Regalado 1

Mario Regalado

English 1301 - 112

Professor Nelson

9/20/2022

Genre Analysis of STCS Thanksgiving Open Invitation

This study focuses on the genre analysis of the STCS Thanksgiving Open invitation. A

competition for those who want to test their knowledge and skills in the game of chess. LVL 2 Gaming,

the company in charge of the tournament, is hosting the STCS Thanksgiving Open and has decided to

gather players all across Laredo to compete for entry into the Laredo Championship Qualifier

Tournament. The purpose of this analysis is to inspect the invitation of one of the biggest chess

tournaments in Laredo.

They promoted their tournament via discord. Discord allows users to join groups based on their

specific niches and LVL 2 Gaming saw it as a perfect opportunity to promote their tournament. This

flier targeted people of specific niches, more specifically those who are circulated around chess.

Their target audience is people who play chess or are interested in it. Either it be professionals,

amateurs, old, or young - this tournament invites everyone. The announcement states, “Top unrated

players receive a free USCF membership.” This implies that the tournament is open to not only rated

players but to players who have never had a rating. Rated players take part in a numeric rating system

(ELO) and compete against those who are similar in ELO, each loss or win affects this number

motivating players to improve. Unrated players, however, don’t have a rating either because they have

never played competitively or don’t want to, The STCS Thanksgiving Open invites both rated and

unrated players to compete. And although it may sound funny that unrated players are invited, the

tournament doesn’t affect your ELO. This highly encourages anyone who is interested in playing chess

to participate.

The competition will be held at LVL 2 Gaming at 2715 E. Del Mar BLVD ST A8. A proper

classical tournament begins at 7 A.M. But starting super early could easily demotivate players into

participating. LVL 2 gaming decided to open its doors at 8 A.M. with the actual competition starting at 9
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A.M. The Tournament will be on Saturday, November 20th. Of all seven days of the week, Saturday is

ideally the best day since most people don’t have anything to do on Saturday morning.

Time controls will be G/30:5D. What exactly does this mean? Each game will be 30 minutes

long with a 5-second delay. After every move, there will be a 5-second delay until the 30-minute timer

continues. It should be noted these time controls are like this for a reason. A typical chess game has a

time control of G/2:00:00:30I which is 2 hours total with 30-second increments per move. They used a

30-minute timer to appeal to those who don’t play chess, as faster games are more enticing than slower

ones. Only 5 rounds will be played in the tournament which is below average for chess tournaments.

Your typical classical tournament has 7 rounds, but this was likely done due to time constraints.

Winning a round gets awards 1 point, drawing gets awards .5, and losing gets awards 0 points. The

winner will be decided by whoever has the most points by the end of the 5 rounds.

To participate, there is a 5-dollar entrance fee with a minimum prize pool of 30 dollars

depending on the number of participants. The people in charge decided to fund their prize with the

admissions fee. Not only that but the winner also receives free admission into a Laredo chess

championship qualifier to compete for Laredo chess champion. This not only encourages players to try

but shifts the competitive field. However, why should beginners participate if they are going to compete

for a spot in a prestigious tournament? While the argument could be made that beginners will grow into

better players, they could be demotivated by the skill barrier of other competitors. LVL 2 gaming

understood that there was going to be a massive skill gap between the rated and unrated players but

really wanted both to compete in the same tournament. As stated before, they designed the tournament

so that the top unrated player receives a free USCF membership. A United States Chess Federation

membership allows players to compete in ELO. This gives motivation to the unrated players to really

try their best.

The examination solely focused on the single invitation LVL 2 Gaming sent out. The free entry

to the qualifier tournament sells the entire invitation encouraging players to show up with their best

performance. They had their minds set on the best of both worlds - rated and unrated players. LVL 2
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Gaming structured their invitation perfectly to captivate players to compete regardless of their strength

at the board game.

Works Cited

Mario Regalado, “STCS Thanksgiving Open,” Over the board, LVL 2 Gaming, 2022