9th WebChess Open
Tuesday, April 9, 2024: Tournament Announcement
ICCF is delighted to announce the start of the 9th WebChess Open tournament on the server.
This announcement is posted on the ICCF website and distributed to all national federations.
Working in collaboration with ICCF, the Non-Title Tournament Commissioner, Giorgio Ruggeri Laderchi, will organize the tournament.
The WebChess Open Tournament is a tournament open to all correspondence chess players worldwide, with or without any previous ICCF experience.
The tournament is played over three rounds (preliminary, semi-final, and final). Winners from each group in each round advance to the next round.
After standard tie-breaks in ICCF rules [1.3.4]: the player with the lowest average rating on the commencement of play.
After tie-breaking, if necessary, a small number of best placed 2nd place players will qualify for the final semi-final stage.
The preliminaries will start on 15th June 2024.
The semi-finals will start in June 2026 (sooner if all preliminary groups are completed). The semi-finals will be played with Silli System, if necessary.
The final will start in June 2028 (sooner if all semi-final groups are completed).
All games will be played by webserver with the triple block system.
Time control will be Triple Block (Duration of Tournament: 700 days; Initial Clock: 50 days; Initial Bank: 50 days; Increment: 5 days).
Please note – without guaranteed time in the preliminaries and in the semi-final and final with guaranteed time.
All games will be rated with title norms possible.
Title norms are not available in the preliminary round.
Entry Fee
The entry fee is 9 euros by Direct Entry, or contact your federation for details of the fee you will pay by entering through the federation
Entries
Multiple entries are allowed.
Although the number of preliminary groups each player may enter is unlimited, no player will qualify for more than two semifinal groups (or one semifinal group, if played with Silli System) or more than one place in the final.
Registration
New players to ICCF can enter 1 section for free. They have to register directly at www.iccf.com. All extra entries should be paid if they wish to enter more than one section.
Players may use Direct Entry (DE) or registration via the national federation (MF).
Prizes
The total prize fund is 6.000 euros.
Each preliminary and semi-final group winner will receive a voucher prize, value to be confirmed before the start of the preliminary round. It is expected that these we are around 20 and 50 Euro respectively, but the actual amount will depend on entries, and the final shall have a 2.000 Euro prize fund (900 Euro for 1st place, 700 Euro for 2nd place, 400 Euro for 3rd place (prizes will be shared on equal points).
All prizes will be given only after the completion of each stage.
[Rule 1.3.1] Any promotion to a higher section or (other-than-norm) prize or event-related title in an ICCF event requires a plus score from all non-cancelled games, no matter the final placement in the completed section (that is, no matter if first, second, third or fourth place).
Registration Deadline
The closing date for all entries is 31st May 2024. Pairings will be issued as soon as possible after that date.
All chess players are heartily invited to enter this tournament, both for the enjoyment of games and for friendly contact/communication with players worldwide.
National federation delegates are asked to give tournament-wide publicity to their players.
Amici sumus,
Uwe Staroske
World Tournament Director
Giorgio Ruggeri Laderchi
Non-Title Tournament Commissioner