Chess.com Announces 2022 SCC Bracket Contest

The 2022 Speed Chess Championship main event begins in less than a week! Sixteen of the world’s top players will find out who’s the quickest on their feet as they vie for the world’s most prestigious online speed chess title. 

This is also your chance (as part of the Chess.com community) to win a $10,000 prize. However, to win the prize, you’ll need to pick the perfect bracket! The deadline for submitting your prediction is the start of the first round, on Wednesday, November 23, at 8:00 a.m. PT/17:00 CET.

This must-see event for lovers of fast chess features a who's-who of established superstars and reigning champions. Participants include world champion GM Magnus Carlsen, world Fischer Random champion GM Hikaru Nakamura, world rapid champion GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, world blitz champion GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, world championship contenders GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, and more!

But who will win? If you think you can predict every match and turn out to be right, you might just be the lucky winner of $10,000 in cold, hard cash. Make sure you follow the instructions to name your bracket submission.

Whether you pick based on decades of chess knowledge and analysis, or you guess randomly based on nothing but your gut feeling, you've got to submit your prediction to be in to win.

How To Enter

How do you enter? Simply click the button above or follow this link to Challonge.com (a third-party site) and complete your bracket there. There is no purchase necessary for entry.

The deadline for submitting your prediction is before the start of the first round on Wednesday, November 23, at 8:00 a.m. Pacific time/17:00 Central European Time.

Please name your bracket with your Chess.com username and your prediction of the final match score. Do not skip these steps—your final score prediction will be used to break ties!

Note: If you do not have a Challonge account, you can save the URL for the bracket to easily find back to it. It is important to “edit” from the URL, or the link will not work after the submission deadline.

Prizes

Only a perfect bracket will win the $10,000 prize. That said, we are still awarding prizes to the top finishers regardless of final score. These are:

Every "care package" comes with a three-month diamond membership, Chess.com stickers, and a Chess.com keychain, pen, and beanie. The "Premium" care package adds a Chess.com hoodie and a water bottle, while the "Standard" care package includes a Chess.com t-shirt.

Scoring And Tiebreaks

Scoring will be kept linearly—see the table below. This method places more emphasis on predicting each individual match rather than the overall champion.

Of course, if you want a perfect bracket, you'll still have to identify the correct champion.

Tiebreaks

Ties will be broken both for the overall bracket and for the perfect bracket. As such, only one participant at most will win the prize.

Challonge breaks ties with:

1. Number of correct picks

Chess.com’s additional tiebreak determining factors:

1. Correct winner predicted
2. Your prediction of the final match score in the finals (e.g. 17-15). This is what you entered in the Prediction Title field.
   
   2a. If no entry predicted the correct score, the contest winner is whoever was nearest to the correct margin of victory.
   
   2b. If that is tied, the contest winner is whoever was closest to the correct score for the tournament winner.
3. The last tiebreaker is the order your bracket was submitted (earlier is better).

In any of the scenarios above, the losing tiebreakers rank as no. 2, 3, 4 etc. 

The main event begins on November 23—be sure to submit your bracket in advance and not miss out on the chances at prizes and memberships! 

Note: This contest is void in all areas where prohibited by law.

Procedures for Contacting and Announcing Winners and Giving Out Prizes

We will be in touch with winners through Messages on Chess.com or via the e-mail provided in their submission.

Contact will be made within 1 calendar week after the contest ends.

If prizes are given out continuously throughout an event, contact will be made one week after the event ends.

In contests where winners are picked randomly from chats on Twitch, YouTube, and Chess.com., everyone who gave the correct answer will be raffled using software that will ensure an impartial and random selection of winners.

By participating in the event, you are consenting to Chess.com using your name/image for purpose of administration, prize fulfillment, use in a publicly available winners list, and related Chess.com event promotion.

Read more about our policy for contests in Giveaways, Games of Chance, and Sweepstakes.

NB: If you have received no contact after a week, you can claim your prize by contacting [email protected].