Russ,
How far away are you from letting people sponsor tournaments? Is that a future option? Maybe you'd need a gold member subscription.
One live site I play at has a few select people who can start and run tournaments - I think they "sponsor" the tournaments. I think they are long-term members who have been giving special priveleges due to their good character loyalty to the site. I don't know if running tournaments is time consuming, or if letting someone else run them is even feasible. And I'm not volunteering! But I know there are many players here that have the respect of many members - and it might be fun it see what they would do.
I'm also waiting to join 7 day t/o tournaments .... they have the time out period I like best. You can study chapters in a chessbook that deal with say the Isolated Queen Pawn, if you got such a position on the board in one of your games. To study game related subjects (endgames!) is one of the reasons why I play correspondence chess, that's part of the fun ..... but I'm still waiting .......
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