Just The Rules: Club Versus Super Swiss

Our rulebook covers what takes place on a chess board’s 64 squares. How the pieces move is essentially the same everywhere rated games are essayed in US Chess—or is it? The experience of facing opponents has a different feel to it at your weekly club meeting versus a Super Swiss.

You’re a club player. You’ve essayed games for decades at one local venue or another. The TD and organizer inhabit the same body. On top of administration duties, the TD also pushes wood at those club events. Without her, rated chess dies locally. The fees are low. The chess is fun. And it is a social event as much as it is a chess event. You get together with about the same group of other chess addicts once a week to pay homage to the goddess of chess, Caissa.

Now you have finally decided to take the plunge. You’ve dreamed about it for years. You enter a Super Swiss (a big tournament with big prizes). Additionally, there will be simuls, GM analysis, GM lectures, organized blitz side events, and a chess bookstore. Your final bill for the entry fee, travel, food, plus your hotel room will outdistance what you typically spend throughout the entire year at your club. Still, it is the same 64 square arena where you and a challenger battle for success — but somehow it does not feel the same. There are hundreds and hundreds of others in the ring here, perhaps even a thousand. The largest tournament you have ever entered in your life was a local 50 player contest.

In today’s online universe, you have managed, from time to time, to be the general of your chess army from the comfort of your home. You tried postal chess in the past. Neither of those experiences are the same as an OTB face-to-face contest.

In the hallway, you overhear some players wish that the organizer had provided the sets and boards. Instead, everyone is on their own when it comes to providing that gear. Their concern is that they expected sets, boards, and clocks to be provided, just like at some other Super Swisses.

The pairings get posted. A mad rush ensues. A little push here and a light shove there defines that mad scramble. Where will one’s contest take place? What color will you play? What is your opponent’s rating? At the club, the TD just reads out the pairings and then sets it down on her TD table, where you can always check out your pairing info on your own time. Not here — the process is a bit different. In fact, some of Caissa’s worshipers are receiving their pairing information on their cell phones!? Who knew!!

The playing hall is massive. You find your assigned playing space. Your opponent is already setting up their equipment. With you guiding the black pieces, you get to choose the clock — NOT?! Why? The time control includes an increment, and your clock does not support increment time control. You point out to your opponent that you can fiddle with the basic time control to compensate — just like at your club. Your adversary says that this is now against the rules. Sigh. You will need to use their increment-capable clock for this contest.

While essaying your game, you discover one more hard-and-fast rule: make your move first, then notate it!! At the club, no one seems to mind one way or the other which comes first — the notation or the OTB move. It turns out the club uses the variation. Of course, this motivates you to check out the posted special rules just for this tournament.

Your club seems to not have any concerns about cell phone, but this Super Swiss bans not only cell phones but all kinds of electronic equipment. There’s even a TD at the restroom doors with a wand. That wand will alert them if you try and enter with an unseen cell phone neatly tucked away — out of sight of course.

The socializing that takes place in the skittles room is unlike anything you could ever imagine — the uproar of bughouse and blitz permeates the air. Hangers-on stake out entire tables as their personal camp site — no claim jumpers allowed. New friends are often made in the skittles room.

The memories from this event will be burned into your long-term memory. Back at the club you will have great tales and tall stories to tell for many eons to come.

How many of us have great memories of our first Super Swiss?

Want more? Past columns can be found here or by searching the Chess Life Online archives.