Emirates Blitz Tournaments
Six Emirates Blitz Tournaments will take place at the 2025 XTX Markets London Chess Classic. The tournaments will take place each night between Thursday 27th November and Tuesday 2nd December. Entrants to the Blitz Tournaments are also able to spectate on the elite event or listen to the live grandmaster commentary once their own games have finished, at no extra charge.
Tournament Rules
Who can enter?
The Blitz Tournaments are open to any player.
Venue
All Blitz Tournaments will take place at the Emirates Stadium. The tournaments will take place in the Dial Square suite. There may be some noise from other events that are taking place elsewhere within the suite, but the organisers will make every effort to minimise this.
Schedule
There will be six Blitz Tournaments, each starting at 6pm and finishing around 9pm:
Blitz Tournament 1 - Thursday 27th November 2025
Blitz Tournament 2 - Friday 28th November 2025
Blitz Tournament 3 - Saturday 29th November 2025
Blitz Tournament 4 - Sunday 30th November 2025
Blitz Tournament 5 - Monday 1st December 2025
Blitz Tournament 6 - Tuesday 2nd December 2025
Entry fee
£20
Free entry for:
GMs, IMs
*female players (British citizens only)
*U25 (must be born on or after 26/11/2000) (British citizens only)
active CSC tutors
Please note: to receive a free entry, players in the categories marked * above must guarantee to play all 9 rounds. These players will be required to pay the normal entry fee upfront and will have that refunded at the end of the tournament on completion of all 9 games.
Prize fund
1st - £250
2nd - £150
3rd - £100
Rating prizes:
2000-2199: £100
1800-1999: £100
1600-1799: £100
under 1600: £100
Format
9-round Swiss tournament
Time Control
3+2
Byes
No byes are permitted in these event, and players are expected to play in all 9 rounds.
Defaults
A player who defaults a game will not be included in the pairings for the next round of the tournament, or any subsequent round, unless the Chief Arbiter decides otherwise.
Pairings
Pairings for the first round of each tournament will be published by 5.45pm on the day of the tournament. Pairings for subsequent rounds wil be published as soon as possible.
Late pairings
The Organisers may permit players to enter (or register) after the pairings have been published for Round 1 of a tournament. In general, these players will score 0 points in the rounds they have missed. However, the player may be paired against another player in this category, who has entered the same tournament, and that game shall be played as though part of the tournament; and thus, they will count towards the tournament scores, and be ECF and FIDE rated.
Fair play policy
Please read the London Chess Classic Festival Fair Play Policy for rules governing players’ conduct during the games.
Prize Calculation
The place prizes in all tournaments will be awarded to the player scoring the most points. There will be no tie-breaks applied, and in the event of a tie on points, the prize money will be shared equally between all tied players.
Prize lists
Full prize lists for each tournament will be published online as soon as possible at the end of the tournaments. The event organisers will contact all prize winners as soon as possible to arrange for the payment of prizes.
The rating prizes will be calculated on W-We, where W is the number of points scored, We is the expected number of points based on the difference between the ratings of the players in the game. A player is only eligible for a rating prize if:
The player has not defaulted any games in the tournament, and
The player had not withdrawn from the tournament (see the section on Byes above)
Players allocated a rating of 0 (see Ratings section below) are not eligible for rating prizes.
Where there is a tie for a rating prize, the prize shall be won by the lowest-rated player involved in the tie.
Where a player wins a place prize and a rating prize, the player will win whichever prize is of the higher value.
Ratings
All tournaments will be submitted to the ECF and FIDE for ECF rating and FIDE rating. It is a condition of playing in the London Chess Classic that the data submitted at the time of entry will be forwarded to the ECF and FIDE as required to enable the games played to be rated by the ECF and FIDE.
The ratings used for these tournament will be in the following order of priority:
ECF Blitz Rating
FIDE Blitz Rating
Where a player has none of these, the organisers will assign an estimate based on all available data on a case-by-case basis, failing which the player will be assigned a rating of 0.
The conversion between ECF ratings and FIDE ratings will be FIDE = ECF
The ratings allocated by this process will be used in the calculation of any relevant prizes.
All entrants must have a FIDE Identification Number at the time of submitting their entry, unless they wish their FIDE nationality to be England. English players without a FIDE Identification Number will have one created at the time the rating files are submitted by FIDE. Please note: At the time of writing, changing your nationality costs 50 Euros.
Players registered to the Russian or Belarusian chess federations remain banned from FIDE events and will not be able to take part in the London Chess Classic.
Appeals Procedure
Decisions of an arbiter may be appealed to the Appeals Committee provided that
Such an appeal is received in writing within 30 minutes of the arbiter’s decision, and
Such an appeal is accompanied by an appeal fee of £50 which will be returned if the appeal is successful.
The Committee for the Elite Tournament will serve as the Appeals Committee for the Festival.
Parental responsibility
Parents or guardians are responsible for their children during the tournament. The organisers and helpers are not able to act “in loco parentis” and are not able to take responsibility for any child’s actions, or for the actions of anyone that may affect your child. The Emirates Stadium does not allow children under the age of 16 to be unaccompanied. All players under the age of 16 must have a parent or guardian on-site at all times.
Liability
The organisers accept no responsibility for any loss, theft or accident during the tournament.
Right to refuse entry
The Chief Organiser reserves the right to refuse entry without being required to state a reason, and to transfer players between tournaments at any time.
Zero Tolerance to Abuse
The Chief Arbiter is empowered to expel a player from all tournaments entered, either for a number or rounds, a number of days, or in their entirety, who shows dissent by word or action towards an arbiter, or any member of staff connected with the London Chess Classic.
