I’d just like to share a few thoughts based on my experiences.

1) The Rules.

Chess.com allows a maximum of 30 invites in a 24 hour period for each group.. These can however be staggered throughout that 24 hour period. So if you get a red message saying that the group had used all of its invites, it’s possible that you might only have to wait a few hours before you make any more. To find out how many members can currently be invited, use the ‘Invite Members’ feature on the right.

Unless inviting friends of other people you know, it is against the rules to invite people you know using messages with a link. This does get monitored, and members who do it too often can be disciplined.

2) The Invite Process.

There are two ways to use the invite process.

A) From our group’s main menu select ‘Invite Members’. Type the name of the member you want to invite, and then add a message below, before selecting ‘Invite’.

B) More usual is to go into the profile of the person you want to invite.

Select ‘...More’ over to the right.

Select ‘Invite to join my club’.

Write your message as in A above and invite.

It is always a good idea to try and make the invitation personalised even if you are copying and pasting a template written previously. At least include their first name and handle.

3) Who should be invited?

This should depend on the group’s priorities at the time. It may be that there is an Open match about to start and the other team has more strength on the top boards than we do. In that case strong players should be invited. But be realistic about this.Carlson and Anand are unlikely to be interested. It is important to avoid wasted invites.

On the other hand there might be an Under 1600 match about to start. In that case getting players to join in the high 1500s would be a priority.

4) Things to look out for when inviting.

A) Generally the higher rated a player is, the less likely they are to join. That’s because such players use a lot of time on each move and therefore are careful to limit the number of games they play.

B) Don’t waste invites on people who haven’t been on chess.com for ages. Preferable no more than three days, and certainly no more than a week (and only that because people go on vacation). If possible, then invite people who are online now. Use the green and orange squares in the corners of their profile pictures to tell you that.

C) Assuming we want the player to play daily chess for us, make sure they are playing it now when you go into their profile. I would say a minimum of two current games against different people is desirable. Less indicates that they are playing casually against a friend and wouldn’t be interested in group chess.

D) Invite players with ratings rather than no ratings, but beware of ratings like 800, 1200, 1600 etc as it can mean they are new to the site and have yet to play any games.

E) If time is short and a match is beginning soon, then invite players from a part of the world that will be awake.

5) But how do I go about finding the type of players I’m looking for?

Looking at the Members list of large groups or groups representing larger countries is a good idea. Go into ‘My Clubs’ on the right of our group’s main page, and do a search.

If it’s a comparatively small group that you are looking at, then use the menu on the top right and select ‘Highest Rating’ to put the group’s players into order. Then go through the pages until you find the players with ratings that you want to recruit.

When looking for all but the top players in larger groups then that method isn’t practical. It will take ages to find middle or lower rated players. It’s better then to use the ‘Most Recently Active’ or ‘Most Recently Online’ options to sort the players (btw if anyone can tell me the difference between these two options, then I would like to know). Look for the players with ratings you are interested in there, page by page. Remember the points in 4) above.

If inviting a player/players whose first language isn’t English then I think it’s a good idea (not to mention polite) to translate your message into their first language.

6) Don’t waste invites!

Finally, and just to reiterate, don’t waste invites on people who are never going to join and play for us. The truth is that most people you invite are unlikely to join at the best of times, so the trick is to tip the odds in yours and the group’s favour as far as possible.

I hope you have found this useful. Please leave any comments or other tips from your own experiences.

Good Luck!

AFC Bournemouth HQ

Super Admins