Fantasy Chess Olympiad is here!

Following on from the enormous success of our recent British Chess Championship “Predict the Result” competition we are delighted to be able to announce that we are supporting the pilot of a new website – www.fantasychessteam.com Run by a pair of Yorkshire chess addicts, the site aims to be the first to offer a dedicated “Fantasy Football” style competition for chess beginning with this month’s Olympiad which kick’s off in Istanbul on August the 28th.

if the number of entries increase the prize fund will grow

Because the site is operating as a pilot the Fantasy Chess Team boys are limiting the number of entries for their inaugural competition and YCA readers are being given the chance to enter before anyone else.

Entry will cost £5 per team and there will be a cash prize for the winner of £150 and with £75 going to the second place player. If there are less than 50 entries this prize fund may need to be reduced but if the number of entries increase the prize fund will grow.

The online entry form will be available on the new site early next week but in the meantime we would like to recommend that you take the opportunity to acquaint yourself with the rules (below) and begin to plan your team. This will significantly speed up the entry process for you when the form is available. We have also added some hints and tips and also some links to useful websites that will help you to select the best possible team.

All of the information below and a full list of Olympiad participants with link to their FIDE player profiles (where available) can be found in the “Fantasy Chess Olympiad Player Directory” attachment.

Keep your eyes on this website for our next announcement which will launch the website complete with the entry form.
The object of the game

The aim of the game is to be the player with the most points at the end of the competition.

What you have to do

It’s very simple. You select a team of players who you think will perform well at the Chess Olympiad and you’ll score points depending on their actual performance

• You pick a squad of 10 players: 5 from the Open section and 5 from the Women’s section. Select your team from 10 lists of participants. Each list correlates to the Olympiad participants selected to play on a particular board (e.g. “Open 1″ is all of the participants playing on board 1 in the Open).
• You may only select one player per country in the Open Section and one player per country in the Women’s section. 5 different nationalities must be selected for each board. For example a player cannot select both Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Grischuk because they both represent Russia’s Open team. However, it is permissible to select one of either Kramnik or Grischuk and also Natalia Pogonina because the she is playing in the Russian Women’s team.
• You will also be asked to predict which teams and individuals you think will win the overall medals in each section

How you score points
Your team members score points for you in each of the 11 rounds of the Olympiad that they appear in regardless of which board they play on. Points are scored as follows:

• 1 point for a losing appearance
• 2 points for a draw
• 3 points for a win with the White pieces
• 4 points for a win with the Black pieces

You can score an additional 5 bonus points at the end of the Olympiad if you successfully predicted the:

• Winning team in the Open section
• Winning team in the Women’s section
• Overall individual winner of the Open section
• Overall individual winner of the Women’s section

If any of your predictions finish second or third then you will score an additional 2 bonus points.
How you win
The player with the highest scoring team after the 11 rounds are over is the winner. If there is a tie then the rating performance of each of the tied players’ teams will be calculated and the highest will win. If this does not break the tie then prize money will be shared equally.
There will also be special prizes awarded for the winners of the following competitions:

• Lowest scoring team (the Booby Prize!)
• Best team name

Data Quality

• We’ve done our very best to ensure that the data we’ve used for our entry form is as up to date as possible. However, Olympiad teams may change up to the last moment and even during the tournament so we can’t guarantee that our data will be 100% accurate for the entire duration of the competition

Selecting your Board 5 players

• Bare in mind that the Olympiad teams (Open and Women’s sections) consist of four players and a fifth reserve player. Your two board 5 selections should therefore be players that you think will get selected to play on a regular basis as if they don’t play, then you won’t score points.
• We don’t cap the number of players that score points in a round so if all ten of your players appear then they will all score points.

Black wins score more

• Unlike the Olympiad, your team’s players score more points if they win with the Black pieces so you may want to consider which players you think are most likely to score well with Black.

No revision of entries allowed

• Once you have entered your team on our entry form then you can’t change it so make sure you’ve decided on who you are going to use carefully before completing the entry form

Useful resources
You may find the following websites helpful as you decide on which players to pick for your team:

• FIDE: the World Chess Federation’s database of players and their ratings. You can search for a player by their name or use their unique player number (listed for each player entered on the Chess Olympiad Istanbul website above) and find out more about their profile rating progress (current form) and game statistics (including percentage of wins with White and Black).
• OlimpBase: the encyclopaedia of chess teams. This website has statistical information on every chess Olympiad and many other team competitions. You can look at team performances and see which individuals won prizes. There is a wealth of useful info for the aspiring Fantasy Chess Team Captain
• Chess Olympiad Istanbul: the official website. This is the oracle for teams that have been entered in to the Olympiad in both Open and Women’s sections. Follow the link to “Registered Countries” for a pop up list of nations from which you can select entered teams to view. The board orders entered here are generally the ones we’ve used to create our own lists of players for you to select from.
• GMChess: Alexander Khalifman’s website contains an excellent database of chess players and their FIDE ratings that you can use to search for players you may wish to select for your team. Information about each player includes the three letter code for the federation that they play for. We’ve used these to determine the order our lists of players are shown in our entry form so it will save you time if you know these for the players you want to pick.