The road to Millionaire Chess in Las Vegas

The Millionaire Chess Open is pretty exciting for chess. A million dollars in total prizes with $143,000 for the under 1400 section (some of it for U1200 and U1000) and $112,000 each for 2200, U2000, U1800, U1600 sections and the remaining $409,000 for the open section.

I wish I could afford the $1000 entry fee, travel and accommodations as this would be awesome.

But I’d have to spend a lot more than that to make it worthwhile.

If, like me you don’t have an established and recognized chess rating, you have to play in the killer open section! This is an anti-sandbagging policy. They also go with your highest rating since December.

It takes quite a few games to get established. Both CFC and USCF require 24 rated games before you’re not provisional.

The tournament is in October. How would you get that many rated games in by September?

Here in Winnipeg you can get 13 games in with the Tuesday Night Tournaments (TNT) of May (4), June (4), and July (5). There’s 5 Tuesdays in September as well, though I don’t know if that would be rated in time. You can pick up another 5 in a weekend in August during the Abe Yanofsky Memorial.

To get over 24 you do have to travel once — your best bet is the 2014 Canadian Open in Montreal in July which has 9 rounds.

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