2023-2024 Scholastic Regulations

(NOTE:  an updated version of the Scholastic Regulations was posted on January 5, 2024.  The new version, which is linked below, contains fixes to typographical errors only.  No playing or tournament rules were changed.)

The Scholastic Council and the Executive Board have approved the 2023-2024 Scholastic Regulations. This year’s regulations can be found here. Substantive changes to this year’s regulations include:

1. The Regulations now include references to the US Chess Safe Play Guidelines in the Introduction and in Section 9.
2. Procedures associated with violations of the electronic device rules have been substantially updated in Section 13.5. In particular, the range of penalties available to the tournament staff encourages consideration of a player’s grade/age and experience and the circumstances of the violation.
3. In Section 3.2, onsite and online entries are being strongly regulated for the main event at the K12 Grade Nationals and the Spring Scholastic Nationals run directly by US Chess. More specifically, Section 3.2 stipulates for the main tournament that online registration will close at 11 a.m. on the Thursday before the tournament begins and that no entries will be taken onsite at Chess Control. Chess Control will take onsite entries only for side events.
4. Details associated with Late Registration, Section Change Requests, and Bye Requests have been updated in Section 3.3, with the subsection Section Change Requests (3.3.2) having been entirely re-written to include examples of the variety of possible section change requests. The Regulations also include a new sub-section called “Reviewing Your Registration” to strongly encourage players, parents, and coaches to review their or their players’ registrations online before traveling to the tournament to avoid common problems seen at the national scholastic events such as Unrated players who have mistakenly entered a Championship Section, players with incorrect school codes, and players whose Bye Requests do not reflect their actual desires.
5. Procedures for handling questions about Checkmate and Stalemate have been updated in Section 13.9.
6. The quantities of awards for class players and the rating ranges for those classes for each grade from Pre-K through 12 has been updated in Section 14.3. A limited number of team trophies have been restored to Unrated sections.
7. Appendix A-1, covering Blitz, has been updated to clarify that games are played using “touchmove”, not “clock-move.” While this has been the standard practice for the past 3 years, we felt it important to emphasize the point as directly as possible.
8. Almost all the information on event site selection, logistics, etc. (formerly in Sections 3-10), has been removed from the main text of the Regulations and placed in Appendix G-1. This allows the main text of the Regulations to focus on topics of greatest interest to players, parents, coaches, and tournament staff.

If you have questions about the regulations, please contact Boyd Reed, Director of Events.