The tournament to decide the U.S. Champion will be held once again in
New York City on Saturday and Sunday, August 23 and 24.

The tournament site will remain the same, the Tudor Hotel at the
United
Nations:

Tudor Hotel at the United Nations
304 East 42nd Street
New York, New York 10017
USA
Tel +1 212 986 8800

Previous World Champions (within the last 25 years) and USOA rated
grandmasters are offered a guarantee of $600 minimum prize (up from
$500
last year). In order to support a World Othello rating list, for
the
first time I will be offering this minimum prize to any player with
an
established (bold-faced) rating in excess of 2400 (the established
rating
must be achieved at any time in 2008) on the World Othello rating
list
maintained by Emmanuel Lazard at the following website:

http://www.ffothello.org/classement/classement.php

Previous World Championship semi-final qualifiers (within the last 25
years) and USOA rated masters are offered a guarantee of $300
minimum
prize. This minimum prize guarantee will also be offered to any
player
who has an established (bold-faced) rating in excess of 2300 on the
above mentioned World Othello rating list.

The top prize will be $600. Second prize is $300 and third prize is
$150.

As we did last year, a $500 prize will be offered to the person with
the "best endgame" and can be won by a person winning another
prize. If
there is a tie for this prize, the prize will be split among the
winners.

The best endgame prize will be awarded for the games played on the
first day, and based on the following criteria:

(1) Only the winner of a game will be considered.

(2) The winning disk differential must be 20 disks or less.

(3) Errors in the last twenty moves (ten moves for either side) of
the
game will be calculated as the number of disks the error costs with
perfect play. This calculation will be performed on WZebra. Errors
will be counted only if the move is not perfect for the winning
player.

The winner(s) is(are) the person(s) with the least number of disks
given up in the last twenty moves due to errors. This prize was
offered
last year, and there was no perfect game meeting the above criteria.

As always, International players are more than welcome. We love
International players!

Saturday will be seven rounds, at 9:00AM, 10:15AM, 11:30AM, 1:30PM,
2:45PM, 4:00PM, and 5:30PM. Pairings will use accelerated Swiss
System
pairings.

As always, dinner will be offered in a fancy New York City
restaurant,
to all players free of charge, compliments of the tournament
director.
This year, I'd also invite the players to invite one spouse /
significant other / friend / relative (if parents, both are
invited) to join
us for dinner, with my compliments. Because dinner reservations
need to
be made in advance, please let me know by email of your intention to
play in the tournament and of whether you will be accompanied at
dinner.

Sunday will be a round-robin playoff of the top four players...six
rounds starting at 9:30AM. If two or more people tie for
fourth/fifth on
the first day, a playoff will be held between the two players with
the
top tiebreaks.

Time control is 30 moves per game per side. Tiebreaks on the first
day
will be Brightwell Coefficients. Tiebreaks on the second day will be
disk differential. As an experiment this year (because I'm a
personal
advocate of this rule), we're going to implement a rule that a
person can
not lose on time in a position for which neither player had any
legal
move options remaining in the game.

Entry fee is $100, and may be paid at the door, or in advance.

I hope to see you there!

David Parsons
Tournament Director

7 Peter Cooper Rd #10G
New York, NY 10010