Sunday, November 24th at 2 pm Eastern Time (1 pm CT, 12/noon MT, or 11 am PT)

This tournament will use Swiss pairings.

The time control will be game in 30 minutes with a 5-second increment. There will be four rounds. Rounds will be held at (Eastern Time): 2 pm, 3:20 pm, 4:40 pm, and 6 pm. The tournament will last for approximately 5 hours.

This event will be rated under the USCF online regular (slow) rating system. The tournament will be run on lichess.org.

This tournament is open to both children and adults of any age or rating.

Before signing up for the tournament, please register for a lichess.org account (it's free!) if you do not have an existing account. If you have any issues try watching this video we originally made for our scholastic tournaments about how to register an account on lichess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTr_tAh7JeQ

There will be three sections: Open, Under 1400, and Under 800. These sections are determined by over-the-board USCF-regular rating. For example, a player with a rating of 1300 would belong in the Under 1400 section, a player rated 600 would belong in the Under 800 section, and so forth. Unrated players can play in any section. If you don't know which section you belong in, feel free to contact us.

All participants must be active members of the US Chess Federation.

Players can withdraw from the event at any time by pressing the "withdraw" button.

Prizes: Plaques for 1st, and trophies for 2nd and 3rd in every section. All plaques and trophies will be inscribed with the winner's name. Tiebreaks are calculated based on the Sonneborn–Berger method, after which we use lichess performance ratings as a secondary tiebreak. 1st-place trophies are always awarded to players with a perfect score, even in the event of a tie. If you live outside of the contiguous United States, we might not be able to mail your trophy due to the increased shipping costs for international orders (or we may ask the foreign player to pay a shipping fee).

After you register, you will receive an email from us with instructions on how to join the tournament online. If you don't receive the email, please check your spam folder by typing the word instructions into your spam or junk folder.

We encourage players to complete the registration process and join the tournament online before 1:45 pm ET. If you're late to the tournament you could end up missing round 1!

Players will not be required to join a Zoom call during the tournament, but we will monitor the games very closely to ensure fair play. Lichess has an excellent algorithm for detecting cheating, and we will also do a post-tournament fair-play inspection. If a participant's account is flagged for cheating by lichess, we have the prerogative to submit the player's games as losses for USCF-rating purposes, or (in rare cases) annul the games.

The entry fee is $20 by 11:59pm ET on Saturday 11/23/2024 and $25 on Sunday 11/24/2024

Online computer analysis of all games will be possible immediately after the tournament! See our video about how to analyze your games on lichess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv1Kx0yEM10

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to DMV Chess at 703-415-6600 or tournaments@dmvchess.com

DMV Chess also offers online courses for scholastic players and private lessons for both children and adults. For more information, please visit dmvchess.com/courses-overview

Don't forget to check out our online summer camps for scholastic players! For more information, please visit dmvchess.com/camps-overview