Welcome to the world of Scholastic Chess! To add to your understanding of how tournaments work, and to answer some of the
many questions you undoubtedly are waiting to ask, we ask that you take a moment to read this Chess Tournament Introduction.

How do you pair players together? We follow the pairing rules developed by the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) on
Swiss-System tournaments. The "Swiss" was designed to accommodate many players competing in the same tournament, while still
producing a clear winner, even though the winner cannot play against everyone else in the tournament. This is done by matching together
players who keep winning, thus reducing the number of players who continue to win (after each round, if all the players with "perfect"
scores-- those who have won all their games-- play each other, and if half the players win their games, while the other half loses, then
the number of "perfect" scores at the end of the round will be half as much as it was when the round started). Players who continue to
win, therefore, will face harder opponents. Players who lose their games will face others who are doing the same, and their opponents
should get easier.

This is not an elimination tournament-- even players who lose their first five games will probably face someone in the last round
who is in the same situation. Players do not face the same player more than once (except possibly in a very small section). The halving
process continues until the last round, when, in theory, one player has won more games than anyone else in that section.

A player's score in the tournament shows how he/she is doing. Each time a player wins, he/she gets 1 point for that round, while
a draw is worth ½-point and a loss is 0 points. A player's score is the total number of points he/she has at any point in the tournament.
Players with the same score face each other as much as possible, beginning with the top scores down to the 0's.

In the first round, all the players are ranked in rating order. Unrated players are usually placed right after the lowest rated player,
unless the Director assigns an estimated rating to an unrated player. The top half of the tournament, by rating, is then paired against the
bottom half, in rating order. The same method follows for the rest of the rounds. Players with the same score are grouped together and
paired with each other, top half vs. bottom half, in rating order. Sometimes, if there is an odd number of players with the same score,
the lowest ranked player will "drop" to the next lowest score group of players and play the highest rated player in that group instead.
If there is an odd number of players in the entire tournament, then one player, the lowest ranked player with the lowest score (a different
player each round) will receive a 1-point bye that round. The halving process continues with this higher half vs. lower half method, and
it is not uncommon for players to face opponents with ratings much higher or lower than their own-- remember,pairings are made by score first,
then by rating.

Occasionally there so many players that it becomes likely that more than one player will win all the games. In this case, we may
"accelerate" pairings, dividing the tournaments into four quarters, instead of halves, in the first round. In Round 2, higher-rated players
who won may play stronger opponents than usual, while the lower rated players who won may play higher-rated players who did not win.
This is all to try and reduce the number of players who start round 3 with two points, reducing the possible number of perfect scores at
the end. Adjustments are made in this basic method, so that players avoid playing opponents from the same school. In small score groups
near the bottom of the tournament, it may sometimes be necessary to pair players together with different scores, to prevent players from
the same school from playing each other.

We also try to make adjustments so that players alternate colors, or at least so that they will have played three Whites and three
Blacks by the end of the tournament. We also try every other legal pairing first, before we assign the same color three times in a row
to a player. However, we avoid making any switches in pairings if there is a large difference in the ratings of the players being switched
(except to avoid giving 3-in-a-row). The result is, in theory, that the top-scoring players will face each other in the last round to determine
the winner of the tournament.

What if the opponent is not there? At the beginning of the first round, some players, even though they have already entered
the tournament, are not going to show up without giving advance notice-- a very unsportsmanlike thing to do, which we can penalize them
for. The Tournament Director will decide if and when to make re-pairings among players without opponents.

How are scores shown on the wallchart? The wallchart shows a player's cumulative score (how many total points he/she
has) after that round. This is a 6-round tournament, so the highest possible (perfect) score is 6 points. The tiny numbers above a player's
score each round indicate the Player Number on the wallchart of the player's opponent for that round, and the "W" or "B" shows if he
had Black or White. The team wallcharts show the scores of the school's four highest-scoring players. Any number of players may
compete for a school, but the total of the school's four highest scoring players produce the school's team score (at least two players from
the same school are needed to make a team). It doesn't matter which players on the team won or lost that round, or how many players
won their games. Only the scores of the four highest-scoring players are counted for the team.