NSCL-2020_2021-info

The pandemic-adjusted leagues!

[find your pairings for the next event here!]

TL;DR - use the link above to find your next pairing, and see below for the 3 competitive leagues we are hosting this 2020-2021 school year: the Northern Schools Chess League (all of New Mexico is invited, starts October 10), the NM Grand Prix fast (Saturdays, 4pm, starts October 17), and the NM Grand Prix slow (Sundays, 1pm, starts October 18).

More detail below:

Dear New Mexico chess coaches, schools, students, and families,

We shifted to online chess (using http://lichess.org/ for games and https://jitsi.org/ for videocons) immediately when the lockdown started in New Mexico, and we have been thriving with a series of experiments in individual and team online chess events. In this page we discuss team events. The coaches had a meeting on 2020-08-19 and we decided on an approximate framework. I'm fleshing out the details here. We will have 3 separate series of meets for teams and individuals.

Contact Mark Galassi <mark@galassi.org) and Jim Johnston <jdjohnston100@gmail.com> if you have questions or suggestions.

What is a team?

A team is a group of 1 or more players from a school or a club. We prefer you to be part of a school team, so if your school has a team you have to play with them. If you have made a good effort to find schoolmates to play with, and have had no result, then you may join a club that gets together. Various cities have extra-school clubs, and you could play with those. But: if there are 3 students from the same school, they have to be in a team from that school.

We split into elementary, middle, and high school teams. If a school has both a middle and high (or both elementary and middle, or even all three), then they will have separate ES, MS, and HS teams.

A school with more than 4 players can have more than one team, or they can bunch all their players up into a single team, or can break them up into smaller teams. For example, a school like ATC could have "ATCHSA", "ATCHSB", ..., "ATCMSA", "ATCMSB", ... Or they could just put many players together as "ATCHS" or "ATCMS".

In individual events the points of the top 4 players in each team will be counted.

There is a certain informality in how these tournaments take place, and you will soon see that: the format allows students to drop in and out at various times, although they help their team more if they are there for the entire duration. All of these formats are robust to a team missing an event, so there is little pressure.

Three series ofmeets - all open to all of New Mexico

We will have 3 series of events, with different parameters and "feelings". Teams can participate in all three, or in just one or two of them. The next sections outline how they will work.

Northern Schools Chess League (NSCL)

The NSCL has always invited teams from all over the state, and in pandemic times it becomes quite straightforward to do so. Its characteristic feel is to have 3 meets, two qualifiers and one final, on the following dates (NOTE: these are proposed dates - we might adjust them):

1. Saturday October 10, 2020, 12:30pm-3pm - first seeding round. All ES, MS, HS teams are pooled together into a big arena tournament.

2. Sunday November 15, 2020, 12:30pm-3pm - second seeding round. All ES, MS, HS teams play the same way as in the first meet.

3. Saturday December 5, 2020, 12:30pm-3pm - third seeding round. All ES, MS, HS teams play the same way as in the first and second meets.

4. Monday January 18, 2021 (Martin Luther King day), 12:30pm-3pm - final rounds. There will be 6 smaller events simultaneously: ES, MS, HS championship tournaments, and ES, MS, HS reserve tournaments. The top 6 teams seeded by the first two meets play in championship sections, others in reserve. Everyone will play!

The tournament links will always be at the pairings and results page.

Time controls: we are using 6+5 (6 minutes for each player, and adding 5 seconds for each move you play).

New Mexico Grand Prix - fast-play (NM Grand Prix - fast)

This and the slow-play league below are season-long with cumulative scoring - think of the Italian soccer "Serie A", or the Formula-one season, or the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup.

Every Saturday morning from October 17 to mid-May, from 4pm to 5:50pm, all players meet in an arena tournament. At the end of each meet you get points corresponding to your position in that day's meet. This means that fewer points are better!

To determine points at the end of the season we add up all points, remove the two worst performances for each team, and the winner is the team with the fewest points.

Time controls: the fast-play event will use 5+5 settings (5 minutes for each player, and adding 5 seconds for each move they play. To make work better for wide ratings differences, we are allowing berzerk play.

Each week's meet will be posted at the pairings and results page. with names like NMGrandPrix-fast-rd1 (for the first round).

New Mexico Grand Prix - slow-play (NM Grand Prix - slow)

This event will operate exactly the same way as the slow-play event, except that:

1. Time controls will be longer: 10+5.

2. Games will take place on Sundays from 1pm to 2:50pm.

Each week's meet will be posted at the pairings and results page, with names like NMGrandPrix-slow-rd1 (for the first round).

Practice events every Wednesday evening at 6pm!

We are preparing for this new world by (a) practicing chess, and (b) practicing team meet formats. We meet every Wednesday at 6pm on lichess. See the pairings page to see the link for your team's section. Let us know and we will invite your team to join that evening. We regularly have a few teams, and more participation in these informal events will help run the leagues better. It's also a lot of fun. While play is going on, students and coaches gather in a videocon to plan the season and have friendly banter. Contact us for the Jitsi videocon address.

What should coaches do? (not that much once season starts)

Preview: "not much"! If you work with students who play chess (you could be a parent, a teacher, a club coordinator, someone who runs a chess afterschool program, ...) we really would love you to get as many students to participate as possible! Here are steps you could take:

Have your students get accounts on lichess.org

http://lichess.org/ is a full-featured chess web site, based on free and open-source software, and run by volunteers committed to offering a no-cost service. This means that you do not run toxic software on your computer, and there is no advertising, and there are no limits to the learning features you can use. We will use it for our tournaments.

Form one or more teams for your students

As mentioned above, you should first try to get your students to be in a team with their school. If there are schools with fewer than 3 players then you can form a club for students not in school teams.

It's quite easy on http://lichess.org/ - I recommend somewhat canonicalized team names with no spaces, like "MySchoolName-HS-A" for your top high school team, and so forth. Let me (mark@galassi.org) know your team names and I will invite them to our informal Wednesday evening meets and to the league events.

Get "no external help" commitments from students and parents

Ask your students to send you an email with the following text, and keep that email in a folder for your students:

"""I commit to not using any outside help in the chess games I will play in the New Mexico online leagues."""

If the students are too young to use email then their parents should send an email with a similar paragraph:

"""My child has committed to not using any outside help in the chess games they will play in the New Mexico online leagues."""

Send the students schedule reminders

Remind them of upcoming dates and times, of the lichess.org tournament links, and the videocons that will go with each meet. And get them playing in the Wednesday evening friendly events (mentioned above) right away! You only have to send them this one link - it will always have their team's section address.

Remind students of individual chess

We are also organizing individual chess meets on Monday evenings at 7pm. You will find them listed at https://lichess.org/team/newmexicoscholastic and all students are encouraged to come and practice.

Help us find chess organizers in far-flung cities

This is our chance to get far-away places involved in chess. Please let me know if you have contacts for anyone who organizes chess in some far-away location, where their students have not typically showed up for our events.