while it appears that the new structure contributed to the increased participation, it is a safe bet that the appeal of chess itself was the biggest draw: there were instances of players leaving soccer practice early so as not to miss a game (!), and several players who signed up for one event to “try it out” quickly anted up for the rest of the summer.
Perhaps the biggest complaint last year was playing only one game per night. So rampant was “scholastic blitz” (entire G/30 games played in ten minutes or less!) that many players were spending more time waiting for the round to start than actually playing. Because of this the original design of the 2001 program called for two games per night in the top section and three games per night in two lower sections. This format (happily) had to be abandoned after two weeks. This year players generally used much more of their time, and cases of “scholastic blitz” were comparatively few, suggesting a higher level of play — at least, of attention — overall. For the remainder of the summer everyone’s schedule called for two games per night. Players who finished their second-round tournament games early enough — and had their parents’ permission — could at their option request to be paired again in side games. This solution proved popular with both players and parents, although it required a dexterous tournament director to keep a handle on the side games.
The chief dilemma of how to structure the program was twofold: how to deal with pairing and reporting parameters, and how to minimize the impact of absences so that players would not be significantly disadvantaged by, for example, going on a family vacation. Because snow days delayed the end of the school year, shortening the summer program to nine weeks, it was structured into three six-round tournaments each lasting three weeks. This maximized competitive pairings (some players faced each other in more than one tournament), facilitated reporting the results to the USCF, and gave players two opportunities to change sections, which quite a few did.
But the real virtue of this structure, ironic ally, is that the tournaments were inherently meaningless, in that winning a tournament per se earned no prize. With no tournament prizes at stake, a reduced chance of finishing in one of the top places was no deterrent to participation, and many players played only one or two nights of a tournament as their schedules allowed. Players were encouraged and rewarded for coming to the Club on every night they could make it, because only cumulative participation over the course of the entire summer determined prizes, as explained next.
The third component of the strategy to increase participation was to increase the number of prize winners. The decision was accordingly taken not to award trophies at all. Instead, players accumulated points for attendance (1 per night attended) and game results (basically, standard chess scoring — 1 point for winning or being paired out, ½ point for a draw or bye — times a factor of 1.5, side games excepted). Based on the total number of points accumulated, players won USCF gift certificates ranging from $10 to $45.
The issue of trophies and other prizes in scholastic tournaments is a thorny one. Robert Musicant recently argued in Chess Life (September 2001, page 54) that trophies are offered as an initially unnecessary inducement for kids to play chess, who would play anyway just for the fun of it; but perversely, the trophy comes to supplant the game itself as the primary interest, so that later, when trophies are no longer at stake, many of these kids stop playing chess altogether — an example of a behavior called over-justification.
The implications of supplanting an inherent love of the game with a focus on winning prizes among our youngest players are, of course, not favorable for the future popularity of chess in this country. We do not know whether any players declined to enter the summer program because no trophies were offered. We also do not know whether the prizes that were offered were the deciding factor for any of the players who chose to participate — one could argue that prizes of any sort are over-justification. It is true that the tournament director heard no complaints directly or indirectly from either players or their parents about the lack of trophies. But the important question is, would the program have had fewer participants had there been no prizes at all? The gift certificates certainly added another dimension of excitement and satisfaction, but would the summer program have been significantly less appealing without them? The notion that trophies, or any other sort of prize, must be integral to a scholastic tournament should be reconsidered and tested.
It is evident that there are many scholastic chess players to be served in this area. By trial and error MCC has evolved a very successful program format, aided by a fine facility, for giving these kids an opportunity to indulge their enthusiasm. This year’s participants and their parents have been vocal and emphatic in expressing their hope that the program will continue next summer.