Recent Tournament Results
Now is the time to start a new scholastic chess club
If you're not receiving OSCO Scholastic Chess Update email messages, send your email address to admin@okschess.org
Check out the What's New page for all the latest, updated 10 Mar 2010.

www.okschess.org

OSCO GRAND PRIX EVENTS
Contributions, Player Points Rules and Tournament Organizer Rules

Contributions to the OSCO Grand Prix Scholarship Fund come from participating tournament organizers at $1 per entrant, and from OSCO Donor contributions specially designated for the Grand Prix fund. If you would like to become an OSCO Donor to the OSCO Grand Prix Scholarship Fund, please Contact OSCO.

Player Grand Prix Points Rules

1.      Both State Championships and the six other 2006-7 school year events designated as a Grand Prix tournament on the official OSCO website at www.okschess.org\events\schedule.htm will award Grand Prix points. Grand Prix points will accumulate from the two state championships and all except 2 of the other events (you can miss two and still be in the competition). The Grand Prix will be over, the winners announced and scholarships awarded at the Oklahoma State Scholastic Championship in March.

2.      Players will receive Grand Prix points based on the game points earned in OSCO Grand Prix Events, with multipliers for any differences in the number of rounds in an event and the section difficulty based on rating limit of the section competed in. 

Number of Rounds Multiplier:
Sections with fewer rounds than others in the same tournament will have game points scaled up proportionally for Grand Prix points. For example, in a tournament with 5 rounds being the most for any section, a section with 3 rounds would have game points multiplied by 5/3 for the Grand Prix number of rounds multiplier.

Difficulty Multiplier:
Sections will also have difficulty multipliers based on section rating ceilings divided approximately by 100 with Premier sections being approximately the next larger multiplier in progression. The following table contains section difficulty multipliers for a variety of section structures commonly used in Oklahoma:

The section difficulty multiplier for all Grand Prix events will be as published in this table, if not otherwise published by OSCO prior to the event. Players may not "play up" more than 100 points from any lower section for which they would qualify. For example: a 5th grade player rated 598 that would normally play in the K-6 U700 would not be eligible to "play up" into one of the higher rated sections.

Per USCF rules, players may ask the Tournament Director to use a higher current rating, instead of the most recently published rating, if evidence can be provided of this higher current rating (e.g. print of USCF web page showing player's tournament history with current rating after most recent event ).

Example:
An 1150 rated player finishes with a 3.5 score in a section that played 4 rounds in a tournament where the maximum number of rounds played in other sections was 5. For this tournament, the player was in a section with a "difficulty multiplier" of 13. Due to having been in a section that played 4 longer rounds, instead of 5, the player would also have a "rounds multiplier" of 5/4 or 1.25. In this case the player would receive 3.5 x 1.25 x 13 = 56.875 Grand Prix points for that event.

3.      Grand Prix points will accumulate for each player as the scholastic chess season progresses. Each participant’s Grand Prix division will be based on their school grade level. The Grand Prix Divisions will be grade level groupings K-4, 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12.

4.      Awards: Participants must be Oklahoma residents to be eligible for awards. A plaque will be awarded to the Grand Prix winner in each division. The winners will receive scholarships in the amount of one fourth of the accumulated Grand Prix fund, based on $1 per Grand Prix tournament participant, plus any donations to the fund to be divided equally.

5.The Denker and Polgar scholarships are funded separately by OSCO, and not from the Grand Prix fund.

6.In the unlikely event of a Grand Prix points tie, the Grand Prix scholarship will be divided equally between those tied. The plaque recipient tiebreak will be the Grand Prix points earned at OSCO State Championship, which is the last Grand Prix event. Additional calculated tie-breaks used at the State Championship Tournament will then be applied if necessary to determine the plaque recipient, in the same order used to determine final standings.

7.Grand Prix points will be published with a link from the OSCO Grand Prix web page following each tournament. Any challenges to the Grand Prix point calculations must be submitted within 14 days of being published, as announced on the OSCO web site's What's New page.

Tournament Organizer Grand Prix Rules

1.      Tournament Host School must be an active OSCO affiliate scholastic chess club conducting the tournament as a club fundraiser.

2.      OSCO affiliates will be required to pay OSCO a $1.00 per entry fee to be placed in a pool designated as “OSCO Grand Prix Fund”. This money will fund the awards for winners in each if the Grand Prix divisions, to be awarded at the Oklahoma Scholastic State Championship Tournament.

3. All participants in OSCO Grand Prix events will automatically become members of OSCO. The affiliate host shall include address, phone number, email, school name, grade level, date of birth and USCF member number spaces on the tournament registration forms. All tournament registration form information must be provided to OSCO for inclusion in the OSCO membership database.

4. For the non-championship dates, potential organizers must submit their tournament to the OSCO Secretarywith written agreement to the organizer rules above. All else being equal, the first tournament submitted for a date will be given priority during any consideration deemed necessary by the OSCO Policy Board. Please submit tournament date requests as early as possible.

5. Other OSCO Grand Prix tournament considerations:

A)    Sections: It is preferred that sections conform to one of the formats presented in the table above. However, other formats may be approved if logical Grand Prix point section difficulty multipliers can be established for OSCO publication.

B)    Quality of facilities and awards: Facilities and awards should be of sufficient quality to meet reasonable expectations of tournament participants.  These criteria will not be a major consideration unless multiple substantiated complaints from OSCO member parents or affiliates has been received by the policy board regarding prior tournaments by the same OSCO Affiliate.

C)     Failure to pay $1.00 entry fee per participant and provide the OSCO member information in a timely manner (21 days) may disqualify organizer and/or affiliate from hosting a Grand Prix event during the two school years following the year of the tournament. The OSCO Policy Board will then consider requests to host a Grand Prix event, but only after funds due have been paid.