As some of you may have noticed, the hugely-exciting chess World Cup knockout has just taken place Georgia.

Well, we at Battersea Chess Club have decided to follow suit and hold our own knockout tournament.

But don’t worry, this one isn’t for the world’s best, it’s specifically for those without a grade or those graded under 130.

It is, in effect, the world cup for tiddlers – not big the big fish.

The prize will be a cool £100 and the winner will receive a hand-made trophy.

Entry Fee:

Free.

Venue:

Battersea Labour Club.

Match Days:

Tuesdays.

Entrants:

Maximum 16 players.

Grading limit:

Maximum of 130 or an estimated 130 ECF graded players are eligible.

Tournament Type:

Knockout System.

Match Format:

2 x Rapidplay games. One with white, one with black.
If tied Continual Play game(s) will be played.

Time Controls:

15 minutes + 10 second increment (Rapidplay)
15 minutes + 10 second increment (Continual Play)

Grading:

Rapidplay games will be graded. The Continual Play game(s) will not be graded.

Prizes:

£100 for first place. Handmade trophy.

Extra stuff:

Colours
Players will toss a coin or use another method to determine colours for the Rapidplay games prior to playing. If the Continual Play is required the coin toss will need to be done again to determine who will play white and black.

Continual Play
The game will start as a 15m+10s increment. Black selects ‘clock sides’ after colours are determined and it stays that way throughout all Continual Play game(s). If a player wins they go through and the match is over. If the game is drawn, the clocks are paused. The players switch colours and then play a new game. This game is played with the same amount of time that remains on their clocks regardless of how low it is. This process continues until someone wins a game.

Notation
As much as possible it will be preferable for both players to keep notation, though this is not obligatory. The tournament controller or someone else might be present to record the game from the side. If none of this is possible, it would be appreciated if the players could work together after each game to try and reconstruct as much of their game as possible in full. This would allow us to showcase the games on our website and have some of the clubs top players do commentary on some of the games.

Arranging your games
Each round will have a cut off time whereby the games will be required to be completed. This will be a period of about four weeks. It will be up to the players themselves to arrange a suitable Tuesday to play their match. This can be done best through email or other correspondence. I’m happy to help with arranging some of these, and please feel free to CC me in to any emails.

If the games aren’t played by either player in the allotted time without a good effort being made they will both be eliminated. If someone shows an email trail that shows sufficient attempts and the other couldn’t comply within that period, they will advance and the latter will be eliminated. The tournament controller will reserve the the option to have some flexibility about this for obvious reasons. The idea is not to punish anyone, it’s just very important to keep things moving for the sake of everyone else involved.

Disputes
All laws and rules of Fide apply. In the event of a dispute, the clocks should be stopped and a member of Battersea Chess Club should be invited over the take note of the details is one is available to do so. He may make a decision on the spot. Otherwise the matter will need to be referred to the whole committee to take a ruling over it, any appeals of that original decision will be done by the same group. If unsettled on the evening. The final position and clock times will need to be recorded, the scoresheets should also be updated if at all possible.

If you have any questions what-so-ever feel free to contact me on this email address. Please respond where or not you would like to enter. I hope everyone on this list does, because it was designed with all of you in mind.

Once I’ve had the responses, I’ll do the numbers randomly to generate pairings.

Aldo Camilleri
aldocamilleri@aol.com