Doubles Championship Rules and Guidelines

The Not So Pro World Championship Pair Championship (Doubles Championship, not bughouse) is a pair-based competition, consisting of an Regular Phase, Candidates Phase, and a Champions Phase 

REGULAR PHASE: One game per player is demanded each week. The time controls are 20 minutes to each side, with a 5 second increment per move [20|5]. The games MUST BE rated.

A week is comprised of a seven days duration - sometimes extended on special occasions - during which the games will be played, and 2 rest days, where unplayed games are ruled upon, events are processed and new weekly threads are created.

Won games are worth 2 game points, drawn games are worth 1 game point and losses are worth 0 game points. Unplayed games will be ruled upon by the administration at the rest day and points will be awarded according to a player's effort on getting a game.

The Candidates Stage will result from the best 10 pairs, 20 players total. The pairs will play against each other. 1 game per player each week is expected. The Candidates Stage will be a knockout format, with the last pair remaining, to challenge the current Pair Champion. Games will be played at time control 60|5 . Won games are 2 points, draw games are 1, losses are 0.

To join as a Player in the Not So Pro World Championship it is required that the chess.com member has a minimum of 3 months in the site, as well as a minimum of 30 rated Rapid games against human players. You must play at least 20 different humans in rated games for the games to count, so that rating manipulation is avoided.

Games against computer live bots do not count to the minimum games required. Players failing to meet the requirements might still apply through the official form, however, it is a player's responsibility to communicate with the administration once requirements are met, in case he so desires to join at a later date. All entries will be verified for deliberate rating manipulation, which is a form of fair play abuse and therefore will not be tolerated. You also have to be okay with playing long games.

 The Max Average Rating per pair cannot surpass 1500 rating points, that is, the sum of all five players' final collected ratings cannot be higher than 3000 total rating points.

Subs are allowed! Substitute Players (Subs) are volunteers who might be recruited by a player/pair during a certain period, in the event of a Player being unable to play. Subs are allowed to play for one single pair per 2 weeks. For a substitution to be valid, the rating rules listed on Pairs section need to be observed. Additionally, a Substitute Player cannot be rated higher than 100 rating points from the Player they are subbing for.

A substitution needs to be communicated to the Administration no further than 24 hours - 1 day - from the beginning of a playing week and confirmed by both players from a pair.

In the event of a player failing to be online (no-show) in the scheduled game time after 30 minutes have elapsed, they must justify it on the respective Negotiation Thread and offer new time windows as quickly as possible. The administration will be looking upon all negotiations closely for possible abuse of the negotiation system. Failing to show up twice in a week will award a forfeit win to the opponent. A no-show will also render the player a Strike. If a player accumulates three Strikes they will thereby be ejected from the remainder of the season. In case there is a game scheduled late in the week and one of the players is a no-show, he is likely to receive a forfeit loss.