Announcing the Tournament
Players learn how the class tournament will work and understand that participating means playing and properly recording their games. The remaining weeks shift to a short lesson plus tournament play.
This is the moment the class has been building toward. Announce it with energy.
Starting next week, we begin our class tournament. Here is the most important part: everyone who wants to be in it is in it. You participate by playing your games and recording them properly with notation. That is the ticket. Your recorded scoresheets are how we keep track of the tournament fairly.
- From next week on, each session is a short 10 to 15 minute micro-lesson or activity, then the rest of the time is tournament games and free play.
- You enter by playing and notating your games. Recording is required, because it keeps the tournament fair and lets us confirm games were played legally.
- It is not a knockout. Even after you can no longer reach first place, you keep playing games against other players in the same spot. Everyone plays the whole time.
- The very last sessions crown a champion with a best-of-three final between the top two players.
Reframe competition in the class's language: "This tournament measures how well you play and how carefully you record, not just who wins. Every legal, well-recorded game is a success, no matter the result."
Use the rest of today as a relaxed final practice before the tournament begins: timed, recorded games, with you helping anyone still shaky on the clock or on notation.
Set up your tournament tracker
Before next session, decide how you will track results. A simple wall chart or a spreadsheet with each player's name and their game results works well. Because players record their own games, you can confirm results from scoresheets. See the How to Teach page for a ready-to-use pairing and scoring approach.