Fellow Chess Enthusiasts,

As a few of you are already aware, after December I plan to take a year off, if not retire from Directing/Organizing chess events. Between now and then, I plan to hold tournament director/organizer training sessions at the Hampton Inn. I'm hoping that as many as are interested in directing events, participate in at least one of these sessions.

I miss playing and don't play in my own events because directing/organizing and playing require separate preparations, focuses and energies. I'd also like to free up some time to pursue other interests. I spoke with Goichberg in March and am working on securing a site that he might hold another St. Louis Chess Congress here March 17-18.

Any who are interested in the training sessions, please contact me at AL_Howlett@charter.net. The sessions are free and should take about 2 hours each. They'll be held on Sunday afternoons on days immediately following Saturday events. Those who would like to, may get experience by assisting with the remaining events.

Thanks, Al

[update]: I'm planning to have the first session on Saturday 6/2 from 7-9 am (just before registration starts for MHS 2).

For those who want to practice working with pairing software, Swiss Sys can be downloaded at http://www.SwissSys.com. The unregistered version is free, but only does 3 rounds of pairings (the registered version pairs up to 14 rounds and costs $99). For those who plan to do Swiss pairings manually but have not yet purchased a USCF rulebook ($17.95), an explanation of the Swiss System can be located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_system_tournament.

[For more information see the Forum part of Tony Rich's website StLChess.com]