Building a tournament schedule that holds

A round takes longer than the time control suggests, because both players use their time and because rounds do not end when the last game does.

Two corrections that people leave out and then wonder where the hour went:

• The last game decides the round. Rounds are as long as the slowest pair, not the average.
• Registration and the opening. Thirty minutes before round one, realistically, and the prize-giving takes fifteen at the end.

Which gives the practical rule: decide the finishing time first, then pick the control and the number of rounds to fit - choosing a time control.

The commonest format: a weekday evening, three to three and a half hours from arrival to prizes.

That is five rounds of 10+5. Seven rounds of 15+10 does not fit into the same evening, and promising both is the single commonest scheduling error.

• Seven to nine rounds of rapid, or five rounds at a longer control.
• A real lunch break. Forty-five minutes to an hour, after round three or four - not a token fifteen.
• Short breaks between the other rounds. Ten minutes, and stick to them.
• Start later than you think. A 9:00 start on a Saturday loses people; 10:00 or 11:00 fills the room.
• Finish with daylight to spare if the audience includes children - a junior event ending at nine in the evening is a mistake you make once.

For a day event the break matters more than any other decision: attention collapses around round four, and a proper meal resets it - food and breaks.

• Split unevenly. More rounds on day one, fewer on day two - people are fresher, and a shorter Sunday means fewer withdrawals.
• Publish both days at once. Somebody deciding whether to enter needs to know when Sunday ends.
• Expect losses overnight. Some of the field will not return on day two; plan the pairing so it survives that rather than treating it as a surprise.
• Allow a late entry window on day one, and close it firmly. Late entries on day two break the standings.
• At a festival, run parallel events rather than one long one. A blitz in the evening and a rapid in the afternoon draw different people than one nine-hour tournament - festival formats.

• Publish the finishing time, not only the start. People plan around the end of an event, and its absence costs you entries from anybody with a train to catch.
• Give arrival time separately from round one. «Doors 18:30, first round 19:00» prevents a queue at the desk at 18:58.
• State the break. People decide whether to eat beforehand.
• Announce round times aloud, with the return time. «Round four at 20:55» rather than «in a few minutes».
• Post any change immediately. A schedule that slips silently is worse than one that slipped and was announced - where to post it.

And if it is running late anyway, do the arithmetic at round three rather than round five: cutting a round or shortening the control is a decision people accept when it is announced early and resent when it is sprung on them at ten o'clock - when things go wrong.