Freestyle Blitz Tournament on August 7, 2004

By Ingo Althofer und Timo Klaustermeyer

To win blitz games with the help of chess engines (or friendly grandmasters) counts as cheating. Not so here! In our Freestyle Tournament teams of arbitrary composition are invited. If Kasparov happens to be sitting on the couch next to you, just ask him to help. Or use the analysis of Fritz, Shredder or Junior to decide on your moves. All possible participants are welcome: individual humans, individual computers, teams of humans and/or computers – anything that plays chess.

Tournament details

• Seven rounds Swiss system
• Rate of play: 7 min + 2 sec/move
• Organizers: Prof. Dr. Ingo Althofer and Timo Klaustermeyer
• Venue: Playchess.com
• Time: Saturday, August 7, 2004, 15:00 h MET (GMT +2)
• Address for Applications: freestyleblitz@web.de
• Deadline for application: Tuesday, August 3, 2004, 20:00h MET
• Notification to Participants: until Wednesday, August 4, 2004, 22:00h
• Limitation: At most 40 teams will play
• Teams from all over the world are invited
• Event languages are German and English.

In the following each participant will be referred to as "team". In the application the following data have to be given:

(a) the real name of the team leader (the team leader has to be a human), postal address and email address. The address data will be treated confidentially and not given to any third parties.

(b) name of the ChessBase account (nick, handle) of the team.

Note that even in case a single computer program is used a human has to be the team leader!

Prizes

1st prize: 500 Playchess Ducats
2nd prize: 250 Playchess Ducats
3rd prize: 125 Playchess Ducats

For the ranking within the Swiss system the server software and its "fine-rankings" are used. Prizes will not be split.

Important

Each team really has only 7 minutes + 2 sec/move, as counted down by the Server clock. There are no bonus times
for communication within a team.

The referee panel for the Freestyle Tournament consists of the following three persons: Ingo Althofer, Lars Bremer, Timo Klaustermeyer

Cheaters, be warned!

"Freestyle" only means that the use of computers and human team members is legal. But it doesn't allow tricks or manipulation. For instance, collecting thinking time or stealing time from the opponent by network tricks is strictly forbidden. Cheaters will be excluded from the event without possibility of protest.

Right of Secrecy

Nobody has to lay open the structure or members of his team. However, after the tournament we would be happy to receive reports by as many participants as possible on the team composition and the strategy used on the server.

Tournament web site:

http://www.team-oh.de/FreestyleBlitz/index-e.htm

A final word

If this experimental tournament runs well, there will be further events in Freestyle Blitz.