The tournament was divided into a preliminary round and a final round. The eight participating teams first played a simple round-robin tournament . The first four played for the title in Poule Haute , the last four in Poule Basse against relegation. The total of the team points (1 point for a win, 0.5 points for a draw, 0 points for a defeat), then the number of board points (1 point for a win, 0.5 points for a draw) decided the placement , 0 points for a loss). For the final placement, both the points from the preliminary round and the points from the final round were taken into account.
Game dates
The competitions were held on October 20, November 10 and 24, December 13, 1996, January 5 and 19, February 2, 16 and 23, and March 23, 1997.
After the preliminary round, Bissen was practically relegated with 3 points behind the saving sixth place, and Bonnevoie's second team had only slim chances with 1.5 points behind.
Timothy Upton, Denis Baudot, Pierre Blaeser, Andreas Roll, Geoffrey Stern, Nico Daubenfeld , Gunnar Gnad, René Kalmes, Guy Monaville , Henri Moris, Georges Haas , Patrick Burkart, Lars-Bo Rasmussen, Marc Huberty, Thomas Pähtz , Pierre Christen.
