What age-group is my child in?
For SJC events, your child's age at midnight on the preceding 31st August determines their age-group for events. So, for example, if your child was aged 8 on 31st August, they are considered be be an Under-9 (and will generally be in school Year 4).
Most school and English junior chess tournaments operate this system. Confusingly, international events usually operate on a calendar year but this will only affect your child if they are selected for either the England Squad, or to play for Sussex in an International event.
Some childen have grades - what do they mean?
Grades
are used in chess to organise pairings in tournaments. They work a
bit like a seeding system, to ensure that the top players do not
meet each other in early rounds.
The
English Chess Federation (ECF) calculates grades using games which
are submitted for grading. The algorithm is complex (more detail can be found on the ECF website) but in essence, the grade of your opponent is taken into account as well as whether you won, lost or drew the game.
SJC
submits all games played at Sussex tournaments for grading so the more games you play, the quicker you will aquire a grade of your own. The ECF calculates grades twice a year - usually in August/September, with a major revision in January.
Who decides who my child plays against?
SJC tournaments, in common with most chess
events, are run using a 'Swiss' pairings system.
Players who win receive a point, those who draw receive half a point and losers receive no points. Win, lose, or draw, all players proceed to the next round where they face opponents with the same (or almost the same) score. No player is paired against the same opponent twice and over the tournament each player should play an equal number of games with black and white.
In simple terms, this means that children
play opponents
who are on the
same number of
points as
them. For inexperienced players, this means that
they will get easier games as the tournament goes
on, and
it is unusual
for
players to
leave the tournament without any points.
In some situations, complex rules are needed to resolve pairings. Please feel free to ask the tournament manager for the day to explain your child's pairing.
Some games are played using special clocks - why?
All tournaments have to have time limits on each round. SJC tournaments are 'rapidplay' tournaments with an allowance of 30 minutes per player, so a maximum of one hour for each round.
All our grand prix events and the older age-group tournaments use chess clocks in order to record the time taken by each player. They are very easy to operate, and an explanation and demonstration will be given in their use at the start of the event.
The tournaments for the younger (U7, U8) age groups are less formal with a shorter time limit (usually 30 minutes for the round), and fewer rounds, and generally will not use clocks.
My child scored the same number of points as the winner, but came second on 'progressives' - why?
This is simply a method of resolving tie-break situations and is calculated by adding together your points as at each round.
For example, a player who Won, Lost, Won, Drew would have a final score of 2.5 and progressive scores of 1, 1, 2, 2.5, giving a total of 6.5. A player who Won, Won, Lost, Drew would also be on 2.5 points, but would have progressive scores of 1, 2, 2, 2.5 giving a total of 7.5.
This is an attempt to put a higher value on scores which were achieved by scoring better in the initial rounds than by finishing from behind.
