A Playing Venue
by Sevan Muradian of NA Chess Association
So for my first entry I wanted to discuss a playing venue. This is one of the most difficult aspects of organizing to deal with for various reasons.
Let’s talk about how much space. How much is too little? How much is too much? How do you know how much is right?
First you have to answer the following questions:
(1) Will there be a skittles area? Well if your answer is no then don’t proceed any further. Unless you are a small club tournament, any tournament of size will require a skittles area. Keep in the back of your mind that your skittles area should be about 1/3 – 1/2 the size of your main playing area.
(2) Will you have a chess vendor there selling books, etc.? I think this is one of the most positive aspects of a tournament when a reputable seller is there. (*Side Note – if anyone is interested in personal recommmendations for vendors please contact me).
(3) Will the chess vendor share the skittles area or will they have their own room? This is an interesting question and you have to think about it. Is this a multi-day event? If so your bookseller will not want to break down each night to pack up (he / she has to secure their inventory). If not then maybe being in the skittles room is fine but you’ll have to increase the size of your skittles rooms by about 400-500 sq ft.
(4) Are you going to have someone there, like a local master, analyzing games? If so then you would need space for this as well. I would not recommend putting this in the skittles area. So you should account for 400-500 sq ft for this activity.
(5) Where will the directors sit? Yes this is quite important. Again I recommend this be somewhere by itself so the directors can concentrate and handle issues as they arise. Again the magic # of 400-500 sq ft for this activity would be sufficient.
(6) Last but not least – how many people are you envisioning on having at the event? 100, 200, 500? Well my personal Yoda, Tim “The Walking USCF Rulebook” Just, taught me to use 20 sq ft per player. This would allow for a good comfort zone. So for a 200 person tournament that would be 4,000 sq ft.
Now mind you all we have been talking about is size. Size here does matter. Too small and people are packed like sardines and no one is having fun. Too big and you are spending $$$ you don’t have to and run the potential of some of the kids using your free space as a football arena – not good!
Click here to read the full article.
Finally I found a picture of Alekhine x Capablanca match ( Buenos Aires, 1927 )In this site: http://www.psxc.com.br/buenos.htm
There we find others interesting pictures: the Capablanca’s letter resigning the match, the table, chairs, board, pieces, the watch of the event.
In the search of that picture, I found in youtube a Alekhine’s interview, but just the sound of the interview, not the images ( the interview was by radio ). People interested in knowing Alekhine’s voice and some of his ideas about the chess: http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=QrH-tcDTU48
What is a ‘skittles area’?
There where they provide free Skittles
for the participants.
Skittels is your break out area you go to after you are done playing in the event or side events.
It seems like organizing a chess tournament
is like playing a chess game: planning ahead!
A grrrrrreat article!
Re turba 4:48 …
http://www.psxc.com.br/buenos.htm
Google can translate this whole page from Portuguese -to- English.
The text claims the chairs in the modern photo are the chairs used by JRC & AA (probably with new wicker backing added since).
{“Alekhine aware of the situation and taking still entitled to 1 day free, in a gesture of cavalheirismo made the request, and so Capablanca can celebrate his birthday with friends and their departure was resumed on Monday ending empatada.
“}
So Alekhine voluntarily used his 3rd/last discretionary free-day to help Capablanca go to a birthday party, as Capa had already burned all of his own free-days.
GeneM
CastleLong.com …for FRC-chess960
Substantive and original, ‘no nonsense’ how-to writing: a fine use of blogging.