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How do Chess.com daily tournaments work?
How do Chess.com daily tournaments work?
Updated over 6 months ago

Daily tournaments are not found on the same tournament page as Live (blitz, bullet, rapid) tournaments. To find a Daily tournament to join, first click 'Play' in the left menu, then click on 'Tournaments'

This will take you to your tournaments home page, where you can see all the upcoming Live tournaments, click where it says 'Daily Tournaments' to see all the daily tournaments:

This will take you to the full list of Daily tournaments!

Find a tournament

From here, you'll be able to search for exactly the right Daily tournament for you!

Search for a tournament by name, or use the dropdown filters to get a list of exactly the kind of tournament you want.

Here are your options:

  • Upcoming (haven't started), current, or completed tournaments

  • All (all tournaments available), your tournaments (that you created) Official tournaments created by Chess.com, Thematic tournaments (starting with a specific opening) No Vacation tournaments (no vacation allowed!) Premium members only, or Chess960 tournaments.

  • Start date (when the tournament starts), alphabetical, by how many players have joined, by max players, or by time control (how many days per move)

Hover over the icons next to the tournament name to see what it means:

These will show you what kind of tournament it is.

Join a tournament

When you find a tournament that looks interesting, click on it! You'll be taken to that tournament's page, where you can see all the details:

Then simply click JOIN to join the tournament. The tournament will start either on a certain date or when it is full, depending on how the tournament creator has set it up.

When the tournament starts, your games will start! Chess.com uses the popular Round-Robin format for Daily chess tournaments. In round-robin tournaments, each player plays every other player in two games (once as white, once as black). Depending on the settings, these games may happen simultaneously (two games at once per opponent).

See below for an explanation of all the tournament details:

Time control

This is how much time you will get for each move.

Games Rated

Are the games rated, yes or no(unrated)

Rating Range

What rating level is allowed to join? Note: you will not see tournaments that are outside your rating range listed in your search results.

Max group size

How many players will be in your group? This is the number of players you will be facing off against in each round.

# Advance

How many players will go on to the next round from each group?

Simultaneous games

How many tournament games will you play simultaneously? For instance, in the example image above, 8 games will begin at the tournament's start date. With 5 participants (including you), you'll play 4 games as white and 4 as black at once

Tie breaks

Will there be tie breaks, or not? If tie breaks are off, then both tied players will advance. Read more about tiebreaks here.

Max avg time per move

Some tournaments require a certain average time per move. You can read more about this here.

Players

How many players have, and can join? In this example image, 820 have joined, and there is no limit (โˆž) to how many can join.

Avg rating

This is the average Daily rating of all the players that have so far joined.

Points available

This is the total number of tournament leaderboard points that will be given out to those who place in the tournament. Read more about tournament points here.

Complete

This is the percentage of total games that have so far been completed.

Round

This shows what round the tournament is on

Completed games

The number of games completed so far in the tournament

Remaining games

How many games are left to be played in the current round. When this reaches 0, the next round will start (or the tournament will end)

Max timeout %

Some tournaments have a maximum timeout percentage that is allowed to enter the tournament. This is related to how many Daily games you time out on. Read more about the timeout percentage here.

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