Caveman Chess Festival Reporting and Prize Payment Process
Understanding the More Complex Process
Even though we took time at the tournaments to explain the prize payment process and the post event reporting process, many people are writing us to ask, complain, or make demands about price processing and results reporting. Therefore, we have prepared the following information, as all these contacts have so far cost about 30 man-hours of processing time. Please do not write, just let us correctly perform this more complicated processing and complete it. Some tournaments have been submitted to US Chess, some have been released for rating, and some have been posted online.
1. FIDE: FIDE tournaments at the end of a month must prioritize FIDE reporting due to FIDE rules. US Chess reporting becomes second.
2. Age Prizes: Most tournaments do not have age prizes. Thus, pairing software has only recently started to develop systems for dealing with age prizes, and those systems are primarily in their infancy. Much of this still needs to be done by hand calculation. We prefer to send in results only after reviewing the prizes to ensure correctness.
When doing the first pass at prize calculations this past weekend, multiple TDs commented that the prize calculation for these events are the hardest they had ever seen. To be very clear, they made a point of saying they didn’t mean not among the hardest – but the hardest they had seen – much harder than anything they had experienced on any TD exam. (As a result, we have been working on developing software tools to assist in the calculations.)
3. July End: The end of July sees National Championship reporting for individual championships held in St. Louis, our National Championships, and then the beginning of the US Open, along with its five specialty national championships. All of this puts a workload strain on US Chess, as many of these events are also FIDE-rated. So, even though some events are sent to US Chess, it may still take a day for US Chess to rate the events.
4. Event Release: All national championships are released for rating by US Chess, not by the organizer, unlike most events.
5. Week Turnaround: US Chess rules allow a one-week processing turnaround. Nothing is late until after that. Some tournaments take longer to process than others due to their unique nature.
6. Number of Events: The Caveman Chess Festival Tournaments are nine separate events, unlike most tournaments, which are one event with several sections. Both US Chess and FIDE reporting is more complex.
7. Director Credits: Directors earn credits for the events they direct, which are essential for their future certifications, both for FIDE and US Chess. Thus, it is imperative that we correctly and most beneficially report the available director credits for the nine events, which takes extra time. Due to the unique nature of the Festival, many necessary credits are available that are generally not available to directors.
8. Caveman Chess Camp: In the standard year, the tournament requires a quick turnaround from the Caveman Chess Camp. (Last year, the camp followed the tournaments, with significantly worse turnaround results. However, this was necessary due to scheduling conflicts.) The camp has its own tournaments, rating reports, prizes to be sent, and reporting to outside groups – creating in effect a 10th event.
9. Player and Parent Emails: Even though prizes were explained multiple times at the tournament, and even though processing was explained at a high level, many of the nearly 400 players and their parents chose to email us asking for, or demanding to know, about results before processing is completed. Suppose we do not take the time to answer. In that case, we find that many parents, who typically do not understand the more complex issues in this case, can become quite irate, berating us with additional emails or complaining to US Chess before the week is up. Thus, we find ourselves having to respond to these emails.
We are working hard to accomplish these tasks. I can recall when getting a new rating took six months; now we can do it in days. We are not sloughing off; instead, we have many tasks to complete, and our employees are working all night to make up for interruptions.
I understand that this event is slower than the normal event. What I also understand is that it is very different from the typical large event, and so takes longer for reporting.
We have ten events (not sections, but separate events, several with two to four sections) at play here. These events are more complex, so we prioritize getting it right first (and quadruple-checking) and then speed.
The fact that this isn’t apparent to players until after the event shows that the directing staff is doing a great job.
Please do not assume the worst.
Prize Payment Process
Results and prizes are posted online
We contact you by email, and request you to go to an online form to confirm your prize, and to choose your prize payment method.
We pay prizes.
We are currently about half way done with step one, and are working to complete it ASAP. 7/31/2025