Mid-Month Chess : 2014.Nov : Berlin Edition

This is for players with ratings between 1275 and 1700. In the November 2014 edition, there is a 50% advance rate with medium groups (4(2)->2) and so you'll begin with six simultaneous games.  Only players with more than 100 games, less than an average of 6 hours per move, and less than a 3% time-out rate may join.  This is also a premium-only tournament and there is no vacation time.  I think that these fairly strict rules serve to improve the tournament  in terms of fewer dropouts and less general wonkiness.

This tournament is scheduled to begin as soon as it is full following midnight, chess.com time (Pacific US time, GMT-8) on November 15, 2014.

There is no autostart in this tournament and it will not start earlier than the appointed time on 15.November.  Once the time comes around, I'll switch it to "start ASAP," which means it will start as soon as we have all the players.

I'll remove players who look like they are "gaming" their score or whose score exceeds 1725, starting a few days before the tournament starts. I've found that it's best to remove players when I see scores get too high, merely to keep the playing field reasonably even and give other players a chance to grab the spot. Here is the link to the parallel tournament for players with ratings under 1275.

I've put this up a few weeks in advance to keep the place and to allow players to register ahead of time if they wish.

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I decided to pay homage to the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (which occurred on 09.11.1989). So the theme of this edition is Berlin - (which might well be the greatest city in the world). ;-)

Map showing the location of Berlin (source: Wikipedia).

Aerial oblique of the city (source: Wikipedia).

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 09.Nov.1989 (image source - NBCNews).

The Berlin Wall light project, 09.Nov.2014 (mirror.co.uk)