Simon Cup Rules

General Rules

Eligibility

All members of Stafford Chess Club are eligible to enter the tournament, provided they hold a valid ECF membership of Bronze or higher and have not already entered the rating limited Andrew Leadbetter Memorial tournament.

Normal FIDE rules of chess apply at all times, including recording of moves.

Rating

The tournament results will be submitted to the English Chess Federation (ECF) for national rating.  It is a condition of playing in the competition that the data submitted at the time of entry will be forwarded to the ECF as required to enable the games to be rated by the ECF.

Allocation of Ratings

The ratings used for the tournament will be Standard OTB ratings at 01-August.

Format:                 Preliminary: 5 Round Swiss

Grand Final: 1 game

Rating Limit: Open (Under 1500 only on approval of the Tournament Secretary)

Time Control:       All moves in 75 minutes with 10 seconds increment from move 1.

Schedule: Preliminary rounds:  September to May
Finals:                 May to July

Tiebreaks:          In the event of a points tie in the preliminary round, final placings will be decided in order of precedence by;

1.   Head-to-head results

2. Rollback

3. Sonneborn-Berger

Grand-Final: The top two points scorers in the preliminary Swiss round will compete in a grand-final.  Colours allocated by lot.

Tied Final: In the event of a tied grand final, the 2 players will play a tiebreak event in the following order.

1. Best of 2x Rapid       30 minutes plus 5 second increment

if still undecided then:  2. Best of 2x Blitz 5 minutes plus 2 second increment

if still undecided then : 3. 1x Armageddon 5 v 4 minutes (colours by lot)