The Charlotte Chess Center and Scholastic Academy is currently organizing two concurrent 10-player round robin tournaments: a Grandmaster norm event and an International Master norm contest. Unlike in a Swiss, each player in a round robin knows exactly how many points he will need to score in order to secure the GM or IM result.
IA/IO Grant Oen is the Chief Arbiter, and FA Peter Giannatos is Chief Deputy.
Norm events are exciting, especially if one or more players is closing in on the needed score!
FM Balaji Daggupati clinched an IM norm after only 6 rounds! He needs 1.5/2 for a GM norm.
IM Hans Niemann leads the GM norm event with 5.5/7. One win or two draws in the last two rounds will give him his final GM norm, and push his rating closer to the needed 2500 to earn the highest title in chess.
Three players still have chances to earn norms in the IM event.
I’ve annotated the following sharp battle from the very first round of the IM event.