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Calling all koalas, kangaroos, and kids down under! ChessKid is proud to announce our first ever ChessKid Australia Championship schedule for your winter. FunMasterMike was sad he could not visit again this year, so we hope this is the next best thing! On Saturday, July 17th, the ChessKid Australia Championship will be open to all scholastic players who attend school in Australia. Only players from Years P-12 are eligible to attend. In addition, participating ChessKids must play from inside Australia's borders as well. 
Besides being crowned a ChessKid national champion, there will be other great prizes including mini-camps with top Australian players.
Main Details and Prizes- All sections will play 7 rounds with a time control of Game 10+5 (10 minutes starting time with 5 seconds increment per move). Expected total time for all players will be about 3.5-4 hours.
- All sections will start at 1pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on July 17th.
- Top players in each section will receive prizes sent to them after the tournament.
- In addition, the top 5 finishers in each section, after tiebreaks, will win a special online chess mini-camp with a top Australian GM or WGM!
- Team prizes for the top three school teams will also be awarded. The top four scores from a school in the same section will comprise a team. Winning team members will also receive a plaque.
- ChessKid reserves the right to ask for proof of identity for all prize winners.
- The standings/crosstables shown after the event is not official until ChessKid does all of its fair play review and possible score modifications. This may take up to three weeks to make official.
Registration Information- Each registration is $40AUD and must be received by July 5th.
- If you register on or before July 5th, you will also be invited the warmup event on July 10th.
- In addition, all Australian players registered early will be invited to join a FREE pre-tournament mini-camp on Thursday, July 15th with a top Australian GM (you must make the early registration deadline to be invited).
- Registration between July 6-14 will be $55AUD.
- There will be absolutely no registrations allowed after July 14.
Special Rules, Sections, and FAQs- The tournament will have four sections: Years P-3, Years 4-6, Years 7-9, and Years 10-12.
- Players may not 'play up' into older sections. They must play in the section which their year falls inside.
- ChessKid will generate one-time use accounts and attach the best rating possible to that account for the purposes of pairings (FIDE, ACF, or online rating). Players will not be using their "normal" ChessKid account thus if you have never been a member of ChessKid before, that is not a problem.
- If a player does not have an over-the-board or online rating of any kind, ChessKid will start players with a rating of 400.
- There will be a warmup event on Saturday, July 10th also at 1pm AEST, which is highly encouraged for kids to play and practice using the site. This tournament will be 5 rounds of Game 5+1 and will only take about one hour. (There are no prizes as this is a practice tournament -- the intention is to test your computer, internet, and get used to registering and playing in an online event.)
- Although team prizes will be awarded, there will be no pairing restrictions. Although it may not happen often, teammates may play each other depending on their scores.
Fair Play Rules- Every game played will be subject to review by ChessKid fair play systems, ChessKid staff, and tournament directors.
- Players are not allowed to use outside assistance of any kind. That includes no computer assistance, no human assistance, no watching the livestream, no tablebases, no databases, no books, no notes, no past games, or scorebooks, no use of a second chess set to analyze variations.
- Players are only allowed to have one tab open on their browser-- the tab in which they are playing. No other websites are allowed to be open during the event. Players with more than one tab open will be considered to be breaking fair play rules for this event and can be disqualified on this basis along as a "technical forfeiture."
- Any fair play violations may result in removal from the tournament, forfeiture of games, permanent expulsion from both ChessKid and Chess.com, and also possible further sanctions from the Australian Chess Federation. Players may appeal a ruling, however after a second review occurs, ChessKid's decision will be final. There will be no more appeals after that.
- Parents are strongly encouraged to talk with their children before the event to discuss what is not allowed. Please join ChessKid in helping kids understand that chess teaches honesty and integrity. As part of the registration process, both parent and child must agree to all of these fair play terms.
Technical Details- All games will be played on ChessKid.com's live server. No account is needed and if you already have an account, you won't need that either. Special one-time use tournament accounts will be created for all players.
- Each section will be open for kids to 'join' the tournament about 30 minutes before the first round. Here's a video on how a child joins a live tournament on ChessKid. If you try to register after the starting time, you may not be able to play. It is required that you 'join' before the tournament starting time.
- ChessKid highly encourages playing on a laptop/desktop computer and not a tablet. WiFi is usually stronger and the site functions better. If you can plug into an ethernet port, that is best. The reality of online play, even with the world champion, is that WiFi failures can impact an online tournament.
- If you must be play on a tablet, the website version is the only way (opening a browser and going to chesskid.com on your device). The app will not currently work for this.
- Preferred browsers are Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
- Clearing your browser's cache before the tournament is another great protective measure.
- If you experience issues in the middle of a game or the tournament, clicking 'refresh' on your browser is the first thing to do. If you 'refresh' in the middle of a game, it will never kick you out of the game and can only help.
- Two kids cannot play at the same time on the same device.
- If a family has any issues with logging in, playing, etc, there will be live help desk support on Slack that will open one hour before the first round (only for the main event, not for the warmup).
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