Launching monthly prize money tournaments at the ChessBase India Chess Club in Mumbai
After 28 weeks of successfully and consistently conducting the ChessBase India Chess Club at the Phoenix Marketcity in Mumbai, we are launching something very exciting for chess players - Prize money tournaments! And this will happen without any entry fee! Every 4th Saturday of the month will be the ChessBase India Chess Club tournament and only players who have attended the chess club in three weeks prior to it will be able to attend it! In this article we show you why the chess club is such a wonderful place for every chess lover of Mumbai to be at and how we came up with the idea of tournaments!
The ChessBase India Chess Club at the Phoenix Marketcity began on the 19th of March 2022. Since then we have had 28 Saturdays and on each of the days the Chess Club has been open for the chess lovers of the city to come and enjoy a game of chess! The club is totally free and open for all. The idea was to keep a fun and vibrant vibe to the place. It all began with a simultaneous exhibition by Amruta Mokal on 10th of March 2022 and since then not only have we had the Chess Clubs on each of the Saturdays but we also have had the simul with Samay Raina and the Death Match between Anish Giri and Vidit Gujrathi organized at the same venue.
We, at ChessBase India, are very proud of what we have achieved with the Chess Club that is created in partnership with the Phoenix Marketcity. Here are some pictures which give you a better understanding of the place:
A beautiful event that happened at the chess club was the simul with Samay!
What's next?
The support of the Phoenix Marketcity management has been immense in this entire endeavour of running the chess club. They have been consistent and also are keen on spreading the culture of chess across the country. The Assistant Marketing Manager of Phoenix Mills, Gaurav Mistry, also the man who contacted us to start something related to chess in Phoenix, told me, "Sagar, we should do 25 sessions solidly and consistently every Saturday. Once we have proved that we can do this regularly we can then think about new initiatives." And so when the 25th session ended, Gaurav messaged me saying that we should think of building this up! That's when we decided to launch the 4th Saturday tournaments!
How have we planned doing the tournaments at the Chess Club? We wanted to keep a prize money tournament (an amount of Rs.10,000) every month. At the same time we wanted to ensure that there was no entry fee for the players. But then how would we decide who could play and who could not? Well, instead of money, we decided that it would be people's attendance that will decide who can participate at the 4th Saturday tournaments. We would take the attendance on the first three Saturdays of the month and all those who have attended the first three Saturdays get a direct entry for the 4th Saturday event. So let's take the example of October. Starting from 1st of October, we will have the attendance on the first three Saturdays - 1st, 8th and 15th. On 22nd will be the tournament and all those who have attended the first three Saturdays will be able to play. We will make an exception for titled players if they would like to play our tournaments. The timings will be what has been since the very beginning - 5 to 7 p.m. IST
The tournaments will be run professionally and there will be chess clocks on every board. We are planning a time control of 5 minutes + 2 seconds increment and a total of 7 rounds. There will be Grand Prix points for people who finish in top 10. These points will get added throughout the year and we will find out who is the ChessBase India Chess Club Mumbai City Champion at the end of the year!
Schedule of the ChessBase India Chess Club
1st October - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
8th October - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
15th October - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
22nd October - (5-7 p.m.) Tournament
29th October - (5-7 p.m.) 5th Saturday (No attendance)
5th November - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
12th November - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
19th November - (5-7 p.m.) Attendance
26th November - (5-7 p.m.) Tournament
Every 4th Saturday of a month will be a ChessBase India Chess Club Tournament!
Note: A person who attends each and every day of the chess club for the next one year (and that includes all the 5th Saturdays of the month as well) will get a special prize from ChessBase India!
Sponsorship: Currently we do not have a sponsor for conducting the prize money tournaments. In case, some brand is keen on collaborating with us on this initiative. They can write to us at chessbaseindia@gmail.com. We will ensure that they get value for their investment in this endeavour.
Links:
The first ChessBase India Chess Club session
The entire ChessBase India Chess Club video playlist on YouTube (more than 50 videos!)
