2018 SSCC Novelty Tournament

For its first 3 years (2015-2017), the SSCC Novelty Tournament was run as a Fischerandom / Chess960 event. However this failed to attract large numbers, and in 2018 it was decided to change the format to an 8-round `Material Odds' Swiss. The first edition of this was a relative success with 14 players. The time control was 15 minutes with an increment of 10 seconds per move: 4 rounds were played on each of Tuesday 3rd April and Tuesday 10th April.

Congratulations to Kuan Han Sen, winner of the 2018 SSCC Odds Tournament!

The Rules

Rarely seen today, but very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, material odds (where the stronger player starts without specified pawns or pieces) and extra move odds (where the weaker player starts the game by making a specified number of free moves) were designed to enable a weaker player to have a greater chance of winning against a stronger one. François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) and Paul Morphy (1837-1884), the best players of their respective eras, were two players who played a very high proportion of their games at such odds.

The odds used for this tournament were as follows:

Rating Difference	Odds
1-100 points	Two moves. Lower-rated player plays White, and makes the first two moves of the game.
101-200 points	Pawn for move. Lower-rated player plays Black, and White's f2 pawn is removed from the board.
201-300 points	Pawn and move. Lower-rated player plays White, and Black's f7-pawn is removed from the board.
301-400 points	Pawn and two moves. Lower-rated player plays White. Black's f7-pawn is removed from the board, and White makes the first two moves of the game.
401-600 points	Knight. Lower-rated player plays Black, and White's b1-knight is removed from the board.
More than 600 points	Rook. Lower-rated player plays Black, and White's a1-rook is removed from the board.

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