March Madness Tournament

Join us for the March Madness Tournament!

Students will play four games, all rated with the Learners Chess internal rating system! The 1^st round will begin right at the scheduled time for your section, with following rounds beginning approximately 5 minutes after the previous round has concluded.

Games will be played with a 15-minute time control on each side with a 2 second delay before your time starts each move.

Trophies will be awarded for the top 3 finishers in each section. A blitz tie-break game may be required to determine trophies.

Students will be paired based on their Learners Chess rating and using the Swiss pairing system. This allows students to progressively play other students with more similar ratings and score in each round of the tournament so that each student can get the best games possible.

Two sections for this tournament are available:

• The Open Section at 9:00am, designed for students who have played in tournaments before, played chess for many years, and/or mastered the Learners Chess booklets. This section is open to all ratings, however we suggest that you have a rating of at least 600.

• The Under 700 Novice Section at Noon, designed for students who are new to the tournament format, newer to chess, and/or still mastering the Learners Chess booklets. Students in this section also must have a learners rating under 700 or unrated.

The sections are designed so students can stay in their learning zones, avoiding being either bored or too overwhelmed with each game.

Join us again at 3:00pm for a casual Bughouse Tournament! Students may request a teammate while registering or find one on the day of the tournament. We will play as many rounds as we have time for until 4:00pm. Each bughouse game is played with a 5-minute time control on each side.

Trophies for Bughouse will be awarded for the top finishing teams.