Running a Good Event

Anyone can create a tournament here. Whether anyone plays in it is a different
question.

Before you create it

Pick one time control and stick to it. 3+0 or 5+3, not "something around
blitz". People decide whether to come based on the format.

Choose the length honestly. A two-hour arena with eight players is a long
two hours. Start with 45 or 60 minutes and grow it when the field does.

Set the start time for your players, not for you. The site shows every start
time in each viewer's own timezone, so you only have to get the absolute moment
right — but that moment still has to be an evening for the people you want.

Settings that matter

• Rated or casual. Rated brings more players, and more of them stay to the
  end
• Minimum rating or account age keeps out fresh accounts made to disrupt.
  Restricting too hard leaves you with an empty field
• A password makes it private — for a club night, exactly right; for a public
  event, it is why nobody came
• Variants narrow the field sharply. Run them when you already have a crowd

Getting players

Announce it days ahead, in your team forum and on your team page. An event
created an hour before it starts is played by whoever happened to be online.

Be there yourself, on time. Arenas need a critical mass in the first minutes
to pair well; an organiser who joins late has often already lost the field.

Run it again. The second edition of a weekly event is always better attended
than the first. Most events die because they happened once.

During and after

Watch the tournament chat and moderate it — the rules in
Communication Guidelines apply. Afterwards, post
the standings somewhere. Recognition is most of why people come back.

For prizes, see Tournament Prizes.