Chesskid: tournaments and fast chess issues

Hi all,

Moaning rant about chess kid. Feeling really annoyed just now

Feeling really annoyed with Chess kid. This week, I set up a chess tournament for 7 players, with 6 rounds. Then 2 of my 7 kids were unable to join. I think that at least one of them was logged into their dad's account, rather than their own account and so the system would not let them join. Then, we have 5 people ready to play in the 6 round tournament, and the tournament cancelled itself.

Thankfully, I had another plan up my sleeve and showed them an opening trap before getting them into zoom break out rooms to play each other at Chess.
That bit works, but I wanted them to play a 10 minute game against each other, so that it finished before the end of the lesson. When they challenge each other though, it defaults to a 6 days per move slow chess. 6 days per move! Who dreamed up that stupid time control? Chess lessons are 7 days apart, and so most of the games don't finish in the lesson, and then time out before the next lesson... Arghh.

So the kids can play timed games against each other, like it's technically possible on Chess kid, but it's not immediately obvious, and you can't look at each kid's screen to talk them through it.

So I am feeling rather unenamoured of Chess kid at the moment. Any views from readers. Has anyone managed to make Chess kid work for a kids chess zoom group? 

Am I being stupid, or is the software stupid? 

I reaally hate chesskid

I set up tournaments for our kids on Lichess for this very reason. Lichess tournaments just work. I make them 4 round tournaments to increase the random element. With a 7 round tournament, it's harder to be lucky and it's a bit too long.