Transcontinental Scholastic Chess Super-Tournament (#4)

The fourth of a series of monthly tournaments, organized and sponsored by Innovative Chess Solutions. In addition to enjoying a first-class scholastic event from the safety and comfort of your own home, players will have the advantage of a respectable time control (G/45;+10) rather than the very brief ones typically offered by online chess tournaments. Additionally, they will have the potential of competing against players from all over the country (our last online tournament drew players from twelve states) for a truly transcontinental tournament.

Date: August 7, 2021

Sections: Four; Open, U1400, U1000 and U600.  

Rounds and Time Control: Four Rounds. Swiss system (no elimination). G/45+10.

Qualifications: Players who desire to participate in this tournament must be members in good standing of the United States of America Chess Federation (USCF) on the day of the tournament. Players may play up (i.e., an 1,200 rated player may play in the Open or U1400 section). Admission is limited to scholastic players (12th grade or under), along with those who completed high school during the present calendar year, regardless of geographic location. 

Entry fee: $10 by 8/1; and $15 thereafter.

Registration: Online registration may be processed at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transcontinental-scholastic-chess-super-tournament-4-registration-163430375653 All entry fees are refundable if requested within seven days of tournament commencement, but Eventbrite’s fees, which is in addition to the entry fee, is non-refundable. No entries will be accepted subsequent to noon on August 6.  

Schedule: The first round commences at 10:00am and each subsequent round as soon as practicable thereafter. All times are Central Time, so in your time this means: 11:00am (Eastern), 9:00am (Mountain) and 8:00am (Pacific).

Online Platform: The tournament will be conducted using Chess.com’s online platform. Facilitating its operations will be our Chess.com club, entitled Innovative Chess Solutions Tournament Hall; each registrant will be invited thereto and encouraged to join. Every section in the tournament will constitute a separate Chess.com live tournament to which players must actually join before 10:00am. Failure to join in a timely manner may result in missing one or more rounds.

Byes: Although the platform’s electronic systems do not allow for requested byes, upon advance request, we may be able to arrange such a bye separately. In such case, you would intentionally miss the round you cannot attend and we would report the ½ bye in the standings.

Fair Play: In accordance with the recommendations of the USCF Executive Board and Chess.com, during game-play, all players will be monitored by being on a Zoom video call; players will be required to maintain their cameras active and visible while playing games. Only the players and our tournament directors/staff will be admitted to the call. Moreover, players are bound by honor not to discuss the game with other persons (save their opponent and our tournament directors) until their game has concluded. For the avoidance of doubt, players are only required to be on the call when actually playing their games. Finally, no prizes will be issued until a week has passed since the conclusion of the tournament. By this time, the platform should have closed any accounts that have violated its fair-play standards (e.g., used a chess engine to determine moves, etc.), and if any player’s account is closed during this time, each of their games will be forfeited and their prize revoked. When the waiting time has passed, we will check if any of our registrant’s accounts were closed, act appropriately (if any are closed) and transmit finalized standings to all players. At this point, we will also issue prizes and a rating report to the USCF. To learn more about account closures, please visit: https://www.chess.com/article/view/online-chess-cheating

Technical Provisions: During every round, players will be advised to mute their computers, as during the call, if necessary, players will be allowed to ask rules and technical questions as may be necessary, and report results. After the first round starts, questions should be asked only by email or posting the question in the Zoom meeting chat. No game-play will be permitted to occur via I-pad, phone or like device, but rather through some form of computer, provided that waivers may be granted, if requested with sufficient notice, in cases of multi-children households without sufficient computers for all their players to participate.

Ratings: For section/prize qualification and pairing purposes, we be using the greater of players’ regular, over-the-board or online, USCF rating. Accordingly, your performance in this event will affect your rapid Chess.com rating and your USCF regular online rating.

USCF Rules: The entirety of the Official Rules of Chess complied by the United States Chess Federation will apply in all sections of the tournament, except as noted here or otherwise announced. Accessible at: https://new.uschess.org/news/7th-edition-rule-book-chapters-now-available-download-2/    

Results: Whereas the platform automatically records the result of each game, there is no need to report the result. Although preliminary standings may be available in our online club while the tournament is underway (and after it concludes), these are neither official nor final. Final standings will not be delivered until the one-week waiting period has concluded, so that any needful adjustments may be made in response to detection of fair-play violations.

Prizes: In the Open section, there will be awarded $100 in Amazon gift cards (b/20), with $50 to first place, $30 to second place and $20 to third place; if less than twenty paid entries are received, we may reduce these amounts proportionally by the percentage thereof not received. In the other sections, half of all entry fees received therefrom will be awarded as Amazon gift cards, in such manner as will be announced after the close of registration. If two or more players are tied for any prize, it will be divided between them equally.

Affiliate: The affiliate submitting the rating report for this tournament is Innovative Chess Solutions.

Other Notes: In all games played, once you drop a piece on a legal square, it constitutes your move and cannot be reversed. Sections are subject to merger in the unlikely event of low turnout.

Contact: If you would like to receive more information, please email csbrown.entrepreneur@gmail.com. We hope this has been helpful to you, and hopefully we will see you at our virtual tournament on August 7.