1st Chess Pros Online Chess Championship Rules (Must Read)

EDIT: Time Control is 3 days/move. Thank you rsalvhus for alerting me to the fact that I forgot to put this in here.

Hello all Chess Pros members who are participating in the Chess Pros Championship! This is the official rules sheet for the tournament, with some extra info added in. 

Thanks to the great turnout, we have 20 players registered (with one more I am awaiting confirmation from). 

With 20 players in the tournament, I have created groups based on rating. The only concern that I have is that we have 9 players rated above 1700, however the advertisement said that the largest number of players in a group would be 8. If any of the players that have entered who are above 1700 are NOT ok with playing 2 extra games than advertised, please let me know and we will get this fixed. 

If there are no objections, however, we will have a top group of 9 players, rated from 1700-2000, a middle group of 6 players, rated from 1200-1600, and a lower group, rated from 1000-1200. The actual list of players and the pairings will come out in a seperate post in a few days. It is possible that for the top group we will have players start games in two waves of 8 games, rather than starting 16 games at once. 

Now, on to the rules...

Please make sure that you read these rules and understand them. The most important of these rules are the ones on accepting challenges ON TIME, and how to notify the admins if your opponent is not sending you or accepting your challenge. 

RULES:

1. Sending and Accepting Challenges

1.1 Each player will play every other player in their group twice. Thus, one game will be with white and one with black. In ALL challenges you send you will be WHITE. For all of the challenges your opponent sends to you, THEY will be WHITE. 

1.2 All games must be started ONE WEEK after the release of the pairings. If you are black in a game and have not recieved the challenge from your opponent, or if you are white in a game and your opponent has not accepted your challenge, please post in the "Match Problems" forum (which will be created when the tournament starts) with which opponent you are having problems with, in addition to what problems you are having. 

1.2.1 Once a complaint has been filed, and the admins will investigate. Once the said opponent has been notified that they must accept or send a challenge, they will have TWO DAYS to take said action. 

1.2.2 If the opponent does not accept or send a challenge AFTER notification from the admins, the individual game that is having problems will be forfeited. 

1.2.3 If a player forfeits 4 or more games due to lateness in accepting or sending challenges, that player will be forfeited in all his games and removed from the tournament. (Obviously we cannot end the actual game, the player will just recieve 0 points regardless of the result)

2. Reporting Match Links

2.1 Once a game has been started, the players are REQUIRED to post the link of the match to a "Match Links" forum (which will be created when the tournament starts). Only the link of the game is required, we will figure out who is playing that game. 

2.2 TWO WEEKS after pairings go out, (which is one week after all challenges must be accepted), all players whose games have not been posted to the Match Links forum page will be notified that they MUST post their game links.

2.3 ANOTHER WEEK after all players who have not posted Match Links are notified, all games whose links have not been posted will result in a double-forfeit. Both players will recieve 0 points for that game. 

2.3.1 If a game's link has not been reported, but a player has complained on the "Match Problems" forum about an opponent's lateness in starting that game, the admins will solve that problem according to the rules listed about in Section 1. 

3. Fair Play

For the fair play rules for this tournament, we will be using Chess.com's normal fair play policy. This means that NO COMPUTER ASSITANCE will be allowed, although opening and endgame databases will be allowed. 

In addition, be respectful to your opponents in a game's chat. 

Not following these rules will result in expulsion from the tournament.

Once again, pairings and standings will be released around February 20th. You will have until the end of month to start your games, and then use the Match Links and Match Problems forum pages as needed (see rules above).

If there is ANY confusion over ANY of the rules above, message Dare-Dare and get the confusion resolved. We do not want to have to forfeit anyone simply because they did not know the rules. We want to keep forfeits down in this tournament. 

Thank you everyone for the great turnout! Have a great time in this 1st Chess Pros Online Chess Championship!