25 WIDELY BELIEVED MYTHS
about Continental Chess Association tournaments
Revised 2/22/10

MYTH 1: If I enter in advance and my entry is lost, I will be refused entry in the tournament and my travel to the site will have been wasted.
ACTUAL: No such thing has ever happened in our 45 years of running tournaments. If you enter in advance, the chances that your entry will somehow go astray are very small, not nearly sufficient to justify worrying about, and if this does happen we will get you into the tournament anyway. We always have sufficient space and no entries are ever rejected due to space considerations.

MYTH 2: If the advance entry list has not yet been posted at chesstour.com, I need to call or email the CCA to find out whether my entry was received.
ACTUAL: If you enter online and see "Thank You For Your Order," your entry is confirmed. We recommend that you either record your order number or print out the page on the screen, in the unlikely event there is a problem. If you want a further confirmation, please be patient and wait for the advance entry list to be posted (link is in middle of home page). We don't confirm advance entries individually which would be an enormous amount of extra work, as it is not possible to search the shopping cart by name for entries that are not yet processed, and often we fall behind processing a tournament because we are concentrating on another tournament that will be held earlier.

MYTH 3: It is important to confirm that my advance entry was received.
ACTUAL: No it isn't (see #1 and #2 above), and even though we do not confirm entries individually, the many confirmation requests we receive make it harder to prepare for running a tournament.

MYTH 4: If I enter in advance online, I will receive a confirming email.
ACTUAL: Our shopping cart is not set to send confirming emails. We disabled this feature as it kept malfunctioning, leading to many questions which we don't have time to answer.

MYTH 5: Advance entries must check in at the site.
ACTUAL: There is no check in, all who enter in advance are paired for round 1.

MYTH 6: You can't do a bye in round 1 entering after the round has started.
ACTUAL: No problem, just arrive before round 2 pairings and you can enter with a round 1 bye, we don't need to know in advance that you are coming. Or arrive before round 3 pairings and you can take two byes. Of course, this is a late entry so for most events the fee is slightly higher.

MYTH 7: We need to know about your byes before the tournament.
ACTUAL: We only want to know with an advance entry about byes that will occur before you begin play. Other byes should be requested at the tournament.

MYTH 8: My name is misspelled on the advance entries, I must notify CCA.
ACTUAL: Unless you are unrated, please don't, as the advance entry list isn't used for anything once the event begins, and the spelling will almost certainly be correct after we retrieve your info from the USCF database.

MYTH 9: Advance entries are posted so you can see who is in your section.
ACTUAL: They are posted only to inform you that your entry was received and allow you to check that your section and schedule were recorded correctly. You can't tell well from advance entries who will be in your section, because many players enter on the last day or at the door.

MYTH 10: It takes 26 games to get a USCF rating.
ACTUAL: It takes 4 games to get a USCF rating. After 26 games the rating is called "established," which means it will change more slowly.

MYTH 11: Provisionally rated players are unrated.
ACTUAL: Provisionally rated players are rated, and in most tournaments are treated the same as established players. At a few of our very biggest tournaments only (World Open, Chicago Open, North American Open, one or two others) there are prize limits for provisional players, but their ratings are still valid for entry.

MYTH 12: You lose your rating if you are inactive for many years.
ACTUAL: Wrong. Once rated, always rated.

MYTH 13: You can play below your rating if inactive for many years.
ACTUAL: You can never play in a section limited to those below your rating.

MYTH 14: Players with foreign or FIDE ratings but no USCF ratings are unrated.
ACTUAL: Players with ratings or categories from any country, or FIDE, are rated.

MYTH 15: Players with unofficial ratings are unrated.
ACTUAL: If you have an unofficial rating at uschess.org and are otherwise unrated, we will generally use that rating. On rare occasions we may not, for example we might not see that rating because it appears online after we have finished looking up that player's rating.

MYTH 16: Players formerly in a higher class must enter that class.
ACTUAL: You can always use your official USCF rating to decide your section, unless we have assigned you a CCA minimum rating. At a few of our largest tournaments only, there is a prize limit for those who were 30 or more points above the class in the past year, but those players can still enter that class.

MYTH 17: Tiebreaks are used for cash prizes.
ACTUAL: Cash prizes are split evenly, except that for some events, there is a bonus, in the top section only, for clear first place or tiebreak winner.

MYTH 18: If 5 players tie for first with 4 and I have 3.5, I place second.
ACTUAL: If 5 players tie for first with 4 and you have 3.5, you place (or tie for) 6th. (As in sports in which if two teams are tied for first, no one ever says that the team following them is second.)

MYTH 19: If I can't play the next round, my opponent will be happy to take the win and I don't need to tell anyone.
ACTUAL: It's important that you notify the Tournament Director in advance if you are skipping a round or withdrawing from the tournament. Many players find it highly annoying to be deprived of a game, even though they win by forfeit.

MYTH 20: If I forfeit without notice, I can just show up for the next round.
ACTUAL: Players who forfeit without notice are removed from the tournament. To get back in you must tell the Director that you are back, and you may be asked to pay a fine or put up a deposit to assure that you don't forfeit again.

MYTH 21: If my opponent doesn't show up, I post a win for me, 1 vs. 0.
ACTUAL: You must post 1F vs. 0F, the F standing for forfeit. If you post 1-0, we won't know that your opponent failed to show and will pair him or her again, probably causing another forfeit.

MYTH 22: You can't get black twice in a row.
ACTUAL: This is common, and you can even sometimes get the same color three times in a row! Score has priority over color, so colors will alternate perfectly for everyone only if white and black win the same number of games each round.

MYTH 23: If both players had black last round, and the same number of each color in the tournament, the higher rated player (or player with more points) gets white.
ACTUAL: This happens only if both players have identical color histories in every round. Otherwise, the most recent round in which the players' colors were different decides. For example, in round 7, WBWBWB gets white against BWWBWB.

MYTH 24: The hotel says there are no rooms left at the chess rate, so I can't stay there.
ACTUAL: Though this could be true, hotels often misinform players, saying there is no availability or quoting a higher rate when actually the chess rate is still available. Before giving up, call the hotel Sales Office during normal business hours (Monday-Friday 9-5) and if that doesn't work, send us an email.

MYTH 25: I called on the last day listed for reservations and the hotel says no rooms are available, but it was guaranteed that they would still be available on this date.
ACTUAL: How can we guarantee such a thing? Rooms can always sell out. After the date listed, the hotel has the right to raise the rate or give our rooms to another group, but even if you are "in time," if other chessplayers got the rooms first, you are out of luck! Best is to not wait until the last few days, and reserve as early as possible, at least a week before the date advertised.