TechLeague Chess Open

Rules

Pairs

You play as a pair from your company. One pair per company at the moment: the first two players from a company to register are its pair. The stronger of the two by chess.com rapid rating plays board 1. A player with no registered colleague when registration closes does not play.

Format

Swiss, up to three rounds. With 4 or more pairs, every round is played. With fewer, there is one round fewer than there are pairs. Nobody is knocked out. Every pair plays every round, against a pair on the same score it has not played yet, and never against its own company when any other pairing exists.

A match

Each match is two games played at the same time: your board 1 against theirs, your board 2 against theirs. chess.com assigns the colours at random, as it does in every rated game.

Time control

10+0 Rapid

Scoring

A game won is 1 point and a draw is ½. The pair with more points wins the match and scores 2; a 1–1 match is a draw, 1 each. The table ranks match points, then game points, then the strength of the pairs you played, then the higher seed.

Seeding

Pairs are seeded by the average of their two chess.com rapid ratings at registration close. Round one plays the top half against the bottom half.

No-shows

Press Ready when your game opens. You have 10 minutes to check in. If only one of you does, that player wins the game. If neither does, nobody scores it.

Time to play

Once you have both checked in, you have 30 minutes to play. If no game is played in that time, it counts as a draw. The next round opens 5 minutes after every game of this one is in, and this page shows the time.

Byes

With an odd number of pairs, one pair sits out each round. A bye scores as a won match: 2 match points and 1 game point. The bye goes to the lowest-placed pair that has not sat out yet.

Tie for first

If the top two pairs finish level on match points and game points, they play a playoff match for first, the same as any match. If that is level too, each pair chooses one of its two players for a single deciding game; if a pair does not choose within 5 minutes, its board 1 player plays. A drawn deciding game is replayed once. If it is still level, first place goes on the tiebreak. The top two pairs may need up to an hour after the last round.

Proof

Matches must be rated 10+0 rapid games on chess.com between the two linked accounts. Results are read from your public chess.com archive, not from screenshots. A game that is not there did not happen.

Fair play

No engine, no help, no one else at the keyboard. chess.com polices fair play: if it closes or flags an account, that player is out of the event. Report a suspicion to chess.com.

No stand-ins

You play your own games, on the account you verified.

This event is not affiliated with or sponsored by Chess.com.