The Collegiate Chess League is excited to announce the 2023 summer season following last year’s inaugural summer season. We will be bringing back both the bullet and bughouse college championships! These championship matches will last four weeks starting with the bullet championship qualifiers on July 14 with the finals on July 21. Bughouse will start the following week on July 27 and end with the finals on August 4. 

In addition to these two championships, the CCL is also hosting a weekly prize arena every Thursday at 11 a.m. PT. All matches will be streamed live on our Twitch and YouTube channels.

Colleges from all around the world are invited to compete for prizes each week, and CCL merch will be sent to the top 10 U.S./Canadian schools participating in the College Ambassador Program. 

Last summer season was the first time we’ve done a bullet championship as well as a bughouse championship, and we hope to make these championships a tradition every off-season. These extra time controls and variants complement the CCL’s regular season which consists of rapid and blitz time controls.

Registration for the 2023-2024 season will open in August, and more details on the upcoming season will be announced in our partnership with NACE, the largest collegiate esports league in North America. 

Format

Bullet Championship

• Qualifiers

  • Players will play in a 60-minute 1+0 score-paired arena tournament.
  • The result standings from this tournament will be used to determine the divisions with 8 players in each division.

• Playoffs

  • Each division of 8 players will be put into a double-elimination bracket. 
  • A match between two players is a best of 15 1+0 games, the first to 8 points wins.
  • If both players tie at 7.5 points, the next player to win a game wins the match.
  • If the grand finals match needs a reset, the final match will be a best of 7 games. 

Bughouse Championship

• Qualifiers

  • All bughouse games are 3+0
  • There will be four arena qualifier tournaments, one hour in length each.
  • The top four teams from each arena will qualify for the playoffs. 
  • Once a team qualifies, they cannot play in any further qualifier arenas. 

• Playoffs

  • A single elimination bracket of the 16 qualifying teams will determine the champion
  • The team’s standings from their qualifier will determine their seeding in the bracket

    • The four qualifier winners will each be a number-one seed, and so on. 

  • A match between two teams is a best of 10 games, the first to 5.5 points wins. 
  • If both teams tie at 5 points, the next team to win a game wins the match.

Schedule

• Bullet Registration: Closes July 13 at 10 p.m. PT
• Bullet Qualifier: July 14 at 11 a.m. PT
• Bullet Playoffs: July 21 at 11 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Registration: Closes July 26 at 10 p.m. PT
• Bughouse Qualifier 1: July 27 at 10 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Qualifier 2: July 27 at 1 p.m. PT
• Bughouse Qualifier 3: July 28 at 10 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Qualifier 4: July 28 at 1 p.m. PT
• Bughouse Playoffs Round 1: August 3 at 10 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Playoffs Round 2: August 3 at 11 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Playoffs Round 3: August 4 at 10 a.m. PT
• Bughouse Playoffs Round 4: August 4 at 11 a.m. PT

Prizes

Although there are no cash prizes for our inaugural summer season, Chess.com will be giving out premium memberships for both the bullet and bughouse playoffs. Additionally, college chess clubs participating in the College Ambassador Program are eligible to receive extra memberships just for registering. 

Registration

Registration for both events is now open, and you can fill them out below. 

For the bughouse registration form, make sure you register with a partner who will also need to fill out the form. 

You can find a full list of details, prizes, and rules for the 2023 summer season here.

Be sure to join our bullet and bughouse club pages once you register, and join our discord server to keep up to date on all our announcements. For any questions regarding the CCL or College Ambassador Program please reach out to League’s Commissioner Joe Lee at ccl@chess.com or on discord at joebruin96.

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