Every February, April, June, August, and October, ICC and the Tomato managers present the Championships! There are events for determining a unique ICC Champion of the year in the following disciplines:
February: 1 0 Bullet
April : 3 0 Blitz
June : 3 3 Blitz
August : 5 0 Blitz
October : 15 0 Standard
December: On hiatus. (4 2 Thematic Blitz)
Those events start always at the second weekend of even months. Exception is the Thematic Blitz. This event often starts in the first weekend of the month. There will be six qualifier tournaments, starting Saturday and ending Thursday. The starting times are chosen such that players from all time zones should get a chance to play in at least one qualifier and are as follows:
Saturday 14:00
Sunday 12:00
Monday 19:00
Tuesday 20:00
Wednesday 10:00
Thursday 15:00
Friday Rest day
Saturday
Open Finals: 14:00
U2000 Finals: 16:00
The tournaments will be held on the Littleper bot in general, unless it is occupied. Therefore, the command ‘tell Littleper join’ will subscribe you to the Championships. In the Finals, there is no need to enter any command, as the finalists will be auto-joined, and no one else will be allowed. All qualifiers are held as Swiss, with the following number of rounds:15 rounds for 1 0, 11 rounds for 3 0, 9 rounds for 3 3, 9 rounds for 5 0, 6 rounds for 15 0 and 9 rounds for 4 2 Thematic. Latejoin is possible, but one cannot receive half-point byes for more than half of the total rounds. All finals are multi-elimination tournaments. In the 1 0 championship, a finalist is out when losing 4 times. In all Blitz time control championships, 3 losses suffice to drop out. In the 15 0 championship, one is out after 2 losses. The usual elimination tournament rule applies: Draws with White are counted as a loss, unless the opponent is rated at least 200 points higher.
Qualification to Finals:
Qualified for the open finals are:
1) Last year’s Champion in the respective championship section.
2) The top 5 finishers in each qualifier.
3) The top 3 players scoring most points in all qualifiers taken together who did not qualify according to (2).
In case someone already qualified earns a top 5 spot in a further qualifier, or someone is disqualified for violating rules, 6th, 7th place and so on are moved up accordingly in that qualifier. This gives 34 finalists. There are no alternates. In case a finalist does not show for the finals, the tournament starts with less than 34 players. Finalists can latejoin if they are not present at the starting time, but each missed round will count as a loss.
For the U2000 finals, similar rules apply. See below for eligibility to the
U2000 section. A player who qualifies for both finals can play in both, provided that he finishes before the open final starts.
Prizes:
ICC is awarding membership extensions for the winners:
- Open Section: 1st: 3 months, 2nd: 2 months, 3rd: 1 month.
- Under 2000 Section: 1st: 2 months.
- Best U1600 Player in the U2000 final: 1 month.
Eligibility to U2000 Section:
In order to be eligible to the U2000 section, one must meet the following
criteria:
1) Rated under 2000 at the start of the tourney.
2) No best rating above 2200 in the rating category of the present Championship.
3) Established rating with 50 rated games played in the rating category of the Championship BEFORE the Qualifier tournament. For the 15 0 Championship, this requirement is reduced to 20 rated games.
Moreover, the Tomato managers reserve the right to deny eligibility to the
U2000 section to certain participants who they suspect have intentionally lowered their rating (‘sandbagging’). Note that no proof is necessary. We also reserve the right to impose further restrictions on a player, like a tournament floor and/or a restriction on rated games if we suspect that a player is sandbagging.
Eligibility for the best U1600 in U2000 finals is similar. The player needs to take part in the U2000 final and play it out to win the prize.
Other restrictions and rules:
Players, who use assistance of any kind (human or computer chess programs) will be expelled from the tournament and face consequences for violating ICC rules. Note that suspicion suffices, no proof is necessary. Players who were caught violating tournament rules and/or ICC rules in the past can also be disqualified from the tournament at the sole discretion of Tomato managers or ICC admins.
Free trials are allowed to participate in the qualifiers, but cannot play in the Finals, unless they pay for their account before the last qualifier finishes.
While playing in the Championships, a recent version of BlitzIn, Dasher or ICC for Mac/Windows must be used. A couple of other interfaces, like recent versions of Icarus or Fixation are also allowed.
Players who delay the tournament for any reason, including but not limited
to: latestarting games, constantly disconnecting, lag, declining challenges can be removed from the tournament at the sole discretion of the manager.
Players, who lag can be declined entry to a tournament. The determination of acceptable lag level depends on the time control and is at the sole discretion of the manager.
Defending Champions:
3 3 (jun 2019): -- cyborg86 (open) -- kolding (U2000) -- ROWLAND (U1600)
5 0 (aug 2019): -- samshe (open) -- HolyLight (U2000) -- ROWLAND (U1600)
15 0 (oct 2019): -- MasterZachary (open) -- pagoda (U2000) -- President (U1600)
1 0 (feb 2020): -- cool64chess (open) -- Eigeneier (U2000) -- toguho (U1600)
3 0 (apr 2020): -- cool64chess (open) -- HolyLight (U2000) -- bnn (U1600)Next Championship: Blitz 3 3 June 13th - June 18th (qualifiers), June 20th (finals).
See https://www.littleper.com/public/champs/start.html for more information about the Championships. Also check “finger Championship” and “finger ChampsWinners” for results of Championships.
