Industry chess tournaments: companies playing companies

Chess is the pretext. What a company is actually buying is three things it would otherwise have to arrange separately.

• Contact with peers. An evening in the same room as competitors and partners, in a setting where talking is natural. That is the main draw, and it is worth saying so out loud when you pitch it.
• An internal event that costs almost nothing. A team of four, an evening out, a photograph for the internal newsletter - HR departments spend far more for far less.
• A story to tell. «Our team took third in the industry championship» is a line that works on a careers page and in a client newsletter.
• Employees who actually want to go. Unlike most corporate activities, nobody has to be persuaded: the people who play chess volunteer.

For participants themselves the appeal is simpler: playing for your company against a rival firm is more interesting than playing for yourself against a stranger - the corporate format generally.

It works where companies already know each other and already meet - which narrows the field usefully.

Where it does not work: a sector with two or three large employers who have no interest in each other. You need at least six teams for it to feel like a championship rather than a friendly.

1. 1
   Start with one anchor company

   Find one recognisable name willing to enter. Every subsequent conversation begins with «X are playing» and becomes twice as easy
2. 2
   Go through people, not through reception

   Write to somebody who plays chess inside the company, not to a generic address. They will find the internal support you never could
3. 3
   Pitch it to HR as an event, not a tournament

   Team building, an internal story, photographs - that is the language the budget is approved in
4. 4
   Give a deadline and a team size

   «Four players, entries by the 20th» produces answers. An open-ended invitation produces nothing
5. 5
   Publish the list as it grows

   Companies enter partly because their competitors have. Publishing the entered teams is the single most effective recruiting tool

Allow at least six weeks. A company decision takes longer than an individual one, and the approval chain is the reason - not the interest - using coverage to help recruit.

Corporate schedules dictate the format more than chess considerations do. What survives contact with them:

• Teams of four, plus a reserve. Four boards is the standard, and the reserve matters: somebody will be travelling that week.
• One evening, not a weekend. A weekend event halves the entries, and the people who drop out are the senior ones you wanted there.
• Rapid, five to seven rounds. Teams paired by score, boards paired within the match - why rapid.
• Mixed strength is the norm. Expect a candidate master on board one and a complete beginner on board four - which is fine, and is why board order matters.
• A women's board or a mandatory mixed team. Common in this format and usually welcomed, since it forces teams beyond the same four men.

Announce the board order rule in advance: strongest on board one is the standard, and teams stacking their best player on board four to farm wins is the classic dispute.

• A venue better than a club room. This is the one amateur format where the setting matters: people are attending on behalf of an employer. A conference space, a hotel or a large co-working venue.
• Sponsors are easier here than anywhere. A sector event with named companies attending is a straightforward proposition for anyone selling to that sector - far easier than sponsoring a general open.
• The venue itself can be the sponsor. A space that hosts corporate clients gets exactly the right audience through its doors for an evening.
• Photographs are the deliverable. Every company will use them internally, which means your event gets distributed by the participants themselves.
• Trade press covers this. A sector publication will run a story about a sector event when it would ignore a chess tournament entirely.
• Team trophies, not individual ones. A trophy that stands in a company's office advertises the event for a year.

And the thing that turns one event into a series: announce the next edition at the prize-giving of this one. Companies plan ahead, and the team that came second will want the rematch - the economics of it.