Entering Tournaments with Pre-Determined Sections

In Houston, you just enter the Tournament.  You may express a preference for playing in the "Advanced" Section at a time control of Game in 45 minutes (each player gets 45 minutes on a clock), against players rated over 1300; or Game in 30 with "Regular" players.  The Tournament Organizer receives all the entries, and then divides them into sections according to the entries received, the stronger players based entirely upon rating, the less experienced players by school grade.  The main purpose here is to have sections of a similar size that will allow a single, undefeated, first place winner.  In other tournaments, there may be 12 entries in one section and 72 in another, with 10 trophies in each.  And in the section of 72, it is most likely that after 5 rounds there will be two undefeated players tied for first place.  Tie break points (adding the wins of your opponents) is unsatisfying enough for deciding who gets the bigger trophy when tied for fifth place.  But when you have won all of your games, it is hard to settle for second place next to someone you do not have the opportunity to challenge.

This system also allows us to use the players' "most current available rating," rather than an "official" rating that may be nearly two months old.  Scholastic ratings are very volatile, and players like to be up-to-date.  Entering an "Under 700" Section, then finding out that by the day of the tournament, your opponent was actually rated 936, can be discouraging.

Then there are School Teams.  In Houston, where the Organizer divides the players from a school into different sections, the sections are combined afterward to determine school awards.  Other tournaments give a set of team trophies for every section.  So there is no overall winning team for the tournament.  And if a school with only 4 players, has one of them who could enter a "lower" section and have a good chance of winning, that player gets pressured into entering the "higher" section so the school will have a team - but the player has little chance of success.

Elsewhere, you are presented with a list of sections from which to choose.  For example, the Texas Scholastic Championship in February, 2012, has these sections:

What is my rating?  You have several.  [You may wish to open another browser window, so you can both read and follow these instructions.]  Go to http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrLst.php and enter your name (Last, First) or your USCF ID Number, and then Search.
     This gives a list of members, and their "Official" ratings for the current month. "Regular" for
     games longer than Game-29, and "Quick" for games between Game-10 and Game-61.
Click on your name. This goes to http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?00000000 where the zeroes are your eight digit ID number.
     This is your own personal page on the USCF website.  Check your expiration date and
     other details.  The "Current Published Rating" is your Official rating for the current month.
     These ratings used to be printed (published) and mailed to tournament directors as a
     Supplement to the Annual Rating List that came out each December, so they would have
     a list of ratings for players in their tournaments. [We haven't always had the internet!]
     To the right, you may see your "Published Rating" for the following month.
Now Click on the "Tnmt. Hst" tab. You may wish to "bookmark" this page in your "Favorites."
     This gives you a list of all the tournaments you have played since 1991, and your rating
     before and after. Pick a tournament, note the "section number" just under the name, click
     on  that tournament name to see the tournament "crosstable."   Find the section number in
     which you played, and you can check who you played, and the result of each game.  Your
     Regular rating on the Tournament History page, "After" the tournament at the top of the list,
     is your "most current available" rating.  The next tournament you play will be rated using 
     this as your rating, regardless of the rating used during the tournament.

Why so many ratings?  Your "Official" or "Published" rating is determined from all the tournaments that have been rated by 10:30 pm on the first Friday of one month, for use the following month.  For example, at 10:30 pm on Friday, January 6, 2012, USCF did a thorough re-rating (making sure the tournaments got rated in the order they were played) and found the ratings of all the USCF players - to be used for tournaments starting February 1 to February 29, 2012.  Why?  This allows you to know which section you can enter.  You need to have a stable, predictable rating for the month of the tournament you are entering.   For the Texas Scholastic above, if you are a seventh-grader and your rating is 598, you can enter any of the Middle School sections.  If it is 601, you can enter only the Open or Under-900 Sections.  A first-grader rated 953 could enter the K1-Open, Primary-Open, or Elementary-Open, but would probably choose the K-1 because there are more Elementary players stronger then you are.  A first-grader rated 492 could enter any of the K-1, Primary, or Elementary Sections.  But consider that you are just under the limit for the Elementary-U500.  You would be one of the strongest players in that section.  If you are not intimidated by the size of your opponent, you should consider playing there.  But remember that your opponents' ratings, like yours, will be six weeks old by then.  They, and you, may have played in six or more tournaments by then, and some players' ratings can change a lot in that time.  But all players in the tournament will be using their ratings as of January 6.

Teams -  If your school has 4 players, they will only count as a team if they are entered in the same section.  But if one of your players is rated low enough to enter a "lower" section than the rest, he may do much better there.  But then you don't have a 4-player team in the "higher" section.  Some times, you have to balance what is best for the individual competition against the desire to have a strong team.

I hope this clarified more than it confused.  Ask questions.  That is the only way to find out.
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