TMCL960: Description, Rules & Regulations

Tournament Format
Team Requirements
Setting up Matches
Removal of Players
Closure of Player Accounts
Standards of Behavior
Participation in TMCL960
Player Eligibility
Addenda

1. Tournament Format:

All teams taking part will be placed into divisions (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo etc.) according to their playing strength, Alpha being the strongest. The number of divisions is expected to be at least 5 but may be extended to 6 or more depending on the number of teams applying. The placing of new applicant teams will be done on the basis of their recent Chess960 match performance. The placing of current teams (those from the previous season) will be decided mainly by their performance in that season and teams may be moved at the discretion of the TMCL960 admins where their playing strength is deemed to have changed.

Each team within a division will play each other team in a single stage Round-Robin tournament, the number of rounds being determined by the number of teams. Clubs will be given no less than 11 days in which to build their teams, details of the Round 1 (R1) draw being posted on the 3rd of January with a start date of 14/January. Subsequent rounds will be posted on the third day of each month with start dates on the fourteenth. A complete set of instructions for setting up matches will be posted with the draw at the launch of each new round.

2. Team Requirements:

All clubs that register with TMCL960 in order to take part in our tournaments must satisfy the following conditions:-

have been in existence for at least 12 months prior to the scheduled posting date (3/Jan) of the round 1 draw
have a minimum of 25 players

Each team must be represented in TMCL960 by at least one responsible admin (preferably an SA), although we recommend a minimum of two for safety & they must:-

be at least sixteen years of age
have site membership of at least six months
join the TMCL960 club in order to receive our alerts for new rounds etc.
have news/forum alerts from TMCL960 enabled for as long as their teams are involved in a tournament
take equal responsibility with other team admins to ensure that their matches are opened, by either sending appropriate challenges or accepting them
ensure that they build their teams in each round so as to reach the minimum size for their division
confirm that they accept these conditions & post a comment to that effect in the confirmation thread at the beginning of the season

3. Setting up Matches:

Details of the draws for each round, giving all the match set-up requirements, will be posted on (or slightly before) the scheduled draw dates. Team match challenges should then be sent except when a team has a 'Bye' for the round, in which case no action is required & the team automatically receives a point. It is the responsibility of the team accepting a match challenge to ensure the match setup is correct!

If a team is due to play a match but fails to take any action by the required date (5 days from the scheduled draw date as specified in the match set-up instructions for each division), it will forfeit the round & receive a 'strike', the match point being awarded to the opponent (a 'Bye'). If both teams in a pairing fail to act, they will each receive a strike. Should one team issue a valid challenge, posting evidence of this in the draw thread, that team will be awarded a Bye for the round if its opponent fails to accept.

* Only one strike is permitted in a TMCL960 season. A second strike results in the disqualification of the team and Byes are awarded to all their opponents in the same stage. Any club that has been disabled is immediately disqualified.

Each team must reach the minimum number of players required for a match to begin and if this has not been met by the specified match start date and time, that team will be in default (receiving a strike) & the opponent will be awarded the match win. If both teams fail to meet the minimum player requirement for the match, they will each receive a strike.

Teams must achieve a minimum number of players per match depending on their division, as follows:-

Alpha: 35
Bravo: 25
Charlie: 15
Delta: 10
Echo: 5

All matches must start at the specified time, as given in the set-up instructions for the round. Under no circumstances should admins lock their teams.

It may be possible, under exceptional circumstances, to start a match early but only by arrangement with the TMCL960 admins & with the agreement of the opponent team.

4. Removal of Players:

(i) With the exception of those having excessive timeout rates (see ii below), no player may be removed from a team roster. Any team demonstrated to have intentionally removed players, will suffer a penalty of two points per permanently removed player, added to their opponent's final score.

Please note: The purpose of the above rule is to deter match manipulation by the removal of players who are deemed likely to lose their games. The TMCL960 admins will judge such incidents on a case by case basis & be sympathetic to teams that can show good reasons for removal.

(ii) The ONLY exception to (i) is that teams may remove players with a timeout percentage of 15% or greater in the last 90 days from their roster and post a comment to that effect in the relevant divisional thread, giving the name & time-out rate of the player (this is not required where lists of such players have already been posted).

5. Closure of Player Accounts:

The TMCL960 league admins take cheating extremely seriously [1][2]. Match scores will be finalised after taking into consideration account closures of members due to fair play violation (Closed: Fair Play), i.e. cheating. In such cases we award any points won by the cheating player to their opponent. If both accounts are closed (Fair Play) on the same board, their game points are ignored. Penalty calculations will be finalized at the cut-off date.

6. Standards of Behavior in TMCL960:

Disrespectful behavior, wherever it happens, will not be tolerated and will lead to the perpetrators being warned once and then banned from the TMCL960 league.

Abuse of any member of the TMCL960 admin team is grounds for immediate expulsion from the TMCL960 league.

7. Participation:

Entry into the TMCL960 competition is at the discretion of the TMCL960 admins & all teams must meet the conditions laid down in section 2. Any team or its admins may be removed from TMCL960 if they fail to demonstrate acceptable standards of fair play in matches or treat others with disrespect.

8. Player eligibility:

Participating club members, including their representative admins, are free to play for any number of their teams in this league.

Notes:

[1] Any player with a Closed: Fair Play icon placed by their name is considered to be a cheat. No discussion will be entered into regarding cheating.

[2] If you think an opponent player is cheating or being abusive, please report them to chess.com support. Do not complain in the TMCL960 League notes or forums.

Addenda:

Round Robin Tie-Break System:

We resolve ties between first placed teams by applying tie-breaks in the following order:-

1st Tie-Break: Sonneborn-Berger Score (see article).

A team's tie-break (Sonneborn-Berger) score is calculated by adding the sum of the conventional scores of the teams it has defeated to half the sum of the conventional scores of those it has drawn against.

2nd Tie-Break: Average Win Percentage (excluding any defaults and byes).

Example calculation: If a team wins a match 70-30 then:

Win Percentage = 100 * (70/(70+30)) = 70%
The Average Win Percentage is then the sum of the Win Percentages for all matches divided by the number of matches (excluding any byes or wins by default from the calculation). This tiebreak method accounts for TMCL960 matches being of a non standard size.

3rd Tie-Break: Winner of Head-To-Head matchup.

The result(s) of the match(es) in the RR between the tied teams is used to determine the winner: One point for a win & half a point for a draw.

4th Tie-Break: Highest winning board in Head-To-Head matchup.

The highest winning board is calculated as follows:

Match: Team A vs. Team B (overall match is drawn 3.0 all)

Board 1: Player_A1 1.0 vs. Player_B1 1.0
Board 2: Player_A2 1.5 vs. Player_B2 0.5 → Team A wins tiebreak.
Board 3: Player_A3 0.5 vs. Player_B3 1.5

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TMCL960

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