Happy First Day of Summer Everybody!!!

Since the whole planet is in a frenzy with World Cup Fever, I figured this was a good time to introduce the World Cup of Chess Openings!!

To register your group, please go to this thread:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/wcoco---2010-registration

World Cup of Chess Openings - Official Rules

(Taken from the FIFA World Cup format)

The current tournament features 32 teams, representing different openings, competing in Vote Chess games at 2-days per turn. There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage.

In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each.   Each group plays a round-robin tournament, guaranteeing that every team will play at least three matches.  A match will consist of 2 games, one from each team's prefered starting position.  The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage.  Points are used to rank the teams within a group.  Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss.  If two or more teams end up with the same number of points, tiebreakers are used: first is goal difference, then total goals scored (this will be the in-game score found on the details tab), then head-to-head results, and finally drawing of lots (i.e., determining team positions at random). 

The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra games used to decide the winner if necessary.  It begins with the "round of 16" (or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.

For some reason the "Everyone can join this group" was accidentally set to "no."  Sorry about that.  The problem has been corrected.  Everyone is welcome to join the League HQ:

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/world-cup-of-chess-openings

Whichever opening you prefer, there's probably a group already dedicated to it, and I'm sure they would love for you to join them!!    Here are the one's I've found so far (membership #s as of 6/21):

Group - # of members

Maybe this will be just what they need to become active again. 

Hopefully, they won't stay at 1-2 members if they want to compete.    There were a few groups I left off the list if they only had one admin, and he/she hadn't signed on in forever (I may have missed a couple too).  But these should all, at the very least, have an admin who is still active on the site.  There's over 100 groups on this list, and we can only fit 32 into the league, so 2/3 of these won't be making the cut anyway.  Only time will tell which ones they are.  

I just joined the group bilium :)

Can other groups join aside from those mentioned above? thanks

Is the group devoted to a specific opening or group of openings?

ohhhh. ok I get it! many thanks!

We've still got room for 22 more teams!!!  There's over a hundered groups dedicated to openings!!  Pick your favorite opening, and encourage them to join!!

Here are the teams that have registered so far (10):

White Positions (6):

The Scotch Fans Team - Chessy4000
C44 (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. d4)

The Wandering King Appreciation Society - OpeningGambit
A00 (1.f3 e5 2.Kf2)

Trompovsky Attack Lovers - rich
A45 (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5)

King's Gambit Players - Jaller435718
C30 (1.e4 e5 2.f4)

Sicilian Grand Prix Attack - polleke
B23 (1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4)

Latvian Gambit Players - Gambitking
C40 (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5)

Black Positions (4):

The Dark Knights - Billium248
(probably a variation of the Alekhine or possibly Indian defenses)

Sicilian Sveshnikov Group!! - Ivanenko_Tony
B33 (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5)

Budapest Gambiteers - kid_of_chess
A51 (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5)

Benko Gambit - SensFan33
A57 (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5)