Chessgames.com Holiday Present Hunt

INTRODUCTION

NOTE: The 2007 Holiday Present Hunt is now over. This page will remain as a historical record.

Between December 1st and December 25th, 2007, Chessgames.com will be sponsoring a game called the Chessgames.com Holiday Present Hunt. We will give away over 50 prizes over these 25 days (an average of two winners per day). Plus, on December 25th we will give away the Grand Prize -- an accurate replica of the chess set used during the 1972 Fischer-Spassky World Championship!

The Chessgames Holiday Present Hunt is sponsored by The House of Staunton, New in Chess, Impala Press, and Chessgames.com.

HOW IT WORKS

Out of our 450,000+ games, over 50 of them have been specially selected to recieve a special prize-banner. Between December 1, 2007 and December 25th, 2007, fifty clues will be slowly released to the public from our special Clues Page. These clues are designed to help lead you to the game pages.

If you are the first person to discover a game page referred to by the clue, you'll see a special banner ad that reads "Congratulations, you are a winner!" Simply click on this banner to claim your prize.

NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY; you do not have to be a premium member of chessgames to participate. However, before you can claim a prize you must have a registered account. If you don't have an account yet, take a minute to visit our Registration Page. The process is quick, confidential, and 100% free.

On December 25th, 2007, we will hold a special drawing, and one of the lucky prize winners will receive the Grand Prize: an authentic replica of the famous chess set used in the Fischer-Spassky match of 1972, provided by the House of Staunton. We will announce the winner on that day.

THE PRIZES

GRAND PRIZE:
The Reykjavik II Series Chess Set - A full tournament-sized Chess set, it features a 3.75" King with a 1.75" diameter base. The Chess pieces are hand carved by master artisans and crafted out of the highest grade woods. The Chess pieces are heavily weighted with luxurious billiard cloth base pads and a beautiful finish. The design of the Reykjavik II Chess set is an exact reproduction of the Chess set used by the legendary American Grandmaster Bobby Fischer when he won the 1972 World Chess Championship against the reigning World Champion Grandmaster Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland. The set comes with four queens. Click here for more information.

RUNNER-UP PRIZES:
New in Chess Magazine (x3) - For over 20 years, New in Chess has been the world's best chess magazine, with regular contributions from all the world's best players. Garry Kasparov, Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko, Judith Polgar--you name them, NIC has them. Perhaps that's why New In Chess is also their favorite chess magazine! In-depth interviews, on-the-spot tournament reports, chess anecdotes and curiosities, and more. Three lucky contest winners will receive over 800 pages a year of the very best in chess.

RUNNER-UP PRIZES from Impala Press:

Duels of the Mind (4 DVD set) - The celebrated Thames TV series series with original footage of Capablanca, Alekhine, Nimzowitsch, Fischer, Spassky, Botvinnik, Karpov and Kasparov.

Great British Chess Triumphs (DVD) - A documentary with stupendous archival footage of the chess immortals, including wins by Speelman and Short against Kasparov, as well as long-lost footage of Tony Miles' win against Karpov.

Vishy's Victory by Giddins, Keene, and Simpole: a first hand account of Anand's greatest triumph, his victory in the 2007 World Chess Championship at Mexico City.

PLUS OVER FORTY CHESSGAMES PREMIUM MEMBERSHIPS!

Premium Membership to Chessgames.com (4 months), enjoy all the features that have made Chessgames famous for the past 6 years, including the Opening Explorer, the Sacrifice Explorer, and the new training tool, Guess-the-Move.

example of prize banner HOW TO PLAY

Over 50 special banners will be placed in games in our database throughout the month of December. If you find one of these games, just click on the special banner and claim your prize. It's that simple!

You can see an example of what you should look for on the right in the graphic to the right.

To add some skill into the contest, clues will be released at irregular intervals throughout the month of December on our special Clues Page, ending on December 25th. In total, at least 50 clues will be published, each one referring to one of the special games in our database containing a prize banner.

Even if you're no good at solving clues, you can still win. The odds of any random game being a winner is roughly 1 in 9000, so check out some chess games on our site, and you might get lucky.

To play the contest, just visit our Clues Page regularly and try to find the winning games. Or, poke around randomly, and if you're lucky enough you might stumble upon a prize banner. Good luck!

ABOUT THE CLUES

Our Clues Page will present all of the clues currently released. Throughout the month of December, at irregular intervals, new clues will be added to this page. Clues that have been solved will be clearly marked in green, so that you can concentrate only on the clues that remain unsolved.

Some clues are so easy, it will be a race to locate the game and click on the banner. Some clues are very cunning and may take days before anybody figures them out. Some clues are so impossible that the winner will likely stumble upon the game by accident.

If a clue proves to be too obscure for even our most ingenius members, we may (at our sole discretion) add more clues as the contest progresses to help encourage to location of the winning banneres.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

The following questions are the most commonly asked questions about this contest. The official rules are found at the bottom of this page which contain more thorough details. We hope that this avoids any confusion, but if you still have questions, feel free to ask us at the Chessgames Chessforum.

WHO CAN PLAY?
Anybody at all, of any age, from any country, excluding: employees of Chessgames.com, the contest sponsors, and such employees' immediate family members and persons with whom such employees are domiciled.
DO I HAVE TO BE A PREMIUM MEMBER TO WIN?
No, but you must have an account (a "username") to claim a prize. You can get a free acount quickly and easily at our Registration Page at any time.
ARE ALL FIFTY BANNERS ONLINE FROM THE BEGINNING?
No. The banners will be placed on the game pages only when the clues are released. By December 24th all 50+ banners will be online.
CAN I WIN MORE THAN ONE PRIZE?
Yes, if you win one prize, keep on playing, and you might win another. However, if any single member wins five or more prizes, he or she will immediately become ineligible from winning any further prizes, with the exception of the GRAND PRIZE drawing.
IF I WIN TWO PRIZES, DO I DOUBLE MY ODDS FOR THE GRAND PRIZE DRAWING?
No: each prize winner will receive only one entry for the grand prize, regardless of how many times they have already won.
WHY DO YOU RELEASE THE CLUES AT IRREGULAR INTERVALS?
To give everybody, from all the time zones across the globe, a fair chance at being online when a new clue becomes available.
YOUR CLUES MAKE NO SENSE!
Some of them make perfect sense, but some are highly obscure. Be sure to read the tips at the bottom of the Clues Page. If a clue proves to be too hard for anybody to solve, we may add further clues to to encourage its solution.
I'M A PREMIUM USER AND I'VE DISABLED ADVERTISEMENTS. CAN I SEE THE PRIZE BANNERS?
Yes: the prize banners are visible to everybody, regardless of preference settings.
I'M A PREMIUM USER; WHAT HAPPENS IF I WIN A FOUR MONTH MEMBERSHIP?
Four extra months will be added to your account.
I'M A LIFETIME MEMBER; WHAT HAPPENS IF I WIN A FOUR MONTH MEMBERSHIP?
You will still earn an entry into the grand prize drawing, but your four extra months will be meaningless. Chessgames may extend the number of clues beyond 50 to make up for cases like this.

OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES

The Chessgames.com Holiday Present Hunt is a game of skill and luck available to the general public. Follow the instructions on this page to discover the hidden gift-graphics and claim prizes. These are the official rules:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. To claim prizes, you will need to have a registered account at Chessgames.com. (If you do not have an account, visit our Registration Page and sign up; it's quick, anonymous, and free.)

The prizes are not redeemable in cash and must be accepted as awarded. By claiming the prize, the winner authorizes the use, without additional compensation, of his or her name and/or screen-name for promotion and/or advertising purposes in any manner and in any medium.

Chessgames.com retains the rights, at its absolute and sole discretion, to make substitutions of equivalent kind or approximate value in the event of the unavailability of any prize or component of the prize for any reason whatsoever.

Images of the prizes are provided as examples; the true prizes received will not necessarily look exactly like the advertising photographs.

To give everybody a good chance at winning, a limitation of prizes is in effect. If, at any time, a single member wins five (5) or more prizes, he or she will immediately become ineligible from winning any further prizes, with the exception of the GRAND PRIZE drawing.

In order to be eligible for any prize you must supply us with a working valid email address. If you register to our site with a bogus or nonfunctional email, we will be unable to contact you, and your prize may default to another member.

On December 25th THE GRAND PRIZE DRAWING will be conducted. All members who have won a prize will have their names put in a hat, and one name will be selected at random. Members who win multiple prizes will only have one name in the hat. The winner will be announced sometime during the December 25th, 2007 on the Chessgames.com homepage. At the time of this announcement the contest will be terminated.

The GRAND PRIZE will be shipped no later than January 7, 2008. The actual delivery date may vary greatly depending on where the winner lives.

If a clue is not solved in a timely fashion, Chessgames.com may offer extra, alternate clues to encourage its solution. This may or may not be done by Chessgames.com, at its sole discretion. Any prizes left unclaimed at the termination of the contest will be void and not awarded.

Four month membership prizes are non-transferable. They will be activated upon the account that clicks the prize-banner first, and cannot be given to another user.

The use of web spiders or other automated software systems designed to scan web pages in bulk is strictly prohibited. Anybody discovered using such techniques to find the gift-graphics will be disqualified from the contest and the prize(s) won will be returned to the pool. However, the use of public search engines (e.g. Google) is permitted.

This contest is subject to the laws of the United States and the State of Florida. This contest is void where prohibited by law. Employees of Chessgames.com, the contest sponsors, advertising and promotional agencies and their respective affiliates and associates and such employees' immediate family members and persons with whom such employees are domiciled are excluded from this contest.