Tournament format

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.

The classical games and blitz games will be rated for FIDE ratings. Only the classical score will count for IM and GM norms.

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.