A neighbourhood tournament does not need a hall. It needs flat surfaces for the boards and a place where neighbours gather anyway. Here is what works outdoors:
A roof against rain and sun, a table for two or three boards. The main "table 1" of a neighbourhood tournament.
A board between two players right on the bench. Number them with sheets of paper - those are tables 2, 3, 4…
Parents play while the children are on the slide. Whoever has finished their game keeps an eye on everyone.
Neutral ground for a match: neither building plays "at home".
If the building has a lobby, a lounge or a concierge area, it is the fallback for rain.
For a small tournament in one building, a table by the entrance and a couple of benches are enough.
Neighbours bring their own boards and clocks - every building has five or six sets. Chess clocks are optional: the "Open the timer" button in the app turns a phone into a clock. If there is no gazebo and no benches, a nearby park or a street festival will do - chess at a city festival.
A courtyard tournament.Residents of one development or even one building play. The name comes from the place: "The Maple Street Courtyard Cup", "Chess by Entrance 3", "The Northgate Court Cup". The goal is to get to know each other; nobody keeps a team score.
Building vs building.Two neighbouring buildings each field a team. The name is just like a football fixture: "Northgate Court vs Riverside Court", "No. 5 vs No. 7", "Phase one vs phase two", "Our courtyard vs the one across the road". Everyone plays their own games, and at the end the points of each building's players add up to the match score.
Below we walk through the second format - it has everything the courtyard tournament has, plus the building in the nickname and the match score.
Each building needs a captain - a neighbour who rounds up their own people and agrees the rules. Three things are worth settling:
Open the Vibe Chess bot and its app button, or the web version. Games - "Create your own game" - "Swiss-system tournament". Fill in:
Leave "Private tournament" off for a neighbourhood match: an open tournament is visible in the city feed in the app, and neighbours from the buildings around will find it too.
The app keeps individual standings and does not know who lives where. So the building goes into the nickname: Profile - "Edit profile" - the "Nickname" field. The format is simple - first name and building: "Tim Riverside", "Andrew Northgate". The name in a tournament comes from the nickname, so the line-up, the pairings, the screen and the final standings all show at once who plays for which building.
A neighbour without Telegram can play too: the organiser adds them as a guest by name on the player list screen - with the building straight away, for example "Kate Riverside".
The tournament card has an "Invite a friend" QR code and a link. Neighbourhood channels that work:
A neighbour scans the code, lands in the bot and signs up. The tournament appears in their app on the Games tab.
On match day the organiser closes registration and starts the tournament. Everyone sees their game on their phone: table number, colour, opponent. The table number is the number on the sheet taped to a bench or the gazebo table. Fewer boards than pairs? No problem: the extra pairs wait and take the first bench that frees up.
When a game ends, one player taps "I won", "Draw" or "I lost"; the opponent sees the entry and has 15 seconds to dispute it. Rounds are announced automatically. FIDE pairing rules match opponents by score and know nothing about buildings: sometimes two people from the same building sit at one board. For the match score that does not matter - the point from such a game stays with their building in full.
If a neighbour has a laptop and a TV in the lobby, or a projector, put the tournament on a screen: "Show the tournament on a screen" on the card gives you a link, and the page updates by itself. The screen shows each nickname with its building, the rating and its change, and the points. Supporters from both buildings have something to watch.
After the last round the tournament finishes on its own, and "Final standings" shows places and points. The app has no team scoring, so the captains work out the match score: they take the points of the eight best players from each building and add them up. With the nicknames it takes a minute.
Here is how it looks in our demo match: ten neighbours played for Riverside and eight for Northgate, and the best eight from each count.
A draw, 21.5 : 21.5 - the return match will have to decide it. If you want a winner on the day, agree a tie-break with the other captain beforehand, for example the building of the tournament winner. "Standings as a PDF sheet" sends an A4 sheet with places and points to the chat - it can go up by the lift in both buildings, with the match score added by hand at the top.
Create a Swiss-system tournament in the app called "Building 1 vs Building 2", players put their building in their profile nickname, and after the tournament the captains add up the points of the eight best players from each building.
By the nickname: in their profile everyone writes their first name and building, for example "Andrew Northgate". The name in a tournament comes from the nickname, so the building shows in the line-up, the pairings, on the screen and in the final standings.
No, the app has no team scoring. It counts individual points, and the match score - the sum of the best players' points from each building - is added up by the captains from the final standings.
On benches: the board goes between the two players. Number the benches with sheets of paper - those are the table numbers in the app. The fallback for rain is the lobby or the residents' lounge.
With a link in the building and residents' chats and a QR code on a notice in the lift or on the entrance door. An open tournament is also visible in the city feed in the app.
Not necessarily: the Open the timer button in the app turns a phone into a clock with the right time control.
The app is free. It runs in Telegram through the @vibechessbot bot, and on a computer at playvibechess.com/app.
The Vibe Chess app opens from a link and needs no installation. Setting up a tournament takes a minute: pick the system, set the date, the venue and the time control - the app handles the rest.
The bot is constantly improved based on real tournaments. If you need a feature that isn't there yet, message the developers right inside the bot with the /support command. Many features appeared exactly because organizers asked for them, and useful ideas get added quickly.
The format with no app involved - neighbourhood chess tournament. Outdoors - chess at a city festival. A team format - team chess tournament. The same app for other audiences - beginners', school, summer camp and corporate tournaments.
At the board since childhood: hazy about his rating, precise about every rook he has blundered. Counts an evening as a good one if the opponent stayed to talk afterwards instead of rushing off to check with an engine. Message →
