PRO Chess League: All Star Rules

New for 2018, the PRO Chess League will stage an all-star tournament featuring the world's best players at the end of the league season. Three players from each division are chosen by league officials based on their play throughout the 2018 season. A fourth player from each division is chosen by fan vote.  All four divisions will have a four-player team for a total of 16 players competing in the all-star tournament.

Stage 1:

Preliminary Stage Stage one is a round-robin where every player plays one game against everyone from the other three teams, for a total of 12 games. The time control will be three minutes with no increment.

Stage 2:

Survival Stage The scores from the four teams are added up and we begin a series of elimination matches.  The third- and fourth-place finishers from stage one play in the first survival match. Whichever team loses this match is out of the competition and is replaced by the second-place finisher from the previous stage. The loser of this next match will then be replaced by the first-place finisher from stage one, and the winner of that match wins the all-star tournament. The format of the matches is as follows: Board four from one team plays board four from the other and the loser of that game is eliminated and replaced by that team's board three. You win the match by beating the other team's board one. A draw eliminates both players, except you cannot eliminate a team's final player on a draw. The time control remains three minutes to start with a zero second increment.

PRIZES: 

• $2,000 ($500 per player) to the championship team
• $1,200 ($300 per player) to the second-place team
• $800 ($200 per player) to the third-place team
• $400 ($100 per player) to the fourth-place team
• $600 to the highest individual point-scorer in the preliminary stage