Isle of Wight Tournaments 2025

[Roger de Coverly]

Details of Isle of Wight tournaments for 2025 have started to appear on chess-results.

There's a 9 round Masters tournament running from 18th Feb 2025 (Tues) to 23rd Feb 2025 (Sunday)
Also a 7 round Under 2000 running from 18th to 21st (Friday)
plus an Open from the 21st to the 23rd
Both Masters and Open are using a 90 30 move rate

Then there's an U1850 also from the 21st to 23rd with a 75 30 move rate. Also to that schedule is an U1450

The Open, and U1850 are FIDE rated.

There's an impressive list of invited players to the Masters
https://chess-results.com/tnr965943.asp ... ES&flag=30

Details at https://www.iowchess.com/iowinternational2025
The entry fees look designed to discourage "tourists" with ratings under 2000 or even under 2200.

The Under 2000 is using a 75 30 move rate over 7 rounds. I think they are being optimistic on likely entries as they advertise using accelerated pairings. With 7 rounds, the theory cross over is 128 players before you run the risk of two players with 7/7. In practice half point byes push the limit even higher.

There's also a couple of Blitz tournaments, one on the Friday afternoon and the other on the Saturday evening.

The venue is stated as
Ryde School
7 Queen's Rd, Ryde
Isle of Wight
PO33 3BE

I eventually stumbled over the round times on the site

The nine round schedule is two games Tuesday, 11 am and 5 pm , just one on Wednesday at 10 am, two on Thursday, 10 am and 4 pm , one Friday 10 am (because of the Blitz), two Saturday (10am and 4pm) and one Sunday (10 am).

The seven round schedule is the same, except there are two rounds on Wednesday.

My personal feeling is that if there's going to be a single round day, it should be on the first day in the afternoon for the simple reason that it may save some players an extra night's hotel bill.

Wightlink (ferry company) are offering discounts, this is the page about travel and accommodation
https://www.iowchess.com/iowinternational2025

Unlike most UK tournaments they aren't sharing the prize money in the probable event of ties.

Instead they say

Final ranking determined by tie break. Players are eligible for one cash prize.

The tie break isn't specified.


The ECF haven't announced dates for a 2025 Cambridge International, or even whether one will run at all. If it has the same time slot as 2024, it will clash or be very close to a clash with the IoW event.

[Dave Lightfoot]

Tie break does annoy people I admit. My thinking is we have a x250 seat theatre to watch the final rounds of the Open. So I want players to be going for it and playing exciting chess if possible.

We may rethink before but for now the prizes are reasonable across all levels so tie break makes an exciting final round.

[Roger de Coverly]

We may rethink before but for now the prizes are reasonable across all levels so tie break makes an exciting final round.

But what will the tie break be? If it isn't a secret, the players with the best tiebreaks are likely to steer for early draws if they have the opportunity. If, say, you had a massive tie for second or third place, would you really cut the lowest out of the prize money?

[Ian Thompson]

We may rethink before but for now the prizes are reasonable across all levels so tie break makes an exciting final round.

But what will the tie break be? If it isn't a secret, the players with the best tiebreaks are likely to steer for early draws if they have the opportunity.

I've come across tournaments where the tie-break methods have been announced in advance, but the order in which they are applied has been decided randomly after the event is over, making it more difficult for players to predict where they'll finish if they draw.

The Hort method of allocating prizes could also be used to give players an incentive to try to win in the final round whilst ensuring everyone in a tie gets something.

[Alex McFarlane]

I draw your attention to
https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/TieBr ... ions042024
These should apply to all FIDE rated tournaments.

[Richard Bates]

I think the assumption that splitting prizes by tie breaks will lead to a different approach/“fighting chess” in the final rounds is flawed. For every player finding themselves in a position where the only path to a decent prize is a win, there will be somebody else where the rational approach is a draw. The objective is far more likely to be achieved by just applying a minimum move number.

[Dave Lightfoot]

We have decided to do away with tie break for the main prizes in the International Masters. Thank you for the feedback, I listened to it.

https://www.iowchess.com/tournament2025