2024 West Orange Chess Club Championship

Below is the tournament information taken directly from the online registration form.

WOCC Annual Club Championships
This form will close at 6:00 p.m. on April 16. On-site registrations will be accepted until 6:45 p.m. Late registrations will be accepted, but may need to take a half-point bye for the first round.

In spite of our best efforts, our new payment system is not ready to go online, so registration is being done "the old-fashioned way".

Dates and Time
One game per week on April 16, 23, 30; May 14 and 21.  There is no game on May 7.  All games begin promptly at 7pm. 

Location
All games will take place at the West Orange Chess Club, located at the Toby Katz Community Center, 650 Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange. (It's tricky to find -- take the access road between the high school and baseball fields. It's past the fields.)

Structure
A five-round Swiss-style tournament in three sections: Under 600 (plus unrated players age 12 and under), Under 1400, and Open.

Membership
This is a USCF-rated tournament. All players must have an valid membership. It must be valid for both April and May.

Time controls
G75 d5
("No more than 75 minutes per player with a delay of five seconds per move.")

Requested byes
A requested bye is when a player notifies the tournament director they wish to skip a round.

One half-point bye per player is available for rounds 1-3. Only zero-point byes are available for rounds 4 and 5.

Bye requests, questions, and/or notices that one cannot attend a game should be phoned or texted Stephen Lorimor at 908-286-0720, or e-mailed to [email protected]. Bye requests must be requested no later than 5:30pm on the day of the game.

Registration cost
$20 per player.

Since this is the club championships, players must also be dues-paying members of WOCC. Cost: $10 per year. Only $5 for people under 18 or over 55, or for West Orange residents. If you're unsure if you've paid in 2024, one of our friendly officers can look it up at the club. If you played in the Jan-Feb Swiss Octos tournament this year, you probably already paid.

Prizes
75% of entry fees will form a prize pool for each section. The exact amounts and method of distribution to be determined once the tournament begins (ie; we like to spread the rewards out a bit.)

Club Champion
The winner of the Open section is crowned "Club Champion". This title cannot be split (ie; no co-champions). Ties for this title will be broken as follows:

- Two two rated G30 d5 games will be held on May 28.  Players will play each color once.
- If still tied, two rated G15 d5 games will be held on June 4.
- If still tied, one (unrated) "Armageddon" game will also be held on June 4. Color assignments for the Armageddon games are randomly determined. White is G5, Black is G4, both have no increment or delay. A draw is a victory for Black.

Here is the link for online registration:  https://tinyurl.com/yzuhdzch