Collegiate Chess League Season 4 Registration

Season 3 of the Collegiate Chess League was the biggest season to date with over 80 schools from over a dozen countries fielding 160 teams across 10 divisions (over 1000 total students)! This is only a fraction of the number of schools and students that could be competing from all over the world, and our goal is to get as many teams and players competing as possible.

Our next season brought to you by Chess.com and the Corporate Esports Association is set to start on February 12. Once again, Chess.com is providing a total prize fund of $25,000 for this season, all at no cost for teams to join. All of the schools that competed previously are welcome to play again, in addition to many other schools set to compete for the first time in our upcoming fourth season. Every college with a team is encouraged to join.
The season format and playoffs will roughly be the same, with teams of four competing in an all-play-all, 16-game blitz match. The 2022 spring season can be divided into three parts: registration, regular season, and playoffs.

Registration: The team registration form can be found linked above, and every team will need a designated captain to fill out this form in order to register their team. Teams will need at least four players. Individuals without teams that are interested but unsure if their school has a club or a team can fill out this separate form. The team registration closes on February 6 at 9 p.m. PST/February 7 at 6 a.m. CET, but players are able to join teams as substitutes throughout the season. Schools can register multiple teams as well, and captains will need to register their best players on their top teams.

Teams will be placed into divisions based on the average of the team's strongest four players' ratings at registration. To ensure accurate ratings of registering participants, all players will be required to play at least 20 rated blitz games on Chess.com. We will also provide weekly Sunday arenas for the colleges' chess clubs. These arenas will be multi-club arenas allowing for schools to directly compete against other schools within the league on a weekly basis as well as help promote and grow each school's club page and assist with recruitment. These arenas will also continue throughout the regular season. Players should compete through their school's club page but can also join through our club page.

Regular Season: Once the divisions are set into 16 teams, they will be split into two groups of eight based on geographic region. Each group will play a round-robin for the regular season with matches to be played on Saturdays. The regular season will thus consist of a set schedule of seven matches per team. Teams will be allowed to reschedule any of these matches throughout the season so long as all seven of their matches are completed before the end of the season.

Playoffs: Teams will enter a single-elimination playoff bracket based on their regular-season standings, and clubs will be awarded a portion of the $25,000 prize fund based on their teams' playoff results. The prize breakdown will be based on the number of divisions, with larger prizes awarded to higher divisions. 

Schedule:

• February 6 at 9 p.m. PST/February 7 at 6 a.m. CET: Team registration deadline
• February 12: Round 1
• February 19: Round 2
• February 26: Round 3
• March 5: Round 4
• March 12: BYE
• March 19: Round 5
• March 26: Round 6
• April 2: BYE
• April 9: Round 7 (end of Regular Season)
• April 16: BYE
• April 23: Wildcard Weekend
• April 30: Quarterfinals
• May 7: BYE
• May 14: Semifinals
• May 21: Finals and Third Place Match
• Corporate vs. Collegiate Rivalry Weekend to be scheduled during one of the BYE weeks.

With more schools and players competing than ever, this will be our best season yet. Our first season had 30 schools represented only from the US, and now we have schools from all over the world registering to compete in our league. Our last season had over triple the number of players from our first season, and we expect the League to continue to grow as more and more teams from around the world hear about us. You can find out more about this upcoming season on CEA's site. If you have any questions or would like to contact us, please join our discord and/or email League's commissioner Joe Lee at [email protected].