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I bring this up with regards to the Mississauga tournament as many players where unhappy with juniors causing distractions, in the playing area my suggestion for future would be a rated forfeit and next time kicked out of the tournament without refund
I bring this up with regards to the Mississauga tournament as many players where unhappy with juniors causing distractions, in the playing area my suggestion for future would be a rated forfeit and next time kicked out of the tournament without refund
Please note most juniors are well behaved
Any other solutions would be helpful
Thanks Lee
Hello Lee.
I agree, this is a serious problem. Could you please provide more context so that the community can discuss the solutions. Did those juniors misbehave in their capacity as players, i.e. while their own games were under way, or when they became spectators, i.e. when their own games have completed?
We can always use Article 11 "The conduct of the players" from the FIDE Competition Rules to assess sanctions in the former case. The latter case can be dealt with by applying 11.2.3.3 "Only with the permission of the arbiter can:.... a person who is neither a player nor arbiter be allowed access to the playing area."
Thanks, and sorry to hear about the bad experience people had.
Hi Lee;
I'd say just give them a time out for the next Round with a 0 point bye. They will soon learn that if you misbehave you get a rest plus no points.
At my last USCF tournament I had a youngster eat a peanut butter sandwich and then start eating some crunchy tortilla chips during key moments in our game. I was handily winning so I chose not to make an issue of it during the game. Immediately after the game I spoke to the mother and the son and said that I did not want to disrupt his concentration during the game but that it was not allowed during a FIDE rated game for a player to eat at the board (especially any noisy food). Further there were players that I was aware of who were allergic to peanuts and who could have a severe reaction which could even lead to death so eating peanut butter was particularly dangerous. The mother seemed surprised and did not know about the rules and I believe will abide by the rules in the future. She acknowledged that she was aware of rules in schools regarding peanut products and had just not thought about it in her choice of food that day.
Very often the bad behavior is the result of a lack of knowledge in some cases though I have also as CFC president been privy to reports of very experienced players violating the rules of chess in particular with commentary on games in progress in front of spectators and players.
I bring this up with regards to the Mississauga tournament as many players where unhappy with juniors causing distractions, in the playing area my suggestion for future would be a rated forfeit and next time kicked out of the tournament without refund
Please note most juniors are well behaved
Any other solutions would be helpful
Thanks Lee
Lots of problems at the tournament this past weekend. Our apologies for the situations that arose.
Some unforced errors, some unavoidable problems, and lots of misbehaving kids.
We are taking steps to correct these problems including disciplinary action on some junior player(s).
The Mississauga CYCC qualifer scheduled for January 20, 2018 has been cancelled. Actions have consequences!
We will have more to say on the matter, Gord and Bob are meeting for lunch tomorrow to discuss.
In the meantime, your feedback in most welcome.
Send emails to miltonchess@hotmail.com
As an experienced TD / organizer / arbiter, I have found that the vast majority of tournament players are well behaved at all times. This is a great credit to the game we love so much, and to the classy and courteous conduct of almost everyone taking part.
There are exceptions, and these are not only juniors. Several incidents in Kingston, however, dating back over a decade, had juniors at fault.
1) Junior disappeared for several hours without informing TD or guardians, and was located only after a police search of the city;
2) Junior caught using illegal drugs in a washroom near the playing hall, during play, and was reprimanded by me for this;
3) Junior disrupting tournament hall with excessive noise and rowdy behaviour prior to a round, was warned, kept going, and was reprimanded by me for this.
The worst incident I experienced in Kingston involved an adult, however; this was during the 1992 Zonal, and has been well documented, so I won't repeat it.
Very rowdy behaviour by a small group at the Ontario HS 2012 in Toronto caused a serious problem; after repeated warnings, only a threat to expel solved the problem.
CYCC 2013 in Ottawa had very rowdy behaviour by one player, repeated, and only my threat to expel him led to a cessation.
I am certainly curious though. What exactly is prompting this thread? Is this type of infraction caused only or mainly by juniors?
This really has to be taken case by case. As someone mentioned, any player can misbehave.
I definitely remember, before kids ruled the tournament scene... there have always been notorious trouble-makers. Adults. Repeat offenders, con-artists, a source of buffoonish entertainment for some by-standers, but certainly a headache for any organizer. This crop of individuals is gone. The new 'trouble-making kids' on the block are not exactly tournament career criminals. Far from it. They are kids growing up, through joy and struggle.
The chess scene as we know it is changing very rapidly. 20 years ago there were practically no juniors on the tournament scene. Now they compose the vast majority of the field in an "adult" tournament - a term that in itself has evolved in meaning. And more... the percentage of kids is increasing. And they are getting younger. It also used to be the case that tournament players would be more serious about chess in the past, whereas now there are plenty of beginners and amateurs playing chess. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. But this also welcomes super young kids to the scene and participate.
20 years ago, one or two arbiters / organizers per 100 players was often sufficient. Because the players were adults. I was once at a big CMA tournament with ~300 kids or so. Parents were not allowed in the playing hall. However, there was a TD/organizer/volunteer per 15-20 kids.
Realistically, children require more attention. They are not just learning about chess, or about the tournament experience, but about life. A chess tournament is a rare occasion where a child can interact with an adult, in an adult event, outside a family gathering. They are also naturally dependent on their parents, many whom ignore or have a different view of what a chess tournament should be, as an experience.
Whereas I also agree that the vast majority of players, including juniors, will be well behaved --- the ones where there are problems, a chat with the parents is in order. Unfortunately, some parents don't view a tournament experience as a serious one, and taking the child to the tournament is comparable to taking the kid to a theme park. Some parents spoil their kids to the extent that the kid rules the world and can do no wrong. Children are a product of their parents' education and upbringing, values and experiences. When a kid misbehaves, it's a direct reflection on the parent's upbringing. To my mind, it's quite difficult to fault many of the kids as they themselves don't understand what they have done wrong. Kids will be kids, as in many ways, they should be. Any event where many kids get together should be a fun activity. Some are siblings, others friends from school, others are chess friends who only see each other through chess, occasionally, so it's time to have a blast. Parents on the other hand, should have the ability to judge whether their child is ready for the tournament scene or not. I am occasionally appalled to see a parent let their child run loose like it's the most natural thing in the world. And maybe to some, it is.
The reality is... we organizers are completely understaffed to deal with a children's tournament. We practically need to have a 'family room' now, or a designated area for such in the skittles area. It's also important to take into account that kids tend to finish their games much faster. It doesn't help that some parents don't play the role of parents when it's called upon. Perhaps we all need to be more in tune with specifying or explaining some of the rules or code of conduct better. Maybe we adults take some things for granted and are unable to place ourselves in the shoes of a 9 year old. We certainly need the cooperation of the parents on this.
However... and maybe naively... I still believe that the vast majority of kids are quite well behaved, and there are certainly a lot of parents who go above and beyond on the tournament scene.
With higher number of participants, more people are needed to keep everything in control, and remind every round about the order. It is almost unpredictable when kids decide to play some physical games - tag, hide, whatever - they just zoom in the hall and try to race through other doors. Try to catch them LOL It easier with chatter boxes - at least they don't run away and a firm word bring them to silence.
imho, the tournament is like a cruise ship - the passengers are loose, the crew is not happy; the captain is too bossy, others feel bad. I'm trying to be in between those extremes and happy to see small kids mature from one section to other in Aurora Opens :)
That was one of the mean problems was kids running in and out of the playing area playing tag, hide and seek also being overly loud in the skittles room which, unfortunately, was right next to the top section,even after being told multiple times not to by players and organizers, also kids making prank calls, which caused a concerned member of the church we were using to come over irate.
Most juniors were very well behaved, not to say that others age groups can't cause troubles since there have been many icdents in the past.
I think we need a chess course on chess etiquette for new/young players even some long-time players lol.
I agree with Lee. Learn Chess Manners before you play in adult events. As Alex said kids will be kids. Well Leave Kids out of adult tournaments.
I was at the Mississauga event and that was a disaster for behaved juniors.
The misbehaved were rude ,loud. We asked them to be quite and then the noise escalated. The only way to teach them is to give them time outs and 0 points. Or the other choice is to ban these juniors from the tournaments. Or charge an extra fee if they want to play. Hit them where their parents money bank is and they will stop. Give them zero points and they will stop . Do nothing and we will stop running tournaments with juniors under 12.
Teachers parents and coaches are at fault. organizers are at the mercy of these misbehaving kids. So burn their threads to playing chess in Adult tournaments.
We could also have the CFC post a misbehaving list and then we do not allow those players to play without a heavy fee.
Last edited by John Brown; Friday, 8th December, 2017, 06:51 AM.
Reason: spelling
We are going to implement the zero point bye in the next Brantford tournament for misbehaving juniors,
The first warning will be a blanket warning to the field before RD 1
a second warning zero points rated forfeit (and/or) zero points next round
after that expulsion from the tournament without any refund or prize
Lee if you are ejecting players you have to give some rebate of games not played. That is only fair. You cannot apply a rated forfeit if you give a person a 0 point bye.
I have been wanting to join this conversation all week but some virus on the chesstalk site has been keeping me away. I did post something on the CFC discussion board, but apparently nobody goes there. :( It seems my Apple computer is impervious to the virus, so here goes.
Mississauga Open 2017 - A horror show.
The biggest problem were the misbehaving kids. I would like to first address some other complaints, which are easier to fix, then I will focus on the misbehaving kids problem.
Registration Policy & Late Start
Unfortunately, Gord and I were sending out conflicting messages about the early payment policy. This was our first time collecting money via PayPal, I had a PayPal account and Gord didn’t, so it got confusing as both of us were taking registrations. Going forward, Gord will be handling registrations exclusively. The tournament flyer was not clear on early payment policy, my bad. The result was that the 1st round was delayed about an hour, whereas we usually get underway within 15 minutes of the announced start time.
Although players paying onsite were instructed to arrive by 9:30am, most of them did not. So in future, those who preregister and pay online will receive a discount that is not available to those who pay onsite. Problem solved.
We tried to add a Seniors section this time. Only a handful of Seniors registered for the Seniors section. So that necessitated a meeting (before round 1 ) with the Seniors about keeping the section or not. In future, we will combine sections in advance based on preregistered entries. Problem solved.
If you pay via PayPal please include your name number and section with the payment itself. Sending a separate email from a different email address makes it kinda hard to match up the two. Also if you pay by e-transfer, don’t forget to send us the password. C’mon folks.
We can and will engineer the registration process for our next event so that we start within 15 minutes of the schedule time as has been our history.
Space
Our Erindale Church site can not realistically handle more than 100 players comfortably. Previously we had 123 players and we fit them all into the main playing hall. It was very crowded. I wanted to find a new larger site for this year, but rent costs can be outrageous in Mississauga.
We had 122 players preregister and expected maybe a few walk-ons, so we decided to put the top 16 boards into one of the side rooms. Previously we had used the side rooms for skittles and TD room. This time we moved the TD to the kitchen. Problem solved? No.
There is not a solid wall between the side rooms, there is a door. So not such a good sound barrier, so the mix of skittles and playing room, very bad idea. Didn’t see that one coming. Will not do that again. As it turned out, we only had 114 players, so maybe we could have moved everyone into the main room for Sunday. Oh well, hindsight is wonderful. But I am wondering if the noise problem from the skittles room was mostly Sunday? We’ll talk about that more when we focus on the misbehaving kids problem.
Playing hall (side room - top 16 boards) - too crowded? This was out regular table setup for club events and we have never received a complaint that it was too crowded before now. I realize the top boards often enjoy more space, so duly noted. We defaulted to our junior club preference where we put the top junior section in the small room because it is quieter. In hindsight, we should have put the U900 section in the small room, that would have minimized the skittles noise problem as well. Hindsight again. The solutions are so much clearer 5 days later. :)
Playing hall (side room - top 16 boards) - too warm, too smelly, not enough oxygen? I did visit the room on complaints that it was too warm. It wasn’t. Afterwards, I have been told that I misunderstood, that there was an odour problem. I didn’t notice any. Should we poll the participants? Email me please!
We are going to find a new site for weekend events. Mississauga has the potential for events of 200 players, Erindale Church is just not big enough. It will mean higher rent costs, which may lead to higher entry fees and/or a lower prize fund. The search continues. Please email me any suggestions for a new site.
Okay, so now I will focus on the misbehaving kids problem.
But first another coffee and breakfast.
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