Tournaments (Part 3 of How to Play OTB Chess) By: Yash S Bhargava So in this article I will be telling all of you viewers how to go to a tournament. Tournaments have to either be made by hand or they use a operating software. In all rated tournaments you will see that they will use a software. The software will pair the players. The most common type of tournament software is Swiss. In a Swiss you play the people with the same amount of points as you have. Another kind is Round Robin. In a round robin everyone plays each other. These are often for smaller tournaments or team tournaments. When you go to a tournament you have to pay a entrée fee and let them know your USCF ID. They will then put your name into the software. After you play certain people the person with the most wins is the champion of the tournaments. That is a basic overview of tournaments Thank you! Yash S Bhargava
Throughout your chess career you will not go one day without thinking of ratings... Ratings, Ratings, and Ratings. Rating is one of the most common chess terminology. In Part 2 of How does OTB chess work we are going to look at ratings. By: Yash B Ratings according to Wikipedia are defined as so: Chess rating system. A chess rating system is a system used in chess to calculate an estimate of the strength of the player, based on his or her performance versus other players. Wow. Wikipedia can be quite descriptive sometimes. To elaborate you have to pay a chess federation like United States Chess Federation Fédération Internationale des Échecs Or World Chess Federation (commonly know as FIDE) You can have both a FIDE and USCF membership. Many top player are part of at least 10 federations due to all of their tournaments around the globe. Basically you go to a tournament and if they are authorized they will probably give you a USCF ID. It costs 30