The National Chess Federation of the Philippines, on behalf of the Asian Chess Federation and FIDE, invites your Federation to participate in the Manny Pacquiao Cup Asian Continental Chess Championships (Open, Women’s and Blitz) organized by the Eugene Torre Chess Foundation, Inc. from 17th to 27th May 2013 at the Midas Hotel in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
Each Federation from FIDE Zones 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 can enter one official player in the Open and one official player in the Women’s Division.
The official players from each National Federation will be provided with lodging from afternoon of May 17 till noon of May 27 with breakfast and lunch/dinner meal allowance. Participants will be accommodated in double (or triple) shared bedrooms.
In addition, each Federation may send extra players rated 2300 and above for the Open, and 2000 and above for Women based on the May 2013 FIDE Rating List. Extra players will be responsible for the payment of their board and lodging through the Organizing Committee. Exceptions for the rating floor may be made by the Continental President on request of national federations.
The tournament shall be conducted as a Swiss System competition of 9 rounds and will be played according to FIDE regulations.
The time control is 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 games shall be played with DGT clocks. Pairings will be made by Swiss Manager Program. Players from the same federation with more than 50% score shall not be paired together in the last round.
The blitz competition will be organized in 9 round Swiss System for players under the same conditions as the main tournament. Time control will be 3 minutes and 2 second increment per move.
Prize fund is $100,000 for Open, Women and Blitz (before tax, if any), prize distribution to be announced.
The top five (5) from the 2013 Asian (Open) Championship shall qualify for the 2013 World Cup. The 2013 Asian Women’s champion shall qualify for the Women’s World Championship.
If previous qualifiers are among the winners, the next in line in the Continental shall take the Continental qualification place to the World Cup / Women’s Championship.
Concurrent with the tournament, we organizers will also hold the FIDE Trainers Seminar from 21st to 25th May to be conducted by the FIDE Trainers Commission and Florencio Campomanes Chess Academy. There will be morning sessions in order to give players a chance to attend and earn FIDE Trainer titles.
We thank you for your indulgence since the National Chess Federation of the Philippines was asked only recently to step in and save the Asian Continental Championship after the late withdrawal of the original bidder. Despite the short time we had to prepare, we have arranged for a record prize fund through Rep. Manny Pacquiao.
We look forward to welcoming your players to Manila.
Truly yours,
Prospero A. Pichay, Jr.
Chairman/President
National Chess Federation of the Philippines
Rm 407 Bravo Bldg, Philsports Complex, Pasig City
Tel no. : +63-927-7209260 Email: NCFPsecretariat2012@gmail.com
Great tournament.