Delegates Meeting Report
Delegates Meeting Report 118th US Open meeting Norfolk, VA Aug 2017
Dr. Robert Keating and I attended the meeting. Dr. Keating filled a vacant seat from our neighboring state of Minnesota.
Presidents report was fabulous.
Right now US Chess is fat dumb and happy with a 1.7 million surplus. That money will be going to sponsor more players in international events and! Major Revamp of the webpage. I don’t know if you realize this but the US Chess Website is actually 3 or 4 websites cobbled together with links to each other. They estimate it will take $250,000 to do the job right and make the website cohesive.
Outlined by the president were the 4 strengths of US Chess
1. Ratings system (everybody loves it)
2. Publications
3. Strong and competent tournament directors
4. Excellent National events.
Iowa was called out by name for not having a women’s coordinator for our state affiliate. I nominated Heidi Pierce and she has accepted the invitation.
Major legislative issues included:
Minors involved in ethics cases (and all participants) will be presumed innocent until proven guilty and referred to as Plaintiff and respondent (instead of defendant)
The Senior tournament of Champions was approved, so our top player over 50 will be invited to participate with over 50 players from all the other states in Madison Wisconsin and the 119th US Open. Next year we will have a similar senior championship event. Although others have suggested a point system similar to our closed championship series. We will discuss it at the 2018 annual meeting.
TD certification was changed from an 8 player round robin with average rating of 1800 to 1400 to encourage TD’s in more rural/isolated areas to achieve higher certification.
Rules Change
29E8 Team Pairings take precedence over color equalization in a combined swiss individual and team tournament, the need to avoid pairing players from the same team shall take precedence over the need to equalize colors
(honestly we kind of do this anyway…. But now it is official)
