New playing format in 2019
After 10 editions with a classical Round Robin tournament, the 11th Batavia Chess Tournament will try a new innovative tournament format. In the past few years there has been quite some discussion about the super strong Round Robin events (Sinquefield Cup, Norway Chess etc), which feature a high drawing percentage and sometimes a lack of fighting chess. Although the Batavia Tournament has never faced these issues, we are excited to try a new format that might inspire other Round Robin tournaments.
Instead of one classical game per day, we will play a blitz tiebreak first followed by a classical game. The classical games will of course be most important, determining our tournament winner and the distribution of the main prize fund (1st €500, 2nd €300 and 3rd €200). Furthermore, the classical score will count for IM and GM norms (with special permission of the FIDE Qualification Commission for a one time experiment with this format).
However, we will have extra prizes (1st €150, 2nd €100 and 3rd €50) for the combined scores of the classical games and tiebreaks, based on the below score format:
– The winner of the classical game will get 2 points.
– The loser of the classical game will get 0 points.
– Only in case of a draw in the classical game, we will look at the tiebreak.
— The winner of the tiebreak will get 1 point (which is still half of a classical win).
— The loser of the tiebreak will get only 0.5 point.
What does each round look like?
– 13.00: blitz game 1 – Player B vs Player A (5 minutes + 3 seconds increment)
– 13.15: blitz game 2 – Player A vs Player B (5 minutes + 3 seconds increment)
– 13.30: (in case of a tie) armageddon – Player B vs Player A. White has 5 minutes, black has 4 minutes, with a 3 second increment after move 60. Black has draw odds.
– 14.00: classical game – Player A vs Player B (40 moves in 90 minutes plus 30 minutes for all remaining moves with 30 seconds per move from move 1)
Rounds 5 and 9 will start one hour earlier.
Title norms
The requirement for a GM norm is 6½ points in the classical games. An IM-norm is 5 points for Rick Lahaye and 4.5 points for Jasel Lopez and Felix Meissner.