THINK Blog Special Edition: Club Championship

THINK Chess

If you are not already a member of THINK, please consider joining at this link: https://lichess.org/team/think
We have 325 members at the time of writing, growing stronger all the time!

Liga

In our most recent Liga, which was in the 11C (https://lichess.org/tournament/a4BITcjL), we managed to finish first by 2 points! Our points total was 178, with our top scorer being @J3742 with 57 points. This means we will be playing in the Liga 10C next, come support us, troops! https://lichess.org/tournament/cF4dUdSV

THINK Club Championship

Intro

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for... the THINK club championship 2022-23 is here! It officially starts November 7th, 2022 and entries are closed at midnight UK time. I'm so excited to play in this championship for the first time!
Before I give you the rules, allow me to tell you the history of this championship...

History

The current team THINK chess started as the LRCL- Low Rated Chess League. I won't give you all the team's history here- stay tuned for a future blog on that topic! The team had its first championship 2 years ago in 2020/21, and had 28 participants, meaning 4 groups of 7.
4 people qualified from each group, forming a knockout stage of 16. 8 matches in the round of 16, then another 4 in the 1/4 finals, and 2 matches in the semi final, which resulted in two unnamed players playing each other, yet a few weeks later, the winner was found to be cheating and banned from lichess. An offer was handed out for one semifinalist and the other finalist to play each other, but they decided not to, so ninjaChess1 and vic2r shared the honours!
The championship last year had 36 participants, and 8 groups with 2 promoted from each. Same as the previous knockout stage, but no cheating scandals this time around. The final was between Windrunner315 and Dark-Bi5hop, with Dark-Bi5hop emerging victorious.

Current championship

For a more complete version of the rules, look here: https://lichess.org/forum/team-think/think-club-championship-2223

To check your standings, look here: https://www.score7.io/tournaments/thinkcc/standings

All games will be played at a 20+7 Rapid time control. Games may be Rated or Casual, as long as opponents agree- the result is what matters.
There are 25 entrants. Each player will play each other player in their group twice, once as White and once as Black.
The top 2 players from each group advance to the knockout stage, with the highest 3rd place player getting a "wild card" to the knockout stage. In the event of any draw in qualifying, the players' head to head score will be used as a tiebreaker. If still tied, an additional 20+7 playoff match is played. Group placings are decided by this point system:

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a draw
• 0 points for a loss

All group winners are guaranteed to play as White for the first round of the knockouts. Thus, the player listed top of a fixture plays as White. The knockouts are single elimination.

Players will have exactly one week from the date scheduled on the fixtures list to play their match.

With that out of the way, good luck to all participating! If you aren't playing, please pay attention to THINK's championship and support your favorite player/players if you like!

Outro

Sorry for the long drought in blogs, but don't worry, monthly or earlier blogs are back! In each, I will give you updates on the Championship!