IMPORTANT POINTS:

• Scoring in Pairs will be IMP based.  The no of seeded pairs from a team going to elimination-2 or final will depend on no of players in team. If the team is of 6 or less, than a max of 3 pairs and if it is of 8 players than a max of 4 pairs will be allowed.
• There will be no carry over from one elimination round to the next elimination round.
• Directors / Scoring team will do the proper bifurcation of seeded pairs in each section for balancing.
• Losing Team Pairs of KO-1, KO-2 & KO-3 can join as seeded pairs in the 2^nd elimination round of Pairs, in case they have paid their entry before start of the Pairs event.
• The Pairs of 2 losing Team of KO-4 & Pairs of 3^rd ranked Team from KO-5, will get seeded to the Pairs final, in case they have paid their entry before start of the Pairs event.
• There will be a consolation pairs event for non-qualifiers.

Tournament Format for Teams:

Stage I: 8 Rounds of Swiss League (10 boards per Round) after which the TOP 16 teams qualify for KO stage.

Stage II: Stage-II will consist of 5-stage KO matches each of 20 boards (to be played in 2-sessions of 10 boards each).

The TOP 16 teams will be divided into 2 brackets. The TOP 8 teams will be put in UPPER HALF (UH) bracket and the teams ranked 9-16 will be put in LOWER HALF (LH) bracket. The teams in the lower half will get eliminated after they lose a KO match, whereas in UH, the losing teams will become part of LH and will get one more chance to play.

In KO-1, in UH, the teams ranked 1 to 4 will choose their opponents from teams ranked 5 to 8. Team ranked 1 will have the first choice and then subsequently the teams ranked 2 to 4 will choose their opponents from the remaining teams ranked 5 to 8. In the LH, the matches will be 9 Vs 16, 10 Vs 15, 11 Vs 14 & 12 Vs 13. The 4 losers of Lower Half will get eliminated and will be eligible for 13-16^th ranked prizes and the rest 12 teams will go to KO-2. In case a low seed team beats a higher seed team, it will take the seeding No. of the higher ranked team.

In KO-2, there will be 4 teams in UH and 8 teams in the LH. The matches on Table 1 & Table 2 will be between 1 Vs 4 and 2 Vs 3. The matches on Table-3 to Table-6 will be between 5 Vs 12, 6 Vs 11, 7 Vs 10 & 8 Vs 9. Teams losing on Table- 3 to Table-6 will get eliminated. These will be given 9^th to 12^th ranked prizes.

In KO-3, there will be 2 teams in the UH and 6 in the LH. The match on Table 1 will be between 1 Vs 2. The matches on Table-2 to Table-4 will be between 3 Vs 8, 4 Vs 7, & 5 Vs 6. The losers of table 2 to 4 (3 Teams) will get eliminated. The loser teams will be ranked 6^th to 8^th for prize purpose. The winner of Table-1 will qualify directly to the team finals with a carryover of 8 IMPs.

In KO-4 there will be 4 teams and the matches will be between 2 Vs 5 & 3 Vs 4. Losers of this stage will be declared joint 4^th / 5^th of the team event. The last Knock out (KO-5) will be played between the remaining 2 teams (2 Vs 3) and the winner will qualify for the finals, whereas the loser will become the 3^rd ranked team. See details of KO stages in Annexure.

The team Final will be of 48 boards in 4 sessions to be played on the last day.

There will be carry over at each stage of the KO. In case of a Direct Knock-out match (KO 1 to KO 5), the teams will carry forward part of their difference of their Swiss league match, if any, between the two teams. The part shall be one half of the difference in the direct match between teams, if the team that won the direct match finishes higher than their opposing team at the end of Swiss league and one third otherwise, subject to maximum of one fourth of the total boards to be played in that KO stage. So, for a 20 board KO match, the maximum carryover will be 5 IMPs.

In an unlikely event, if two teams meet for a second time in between KO 2 to KO 5 stage, there will be no carryover given to either of the teams.

The winner of the KO3 UH stage, who is directly seeded to the Team of Four Final match, will be given a carryover of 8 IMPs being undefeated team. No other carryover (based on the Swiss league result) will be given to either of the two teams playing the final.

IMPORTANT POINTS FOR TEAM EVENT:

• In Swiss league, the communication is directly between the Team captains for line-up.
• From KO stage onwards, we will have common boards for all matches.
• Line up for KO matches will be taken care by Directors & their line-up team members.
• Max of 8 players can be part of a team. Any addition / deletion in a team is allowed only till end of 2^nd round.
• The restriction of playing 25% at every stage of tournament is not there..

Tournament Format for Pairs:

The Pairs event will consist of 2 elimination rounds and a final. Each elimination round & the final will be played in 2 sessions of 22 boards each. Depending on no. of entries, approx. 50% pairs will get eliminated after elimination-1. Similarly approx. 50% pairs will get eliminated in Elimination-2.

For the non-qualifiers, there will be a Consolation Pairs event on the last day. It will be played in 2 sessions of 22 boards each. Those who have got out from elimination-1 & 2 can participate in this consolation event without any extra entry fee. Any new entry in consolation event will attract a fee of Rs. 200 per pair.

• TRIOS are allowed in the Pairs event, with the following conditions:

• A pair can participate as “TRIO” i.e. 3 players can form a partnership. However, only 2 at a time can play in one session. Change of partnership within the trio is allowed only at the start of a session and not in-between the session.

• A player who has qualified for KO stage in team event cannot play as trio with a pair not qualified to the KO stage. However, if 3 players of a team qualified in KO stage wants to play in “TRIO” partnership as seeded pairs, they can do so, if their entry has been received before the start of the Pairs event as “TRIO”. A player can not join the “TRIO” in between.

•    A pair will be allowed to participate at any stage of a pairs event, independent of whether one or both players are qualified to KO stage or not. Even a player, who has not participated in the team event, will be allowed to play the pairs event with another player, who is qualified to any KO stage of team event. However, the following conditions will be applied for allowing such partnerships:

• The pair should have given their entry before the start of the elimination round of the Pairs event. 
• Not more than 4 pairs of a team will be allowed to play as seeded pairs, when they join from a KO stage to the Pairs elimination round. As the onus will be on the team captain to inform about the 4 pairs being allowed from the team, hence each pair of the team should inform their captain and take his permission beforehand about playing with a player outside the team.