EL2014 - Rules

EL2014 - Tournament Setup and Rules (decided)
(J.Palmaer, updated 2014-01-07)

The European League (EL) is the league of European countries and nationalities playing team match tournament on Chess.com. Teams battle it out in fierce competition to determine the European League Champion for each year. The league is arranged by the European Chess Federation.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

Tournament schedule: The tournament starts by 7th of January 2014, and finish at cutoff by 31st of December 2014.

European country and national teams are divided into five divisions according to final outcome and rules of EL2013.

Teams for Division 1 to 3: 12 teams per divisions 
Teams for Division 4: 10 teams. 
Teams for Division 5: all other teams

Tournament format: Round-Robin with 11 rounds in Division 1-3, and 9 rounds in Division 4. No matches are arranged for Division 5, where improvements on TM leaderboard instead will be tracked and the basis for promotion.

Schedule:

R1+R2  January     /            R8    May
R3+R4  February    /            R9    June
R5+R6  March        /            R10  August
R7  April                  /            R11  September

Division 1-3 is playing R1-R11. 
Division 4 is playing R1-R2, R4, R6-R11

TEAM MATCH SETTINGS

The teams are allowed to - but not forced to - start the matches earlier than scheduled. Matches are also allowed to start later than scheduled, but all matches must been started before 31^st of October 2014. Matches can be replaced by WL-matches if both teams agrees upon it.

All challenges must be filled out as follows:

Match Name: EL2014 Rx Team ... vs Team .... 
Example: EL2014 R1: Team Russia vs Team England

Game Type: Standard chess
Starting Position: Standard Starting Position
Days per Move: 3 
Quick Description: leave blank
Rating: Min / Max: leave blank
Minimum Games: 5
Players per Team:

Min:

- Division 1: 50 players per team

- Division 2: 30 players per team

- Division 3 and 4: 10 players per team

Max: leave blank

Concurrent games per Opponent: 2

Start Time: the date must always be set by the earliest two (2) weeks and latest four (4) weeks from the date when created.

Auto Start: leave blank, do not select
Games are rated: select yes

SCORING, PENALTIES, AND TIE-BREAKS

Scoring System: Clear win = 2 scores, Tied = 1 score, Clear loss = 0 score. A match is counted as a clear win only if the team gets at least 3 points or more in the match against their opponent. The team losing such a match has a clear loss. Other matches with no clear wins are counted as tied. Team match scores will be adjusted for all closed accounts and disqualified multi-team-players. If one player's account is closed or is a multi-team-player, s/he will lose both games by disqualification. If both players are disqualified, the points will be split 0:0 regardless of the actual result. However, a game lost by time won’t gain a point.

Tie-breaks: Based on the share of won games (in percentage) and the share of completeness. Unfinished games in the matches are counted as tied till they are finished.
 

PROMOTION FOR EL2015

2 top teams in Division 2 to 4 moves up to the mediate superior Division.
4 bottom teams in Division 1 to 3 moves down to the mediate lower Division.
2 bottom teams in Division 4 moves down to Division 5
2 best improving teams on TM leaderboard in Division 5 moves up to Division 4.

Any new or disqualified teams go to/stay in Division 5.

GENERAL RULES

Teams and players are allowed to participate in the tourney, as long as they follow these rules:

1.    One single team per European country or nationality is invited to this tournament. The best ranked ones on the team match leaderboard are invited in first hand. However, teams that been promoted to mediate superior divisions or stay in divisions are guaranteed to represent their country or nationality also for the next season. Country or nationality names and flags must be applied to the team profiles.

2.    The teams are allowed and encouraged to insert following text into their profile description: “This team represent [country or nationality name] in the European League.”, and to copy these rules into the team forums, so that all participants are aware of them.

3.  At least one (1) team admin per team are encouraged to join the dedicated tournament forum for the season in order to receive all relevant info.

4.   When creating team matches, should game settings be applied according to the general match settings (see above). Warnings will be given to teams that not send or accept challenges, or not lock their rosters, or have too few participating players in the matches.

5. Before teams lock their rosters are team admins allowed to remove any player from their team or the match who has a 25% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or is suspected or detected multi-team-player.

6.   Scores and tie-breaks are given to the teams who play matches. Match results are adjusted due to closed accounts and multi-team- playing, and match results are to be accordingly adjusted.

7.  The current scoreboards and standings will be posted in the tournament forum. Team admins are encouraged to transmit this information to their team members. All figures presented before the cutoff are only preliminaries.

8.    Teams and players are encouraged to follow these rules. Teams could be warned and disqualified for this season if they repeatedly not starting matches or otherwise breaking these rules. Such team will be moved to the lowest division for next season.

9.    Team admins are encouraged to report any deviations and complaints due to these rules through the tournament forum. Any reports to be considered must be submitted before the cutoff and the week after.

10. Any changes or clarifications of these rules will be announced through the tournament forum.

SPECIAL RULES FOR MULTI-TEAM PLAYING AND CLOSED ACCOUNTS

a) Team members are allowed to join different groups and teams but they may represent and play with only ONE team in the tournament during a season. The rule in place is one player - one team - one season. It is recommended to do it for the country or nationality team corresponding to the member profile flag.

b) Team members may NOT help each other out or use any computer assistance during their individual games. Cheating is forbidden. If there is any suspected unfair play from the other side, should the team leaders report this to the tournament forum. Team leaders should not take matters into own hands.

c)  If a player repeatedly participating in matches with different teams will these teams lose ALL the individual games the player have played or is playing. And if a player’s account is closed, e.g. but not limited due to cheating, the teams the player represent will also lose the individual games the player(s) have played or playing.

TOURNAMENT FORUM

For more information, please visit the dedicated tournament forum for this season (EL2014): http://www.chess.com/groups/home/european-league-2014

"Start Time: the date must always be set by the earliest two (2) weeks and latest four (4) weeks from the date when created."

This statement is incoherent and the rule is vague.  Does this mean we can pick any start time so long as we allow between 2 and 4 weeks for players to sign up?  Do you mean that we must allow two weeks for players to sign up, but must also lock our rosters within a month?  

It is also unclear whether we are supposed to insert the time in the challenge (which, from my understanding, will start the match automatically) when the rules say to not use the "autostart" feature.  Is the team issuing the challenge required to tell the opposing team when the match will start? (since it does not show up in the challenge message) 

@shavit: autostart is a separate setting, and not applicable for EL since we do not limit the maximum number of players in the matches. Just as you say the "Start time-rule" gives the teams an opportunity to agree upon for how long time to keep the match open for registration. The matches should start within 2-4 weeks after challenges have been sent, and not more nor shorter.

Okay, so we should use the "Start-time" scoll down menus in the match challenge only if we have spoken with the opposing admin and agreed to a start time to the match.  Otherwise, we should both just lock our rosters sometime between two and four weeks.  

I just want to be clear.  With the emphasis on punishing teams for multi-team players I want to make sure I (or another admin on Team Israel) have enough time to go through our rosters.  If a challenging team puts in a mystery start time I may not get a chance to do so.   

@johanpalmaer: start time must be fixed or, at least, suggested by European League Federation. It can't be open to every team admin to set randomly a start time. In that case it'll be better not to use the 'Start Time' option.

Moreover, it's impossible to an admin to quit a multiteamplayer from his roster if that player joins the second team after your teammatch is started. So I vote to fix same start time for all matches.

"However, a game lost by time won’t gain a point" (against cheater)

Guys, cheating is ultimate evil, and must be punished even stronger, while timeouts are already punished, I don't understand how this can be fair... I'd suggest that we remove this sentence completely and so publish a strong word against cheating.

Between 2-4 wks registration time seems clear and explicit to me. Fail to see any issues/problems with wording of that.

this month (March) i tried to start a match within the month wich meant 8 days of registration.    the challenge was ignored because i was not the mandatory 2 weeks.

can the admins be more flexible??.... if they want the 2 weeks send a message, so we can adjust........and if 1 week is ok ...... just accept the challenge.

and the 2 weeks is BAD!! my opinion is to make the registration the same as the "time per move"  that is 3 days !!!

this reduces Admin "tricks" and makes irregular player less likely to join and time-out !!

This will end up with 0-0 as far as I can see.

The Norwegian guy loosed both his games on time outs against his opponent and won't therefor gain any points. And his opponent won't neither get any points due to that his account been closed.

So no points to any of them.

Thanks @johan!

@j-pax - the idea of this league is to encourage participation of players - not limit the number who can play to those online for a very narrow registration window.

If you are worried about players who Time Out then vet new members to your group and only allow those to join who have low TO %.