IMA Chess Tournament Rules & Regulations

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Registration

The tournament will be conducted on Saturday, March 19th h 2022. Registration will be due by 03/18/2022 [24 hours before the day of the tournament]. Registration fees will be $20 per player. Fee should be submitted online/manually along with the registration form. Registration fee is nonrefundable after registration. Participants should be a ‘Malayalee’ [born to a parent of Keralite]. Tournament is open for members of all the Malayalee Associations in North America both men and women [no separate categories for men and women] 

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Venue

The tournament will be hosted on lichess.org and Zoom. All players must create a lichess.org account before registering for the tournament. Players will receive invites to join a team in the days leading up to the match day. Once in the team, they can join the scheduled tournament.

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Zoom Connection

All players must join a Zoom video call during the duration of the tournament. A link will be sent out prior to the beginning of the first round. Players must have their cameras ON and SCREENS SHARED. Players are not allowed to use a virtual background. Players must have their microphones turned off. Players who do not meet these requirements will receive a warning first, before forfeiting the round.

Fair Play

Players are expected to participate alone, without the help of any external sources. This includes other people, engines, websites, books, etc. Any suspicious activity will result in a tournament director private messaging you and asking to show your surroundings. Further suspicious activity shall be grounds for disqualification.

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Format

The tournament will use a Swiss-system format already built into the lichess.org platform. There will be 8 fixed rounds. All players are guaranteed to play 8 games. A win is worth 1 point, a draw is worth 0.5 points, and a loss is worth 0 points. The match results will be taken from lichess.org. In the event of a discrepancy or disagreement, please private message a tournament director. The decision of the directors will be final. IMA Chess the tournament committee reserves the right to make any changes or cancel the venue, order,
date, time and rules, and procedures of the tournament.

Pairings

Players will be paired with other players who have the same number of points as them for each round. Pairings will be available on lichess.org before the beginning of each round.

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Standings

Final rankings will be determined by number of total points. In the event of a tie in the final rankings, tiebreaker points will be used to determine the winner. The computer will calculate the tiebreaker points based on the difficulty of the opposition faced by the player, with the ratings and/or records of the opponents taken into consideration.

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Prizes
First Prize: $350 & Trophy
Second Prize: $250 & Trophy
Third Prize: $150 & Trophy

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Time Controls

10 minutes per player, no increment or delay. If a player’s clock runs out, the player loses the game. Players have until 5 minutes after the start of the round to arrive at the chessboard. Arrivals after 5 minutes shall result in a forfeit of the round.

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Schedule
09:30 - Tournament inauguration and Introduction
10:00 – Round 1 starts
10:30 – Round 2 starts
11:00 – Round 3 starts
11:30 – Round 4 starts
12:00 – Round 5 starts
12:30 – Round 6 starts
13:00 – Round 7 starts
13:30 – Round 8 starts
14:30 - Announcement of winners and virtual price distribution