The 3M Club Chess Club (3MCCC) is one of the 3M company's many employee activity clubs. It consists of a core membership of 3M employees and players from the surrounding Twin Cities (Minnesota) metro area. Non-3M employees are welcome to join, but must not exceed the 3M employee membership.

The club meets once a week at 3M Center (located in Maplewood Minnesota, on the McKnight exit of I94). We meet in building 225, second floor, conference room C. This conference room is near the Corporate Auditorium, so you can follow the signs to the Corporate Auditorium to get close, and then consult the directory on the wall to pinpoint us.

We meet on Tuesday nights, from 5:30-9:00 pm from October through April.

We hold three regular tournaments, and one speed tournament during this season. The speed tournament runs concurrently with the regular tournaments on alternate Tuesdays. Members are free to participate in either the speed or the regular tournaments, or both.

In the speed tournament it is every man and woman for themselves. Everyone in attendance plays two games with everyone else, at a time control of 5 minutes / all. We keep track of individual scores and their club speed rating. We also keep track of time handicaps (1 minute for every 150 rating points of difference). In order to win the tournament a player must play in at least half of the rounds.

In the first two regular tournaments we play on teams. We keep track of team winners as well as individual scores and club ratings. We divide the membership into teams, and then into 4 or more levels (based on club ratings) within each team. Players of the same level from the various teams then play each other. Occasionally we mix it up so that a level 1 player will play a level 2 player, and a level 3 player will play a level 4 player, etc.

During a regular tournament we play one round per meeting with a typical time control of 70 minutes/game. (Each player gets 70 minutes to play all their moves -- so a game could last a maximum of 2 hours and 20 minutes (140 minutes total).

The third regular tournament is considered our "Year end Championship", and is "every man and woman for themselves". A small cash prize is awarded to the winner of this tournament.

The "Player of the Year" (whoever improves their regular rating the most over the tournament season) is also recognized with a small cash prize.

It costs $5 a year to be a member of the club. 3M employees also need to be members of the 3M Club.

If a member cannot attend on Tuesday, their game can be made-up within a week of the schedule (before or after). If this is not possible, we have a list of substitutes who can fill in for the player. It is the player's responsibility to contact a substitute if he or she cannot make up the game personally. If no substitute is available, the game is forfeited. Failure to show up for a scheduled game without notifying one's partner and the tournament director will result in a forfeit the first time, and expulsion from the club the second time.

Except for speed chess (any game with a time-control of 10/all or less), we enforce the touch-move rule (see the Chess Lessons if you're not sure what this means).

During the tournament season, we require that all games in the regular tournaments be written down.

Time controls for the regular tournaments are as follows:

Tournaments One and Two: 70 / all.

Tournament Three ("Year End Championship"): 60/25, 30/all (i.e. 60 minutes to make the first 25 moves, and then 30 minutes to finish the game).