In October I'll turn 70 and retire. I've enjoyed chess casually and want to give it more emphasis in my retirement. That includes participating in "in-person" tournaments. I live in the metro-Phoenix area and looking for suggestions on finding tournaments in Arizona or neighboring states. Since I've never participated in a chess tournament before, I'm unsure of where to begin? What I found in a quick online inquiry are tournaments that appear to be for school kids. I recognize why that youthful emphasis, but wonder if they also have competitive opportunities for older patzers like myself?
If nothing else, I believe competitive chess will provide me an enjoyable means of keeping my cognitive skills honed and forestalling my slow decent into senile lunacy 🤣
Most tournaments are going to be US Chess rated events, though you may occasionally be able to find unrated ones.
You should look at the following:
https://new.uschess.org/upcoming-tournaments
You can search by state there
You can look up clubs by state here:
https://new.uschess.org/club-search-and-affiliate-directory
Normally you would also look at the state US Chess affiliate website but that doesn't appear to be hosted anymore and their Facebook page hasn't been active since 2023
In October I'll turn 70 and retire. I've enjoyed chess casually and want to give it more emphasis in my retirement. That includes participating in "in-person" tournaments. I live in the metro-Phoenix area and looking for suggestions on finding tournaments in Arizona or neighboring states. Since I've never participated in a chess tournament before, I'm unsure of where to begin? What I found in a quick online inquiry are tournaments that appear to be for school kids. I recognize why that youthful emphasis, but wonder if they also have competitive opportunities for older patzers like myself?
If nothing else, I believe competitive chess will provide me an enjoyable means of keeping my cognitive skills honed and forestalling my slow decent into senile lunacy 🤣