ICC Open!

Time to CASH again!

This year the ICC Open has an amazing jackpot: $10,000+ in prizes!

Prizes in cash for all the 8 finalists, and impressive prizes in ICC FREE membership for the class winners!

The first two editions were won by GM Hikaru Nakamura. In the second edition Nakamura won a spectacular final against the young Armenian GM Simonian Hrair.

The ICC Open is an occasion to measure your strength against super-strong players and, why not, to win one of the great prizes. The qualifiers will be again held at 2 pm EDT and 7pm EDT on Friday and Saturday, to give every ICC member from all over the world a chance to participate in this awesome event.

The only and one BIG online Blitz tournament open to all. Don’t miss the fun!

ICC is expecting strong GMs to participate this year, and it will be a THRILL!

TIME CONTROL is 3 + 0 (3 minutes with no increment).

Schedule

There will be four qualifiers. You can play in as many qualifiers as you like. All qualifiers will have 11 rounds, swiss pairings. The games are rated in the Blitz category. Latejoining is possible until round 8, but half point byes are only available for the first five rounds.

Qualifier 1: Friday, July 18, at 2pm
Qualifier 2: Friday, July 18, at 7pm
Qualifier 3: Saturday, July 19, at 2pm
Qualifier 4: Saturday, July 19, at 7pm
Finals: Sunday, July 20, at 2pm

All times are server time (EDT, New York Time, UTC/GMT -4 hours). Type “date” on ICC and compare to your local time.

Tournament system

The top two players from each of the four qualifiers will advance to the knockout finals. In case of a tie, the usual tiebreaks of Tomato tournaments will apply. They are described in detail in “tell tomato help tie” (when connected to our server).

Players can take part in all qualifiers if they want to. In case a player who is already qualified reaches the top two in another qualifier, his/her seat will be awarded to the next best player.

Finalists will be sorted by the ICC Blitz rating they had when they played their qualifier. The grid will display the following pairings (top to bottom) and qualifiers who go through to the next round will be paired accordingly: 1-8, 4-5, 2-7, 3-6.

In the knockout finals, “mini-matches” of four games will be played and, if a tie occurs after that, two more games will be played. If still tied, another two games follow, and in case it goes to 4-4 then the tournament director will determine colors in a single, decisive game to follow by tossing a coin. Should that game be drawn, another game with opposite colors will be played. If drawn again, the procedure will be repeated. In the final of the last two, the match will have six games. Again, if the match is tied 3-3, another two games will be played, and if still tied, yet another two games. Should the final be at 5-5 after ten games, a single decisive game will be played, with colors determined by coin toss. See above for the case that single game is drawn.

A match in the finals ends before four (six) games are played, if one player has 2.5 points or more (3.5 or more in the final of the last two).

Prizes in Open
1st $ 2,500
2nd $ 1,000
3rd/4th $ 600 each
5th/8th $ 325 each

There will be no match to decide third place, both losing semifinalists receiving $600.
Same thing for 5th/8th, losing the quartefinals, all four receiving $ 325.