☀️ 2024 Summer Grand Prix Series 🏁
The MSCA Grand Prix is coming back in 2024, now with:
🌐 6 events!
💵 $2,500 in guaranteed prizes!
🛣️
🏎️
🏆️ 4 qualifying spots for the 2025 Closed State Championship!
🥇🥈🥉
May 18-19
🌤️ St. Cloud
June 29-30
July 6-7
🌺 Rochester*
* MSCA affiliate event; not an official MSCA event
July 26-28
😺🐟️ Franklin*
Aug 10-11
🏙️ Edina*
Sept 21-22
🌹 Roseville
👑 Grand Finale of Grand Prix Series @ Northern Open 🌲 🧭
So what’s this now? 🤔
🏁 Grand Prix events are regular standalone MSCA (and affiliate!) tournaments that are connected to become the Grand Prix series, where each event contributes to the overall ranking of participants at the end of the season when prize money and playoff spots are awarded. 🏆️
One goal of the tour is to promote rated chess tournaments in Greater Minnesota, with the first four events taking place an average of more than 100 miles away from the Twin Cities. 🚗 🚙 🛻 🏍️
Another goal is to have fun and add excitement and significance to each competition. Play in one event or all six, and follow the progress of the race on our scoreboard! Have a look at last season’s scoreboard to see how things played out in 2023. We’ll unveil a new scoreboard in 2024. (It will look much like the old scoreboard, but our scorekeeper informs us it will have more emojis and niftier calculations and lookups.) 🧮
Player count has been removed from the point formula this year, making your tournament score and section strength the basis of your Grand Prix points. Any event can now have a bigger impact on the final tally. 💪
Rules 📝
🏎️ The best 4 Grand Prix scores out of the 6 events will count for determining standings and prizes.
🏎️ Grand Prix points per event = Player’s Score / # Rounds x Median Section Rating / 10
🏎️ To qualify for prizes, you must play at least 12 games in the series and be an MSCA member.
🏎️ Non-Playing TDs score 50% of possible points against median rating in the section of their rating.
Prizes 💰️
1st 🥇
2nd 🥈
3rd 🥉
Total
U1100
$ 220
$ 100
$ 70
$ 390
U1400
$ 220
$ 100
$ 70
$ 390
U1700
$ 220
$ 100
$ 70
$ 390
1st 🥇
2nd 🥈
3rd 🥉
Total
U2000
$ 220
$ 100
$ 70
$ 390
Top
Open
$ 400
$ 200
$ 120
$ 720
U2200
💸💸💸
Total
$ 1,280
$ 600
$ 400
$ 2,280
$220
$2,500
💵 Grand Prix prizes for cumulative points guaranteed by MSCA, in addition to regular event prizes.
🧮 Section prizes based on USCF ratings from Sept 2024 supplement which comes out late August.
🏆 Four 2025 State Closed Championship Playoff Qualification Spots! 🏆️
🥇 Open Winner
🏅 Top U2200
🥇 U2000 Winner
🥇 U1700 Winner
Learn more about State Champs qualification in this gripping MSCA Qualification Policy Document!
🏁 St. Cloud • Duluth/Superior • Rochester • Franklin • Edina • Roseville 🏁
🏆️ 2023 Grand Prix
5 cities, 314 players, 59 first time tournament players, and over 1,100 games played! 🎉
🙏 Thank you to everyone that participated and made the series a great success.