International Chess Tournament to be held in San Miguel de Allende

Published October 21st, 2021

The magic town of San Miguel de Allende will host the first International Chess Tournament organized by Chess Sin Fronteras, the event that will take place on October 23rd at the sustainable tourist complex Agua Bendita Hacienda El Santuario and in which participants will be able to win more than 10 thousand pesos in prizes.

In a press conference, chess player Guillermo Dominguez, together with Hugo Murillo, Agua Bendita’s manager, and Diego Vargas, in charge of the event’s organization, announced the details of this tournament.

“We chose Agua Bendita because it has art in its surroundings and it is a perfect place for the players to feel inspired during their stay, in addition, we will have all the sanitary measures for the prevention of Covid-19 and we will be outdoors so we can have a larger capacity”, explained Vargas.

Registrations for the tournament are currently open in three categories:

• children (born in 2009 and under)

• youth (born in 2004 and younger)

• free, where anyone born before 2003 can register.

To register it will be necessary to register through a form available on Facebook: Torneo de Ajedrez SMA (SMA Chess Tournament). Each player must bring their own board and clock to the tournament and the registration fee per category is $100 for children, $150 for juniors, and $300 for free players.

The tournament will have 5 rounds, depending on the number of players, with a pace of play of 15 minutes per player, plus 5 seconds increment per move. In all rounds, the laws of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in its current version will be applied and the arbiter’s decisions will be final.

As for the prizes, the first place in the free category will get 5 thousand Mexican pesos, the second place $2500, the third-place $1000, and the fourth, fifth and sixth place will get $500 each.

Meanwhile, in the children and youth categories, the first place will get a chess clock, the second and third place a chessboard, and the fourth place a chess book.

The organizers pointed out that for all involved it is extremely important that women participate in this tournament, as they want to celebrate them and recognize their effort, since out of every 10 people who participate, only one is a woman, and nine are men. For this reason, Chess Sin Fronteras will be in charge of promoting the participation of women by awarding a medal to the most outstanding women in the tournament.

And if you still don’t feel ready to participate, Chess Sin Fronteras invites all the interested public to attend the event as observers free of charge, although they are invited to make a donation of $50 pesos for the Fundación Pro Niño Leones association. Registration will begin at 8:00 am, the opening of the event will take place at 10:00 am and will end at 6:00 pm.