Commonwealth and South African Open Chess Championships

Chess South Africa on behalf of FIDE and the Commonwealth Chess Association cordially invites all chess players to participate in the 2011 Commonwealth & South African Open Chess Championships. The Championships will run from Saturday 25th June 2011 until Sunday 3rd July 2011.

The playing venue will be at the Emperors Palace Hotel Casino & Convention Resort in the City of Ekurhuleni in Gauteng, South Africa. Guaranteed total prize fund is R150 000 = aprox 15.000 EUR.

The Championships include the following three individual events:
– The 2011 Commonwealth & South African Open Chess Championships (Main event)
– The 2011 Commonwealth & South African Open B – section
– The 2011 South African Open Blitz Chess Championships

Each Commonwealth member country is invited to enter one man and one woman as official entrants into the 2011 Commonwealth & South African Open Chess Championships. Terms for the participation of official entrants will be announced on the tournament website as soon as possible.

Tournament rules:
– The Championship and B-section will be run under the FIDE Laws of Chess over 11 rounds.
– The SA Blitz Championships will be run under the FIDE Laws of Blitz Chess over 9 rounds.
– In order to improve the chances for participants to achieve FIDE norms and ratings, the draw for the Championship section may be accelerated at the discretion of the chief arbiter.

The rate of play for both the Championship and B section will be 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. The rate of play for the Blitz Championships will be 5 minutes per player for all moves.

Former World Junior Champion GM Abhijeet Gupta has become the first of a strong contingent of Indian GM’s expected to shortly confirm their entries to the tournament. The All Indian Chess Federation has formally nominated GM Abhijit Kunte and WGM Soumya Swaminathan as their official entrants for the tournament.

England’s Grandmasters Nigel Short and Gawain Jones are currently top seeded in the main tournament.