PLAYERS MEETING AND DRAWING OF LOTS

The players meeting took place Monday evening at 9:00pm. In addition to a general discussion of the venue and tournament details for the players, Frank Berry made some announcements:

A "Fighting Spirit Award" of $100 per round has been donated to the Championships by Jeff Smith, of South Carolina. It is to be awarded to the most fighting game of each round (in either tournament), as voted on by the viewers each day on MonRoi. $75 to the winner and $25 to the loser. The cutoff time for voting is at noon, next day central time. Thanks to Jeff for this support!

The players voted on an appeals committee, which will be Larry Kaufman, Iryna Zenyuk, and Yury Shulman. They will deal with any appeals for any possible disputes in either tournament.

Alex Onischuk drew lots to determine color allocations for the first round of the tournament. He drew white, so he and all the other higher-rated players on odd-numbered boards will have white. The pairings have thus been posted in the "Pairings" section here.

The first round starts at 2:30 central time on Tuesday (May 13). Good luck to all!