About a month and a half ago I set this tournament up with the promise that I would get a thread started "soon". Also, I warned that all the rules were subject to change. Well, the originally scheduled start date is tomorrow, but since I didn't post the thread until, well, whenever I finish writing this, I'm going to have to call in that "subject to change" provision and move back the start date. I want to make sure that anyone who wants to play gets the chance, this tourney will take so long to finish that an extra week before it starts isn't really the end of the world.

Here is the link to the tournament page:
http://www.chess.com/tournament/22-c...e-championship

This is an invitational only event, so if you want to play and have not yet been invited: POST YOUR CHESS.COM SCREENNAME IN THIS THREAD and I will invite you. All members of this forum are eligible!

The official start date (and I'm not going to change it again) is Saturday, November 26th. The winner* of this tournament will receive an automatic entry into the first 2+2 Chess Championship Candidate's Match to be held after the tournament concludes. I have given up on the idea of hurrying to finish this in time for the 2012 Candidate's Match, so I have removed the "no vacation" provision (considering that the winter Holidays are shortly after the tourney begins). Right now there are 15 registered entrants. If we end up with 25 or less, then the final structure will be groups of 5, with the top two advancing, so that we'll have 6-10 people moving on to the second round, split into two groups, and then a Final Four in the third round to determine a winner. Should we get 26+ entrants, I will instead make it groups of 4, with only the winner of each group advancing.

If anyone has any additional rules questions, just ask. We have an actual thread for the event now, after all Sorry it took me so long to post this thread like I promised, and my apologies to anyone who was eagerly awaiting this beginning tomorrow. Patience is a virtue, I've been told.

*If the winner has already earned a Candidate's berth, then this prize will instead be awarded to whomever finishes highest that hasn't already earned a berth.

I'd like to take part. Username is Ajezz.

I'll probably have to decide beforehand if I upgrade my free trial into a paid subscription; otherwise iirc I can only take part in one non-chess.com tournament (which I already do).

I just joined chess.com so I can play. I was a little disappointed to find that 9 months ago, my username was taken. By a woman! She should have used ganstawoman instead Also, late that month, someone took the more correctly spelled gangstaman

So on chess.com, I'm hamstergang. Beware the hamsters.

Both invited. Good point that I was unaware of, though, Ajezz. With a free account you are apparently only allowed to compete in one member-created tournament at a time. I'm doing everything I can to try to make this event open to everyone, I set the allowed timeout percentage to 100% and the minimum games completed to 0, so even brand new free accounts *should* be able to register (let me know if you can't, and I'll attempt to fix the problem), but if you have a non-premium account and are already participating in another member-created event then there may not be anything I can do to get you in.

Im 3kingme3 on chess.com, an invite would be great thanks

Please invite, username MJ4H

I would like to play

chess.com SN: MidyMat

OK, sign me up. I just joined up as NSholar at chess.com. This should be fun, and it'll be good for me to play some correspondence games where I don't think about every move for a week.

Thanks, BobJoeJim, for organizing. I make no promises as to my quality of play, but I'll definitely finish my games.

Are we using the default chess.com rules (e.g., Yes to opening books/references, no to engines/tablebases.)? (I apologize, as I feel like you've mentioned this elsewhere, but I don't see it in this thread...)

I was going to ask the same once I stopped be too lazy.

Yes, using default chess.com rules. I did not mention this yet in this thread, though I think I did say it elsewhere before. But yeah, that's the plan.

Thanks!

For the lurkers, there are 18 in the tournament so far...so this thread understates the level of interest a bit.

19 now!

Excellent!

One more rules question: what is the system for scoring? For example, what will the scores in preliminary rounds be used for (seeding in later rounds?), compared with later rounds?

That's a reasonably complicated question...I guess I'm most interested in knowing whether the raw scores from the first round will be significant as the "first tiebreker" (e.g., to determine the overall winner) or whether that would be "points scored in the finals" instead.

But at some point it would be good to codify the tiebreaks. Down to which roulette wheel we'll be spinning, since only one winner can advance to the 2012 Candidate's Match. I'm more interested in this from the tournament design perspective than anything else...so there's no rush.

Can someone help a chess.com newbie out here? I can see from the tournament page that the tournament starts "15 hours 23 minutes ago" and "When the tournament starts your games will AUTOMATICALLY begin." but I don't see how to access those games.

I actually haven't played any games on chess.com before, so I'm not sure whether this is a matter of the tournament needed some official action by BJJ before getting started, or whether I need to fix some settings/look in the right place to find these games.

official action needed i guess. the games will be clearly visible to you once tourn starts

OK, thanks. That was my guess, but I didn't want to time out on all my games and only then decide to ask :-)

I did not know that selecting a time for the tournament to "automatically start" was insufficient, lol. We are now underway!

Good luck everyone.

EDIT: Just a suggestion here, but would people mind posting their chess.com names? I recognize the obvious names, but I don't know who many people are. I realize some of them are in the other thread, but I don't think we have a master list so to speak.

Mine is Chaos81, same as on here.

20 players is a perfect number.

I wish my opponents interesting games and everyone else good luck! :-)

<-wlrs

jkelsey

TexAg06, same as on here.

I'm MJ4H.

Chess.com SN: MidyMat

ooh I wondered who was playing the french