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All time slots of each team should be fixed in the beginning of season. So after on each round both teams already know that starting time will be fare to both teams if they have not agreed on starting time. Every team fix their working day and weekend day. Mark public holidays when they can not play during the 2018. On that day no games scheduled. For example Standard Workday Monday-Friday (Local time):19h- 24h Available timeWeekend Saturday-Sunday(Local time) 14hours10h-24h Available time Timeslots for three teams Alpha-Beta-Gamma:Team Alpha is GMT+6Workday in GMT 5 hours: Between 13h - 18h gmt Available time Weekend 14 hours: Between 04h - 18h gmt Available time Team Beta is GMT+3Workday in GMT 5 hours: Between 16h - 21h gmt Available time Weekend 14 hours: Between 07h - 21h gmt Available time Team Gamma is GMT-5Workday in GMT 5 hours: Between 24h - 05h+1day gmt Available time Weekend 14 hours: Between 15h - 05h+1day gmt Available time Example of matches: Alpha vs Betaif they play on weekday we choose their available time and use average : Between 16h - 18h gmt(starting time~19h)if they play on weekend we choose :Between 07h - 18h gmt(starting time~12:30h gmt) Alpha vs Gammaif they play on weekday we choose their available time and use average :Not possibleif they play on weekend we choose :Between 15h -18h(starting time~16:30h) or 04h - 05h(starting time~04h)

Here is my proposed schedule for Season 2, including the last rounds of Season 1. Note that the Div.2 schedule is conditional on us having around 16 teams which would allow us a split group format (hence the free week in the middle of the schedule, to decide the teams going into the top and bottom groups after the first stage). W/b and W/e are on a Monday and Sunday respectively, to avoid any confusion. W/b W/e Div.1 (1 group, 10 teams) Div.2 (2 groups, 8 teams) 15/01/2018 21/01/2018 Rd.9 22/01/2018 28/01/2018 Free week (for adjustments) 29/01/2018 04/02/2018 Playoff QF Preparation for new teams 05/02/2018 11/02/2018 Playoff SF Preparation for new teams 12/02/2018 18/02/2018 Playoff Final Preparation for new teams 19/02/2018 25/02/2018 Preparation for new teams 26/02/2018 04/03/2018 Preparation for new teams 05/03/2018 11/03/2018 Preparation for new teams 12/03/2018 18/03/2018 Preparation for new teams 19/03/2018 25/03/2018 Preparation for new teams 26/03/2018 01/04/2018 Rd.1 Rd.1 02/04/2018 08/04/2018 Rd.2 Rd.2 09/04/2018 15/04/2018 Rd.3 Rd.3 16/04/2018 22/04/2018 Rd.4 Rd.4 23/04/2018 29/04/2018 Rd.5 Rd.5 30/04/2018 06/05/2018 Rd.6 Rd.6 07/05/2018 13/05/2018 Rd.7 Rd.7 14/05/2018 20/05/2018 Rd.8 Free week (for adjustments) 21/05/2018 27/05/2018 Rd.9 Rd.8 28/05/2018 03/06/2018 Free week (for adjustments) Rd.9 04/06/2018 10/06/2018 Playoff Rd.1 Rd.10 11/06/2018 17/06/2018 Playoff Rd.2 Rd.11 18/06/2018 24/06/2018 Playoff Final Free week (for adjustments) 25/06/2018 01/07/2018 Promotion/Relegation playoffs

To all League organisers, It has been brought to my attention that one of Team Italia's opponents in the match between Team México and Team Italia on Round Six of Season One, purposely took actions that effectively and directly influenced the possibility of his account undergoing a standard anti-cheating control. These actions consisted in losing on purpose a consistent number of consecutive blitz games (more than 100), over a very limited time span (the 21st of January), against different opponents, and by playing in each game only a minimum number of moves, sufficient for rating to be affected and then abandoning the game. Thus, as you can judge yourselves, the intentionality of the behaviour of the player is out of question. The player thus achieved the very obvious result of losing some 1.000 rating points over a few hours with the very plausible goal of avoiding detection. In any case this cheating technique is well known and is commonly termed as 'sand-bagging', even if normally it is used for different purposes. In this case, it preceded by only a few days one of chess.com's regular and sweeping anti-cheating campaigns. As a matter of fact, I can confirm this directly because on the 27th of January Team Italia had 4 accounts closed at the same time. I will now come to the reasons of our appeal. First of all our appeal is under article 6 of the LCWL Rules. Article 6 entitles League organisers to apply proportionate penalties in cases of unfair behaviour that are not explicitly addressed by the rules, in situations where disputes arise and there is no consent between teams. The case that Team Italia wants to make and insists on making, originates from the fact that team Italia received a negative adjustment in the match against México. This result affected the overall result and was a consequence of one of its players closing his account of his own will, a few weeks after the match took place. Now, these cases have been extensively discussed. The rules, both LCWL rules (for Live chess matches) and WL rules (for Daily chess matches) carry a slight ambiguity on the point, in the sense that the spirit of these adjustments is to apply penalties to the cases in which players have not played according to the rules, which would include only players whose accounts are closed by a third party (the Site). The case of a player closing his/her account of his/her own will is only indirectly considered. I think everybody will agree that a player may have different, personal reasons for closing his or her account. However, the reasoning goes, the action of self-closing one's account may conceal the hidden purpose of... avoiding cheat detection. This is why it has been judged that the case of a self-closed account should count exactly like the case of an account closed for cheating. I am not sure if this interpretation is exhaustive... maybe you are thinking that it is my 'speech' which is exhausting... excuse me for that, but this leads us directly to Team Italia's match against Team México. In fact, as I said, only a few weeks back, Team Italia suffered a penalty that temporarily affected the result of that match (Round 6, Season 1). The penalty was applied because of a self-closed account. This kind of penalty, as we have seen, can only be based on the 'suspicion' that the account was closed to avoid detection. So, what we have here is: - two cases, which are perfectly equivalent in their hypothetical but plausible motivation, which are being treated in two completely different if not opposed ways. I would sincerely like for this not to be the final saying of the League I am proud of having helped to create and grow. League Organisers have a tool that entitles them to apply adjustments in particular cases. This tool is article 6 of the rules. I am therefore asking, on behalf of team Italia, for this adjustment to be made. Thank you for your attention and I am looking forward to your comments and conclusions, bumiputra, T. Italia

What is your proposal about the structure of the league in the next season? Assuming that we have at least 20 teams registered for it. Top League 10 teams playing round-robin 6 qualified into playoff (same format as the current season) last 4 teams playing qualification matches with top 4 teams of League B League B 9 round swiss top 4 teams go into qualification Qualification 2 groups (Top7, Top10, B2, B3) (top8, top9, B1, B4) round robin first two teams qualify Initial setup First 10 teams after 9rounds of swiss qualify for the Top League.

It is upsetting to me that fellow league admins have been talking about me behind my back. I would have been fine if problems were taken straight to me, because then we can actually have a constructive discussion about any issues. I'll start with my decision with the Czech Republic-Venezuela match. The match was opened 15 minutes before the start time, and this was the fault of both teams, as neither made an attempt to set up the match before. While CZE were able to make the minimum, Venezuela were only able to raise 2 players in the 15 minutes they had. It would not be unrealistic to say that if Venezuela had the full hour to raise players, the minimum would have been reached. I chose to contact only the two other SA's in the group (excluding @Dale00007 as his team was directly involved), because this happened Sunday evening, when the next round pairings were due to be announced. If I had contacted everyone, I would have had to wait for a reply from all before making a decision, thus delaying the start of round 3. Both @bumiputra and myself thought that asking them to re-play the game was the best option (@adriano81 proposed to award the forfeit to CZE), and so the match was replayed. Please do not accuse me of making decisions myself, when you both know that I asked you for your opinion. (for those that are unaware, the match was re-played with Czech Republic winning 7½-2½) Now for the Costa Rica decision. It should be clear to everyone that they are simply incapable of playing these matches with the minimum players (in 4 attempts; the first they failed to even set up the match, the next 3 they only achieved one player). They have never successfully played a live match inside or outside of the LCWL; and with the benefit of hindsight, it is my opinion that they should not have been allowed to compete in the league to begin with, and I take full responsibility for that. If you were running an OTB tournament, and one player failed to show up for the first 3 rounds, would you pair them in the 4th round, and make an opponent travel to the match for likely nothing? Most organisers wouldn't even pair them for the second round (as did happen in an OTB tournament I played 2 weeks ago when a player failed to show up). Making a team negotiate a match time, making one of their admins go online at a specific time to set up the match, and then making potentially over a dozen players wait up to an hour to play a match that is not going to happen, is both unfair, and unacceptable. While I may have been a bit hasty in my decision, it was done with the intention of trying to get a replacement team into the league for the last 6 rounds, in an attempt to avoid one team having a bye in each round. Regarding my decision to have each match negotiated in a separate thread, I proposed this in the Rules, and this was not commented on by anyone (and I am sure I drew attention to this area, I may be wrong though). I have also re-iterated this in every news post announcing pairings. Why all the controversy now? I am disappointed that I am the one being accused of not interacting with other admins, and yet this group was set up over a week ago and I only found out about it today (and it seems to me that this was deliberate too). This was also set up before I made either of those two decisions above; maybe if I had been invited here, we wouldn't be having these discussions now? I seem to remember that a HQ group was discussed before the start of Season 1, and it was decided that it was not necessary. It seems that this assumption was incorrect. Anyway, here we are. Let's stop whining and whinging, and get on with organising. And if there are still any questions about decisions that anyone has made, let's discuss them in a constructive manner, instead of saying "oh, this was wrong" or complaining to others. How are we supposed to move the league forward if we don't find ways to improve what we are doing currently?

As you maybe noticed, team Brazil has recently registered a representative for its team. Brazil would certainly be an excellent candidate team for an enlarged Season 2. I think we could/should start thinking of some mini-tournament and/or friendly match program for prospective future participants.

At the very beginning, Phoenix Scorpion (MCCRH) chose this picture to represent the Live World League as its logo: This image was infact re-used from the cover image of "International Chess Live", a chess phone app, available on Microsof Store: "With International Chess Live you can follow live transmissions of international chess tournaments on your phone. Follow all important chess tournaments live, or replay the completed games." Many amongst us will certainly feel sentimentally bound to this logo, but this doesn't mean the idea of an alternative logo can't be conceived, especially if it were a direct evolution of the latter. In other words I think new, creative solutions would be at this moment very welcome. And this is the thread where to start posting them. (large version: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/international-chess-live/9nblggh0dbcj#)

I'll move this discussion here, as it makes it easier to explain my process for this. First of all, the relevant rules to this: 3.f.) If a player’s account is closed after the match is completed, then the player will be subject to a penalty under 3.h. 3.h.) The penalty for 3.f. and 3.g. will be the amendment of the match score as if the player lost both games, even if this affects the match points awarded. If both players on a board are subject to penalty, the board score will be declared as 1-1, and the match score amended as appropriate. 3.i.) Match score adjustments will be made at the end of each round for all matches, before the next round pairings are made. As far as I am concerned, 3.f. and 3.h. are clear enough for there to be no ambiguity. For 3.i., some people have thought that it means that match adjustments are made only at the end of the round, and not during the season. I have always interpreted this rule so that every match (including previous rounds) are re-checked to make sure that cheating is punished appropriately (the "for all matches" is intended to mean this; nowhere is a cut-off for adjustments mentioned). If this also happens to change the match result (as in Spain-CZE Rd.1), then so be it. Please also do note that this is exactly the same process that is made in the swiss divisions in the Daily WL (which I double checked with their admins before adding it here). If we only amended results at the end of the round, then for a match that falls on a Sunday, any blatant cheating that takes a day or two to process by Chess.com staff will go un-punished, and this is not what I want. I am checking the close matches for adjustments before each round to look for adjustments to be made (as those are the matches that are likely to cause a result to be changed and so affect the pairings), and less often I am checking every match (I did this at the end of round 3). Should a closed account be re-opened, then the adjustment will be reversed. As for group admins finding cheaters, if you do find anyone suspicious, report them to Chess.com staff and let them look more into it. Hopefully I've covered everything

Hi and a big welcome to everyone I found it better if we discuss here rather than notes Easier to track everyone's opinion

For Team Russia vs Team Italia, the match just wouldn't open! Some for other team members. This is the link to the match: https://www.chess.com/live#tm=545 Anybody had the same problem? I kept clicking to go to the page of the match (see address bar), but Chess.com remained frozen on the list of the upcoming tournaments (as per screenshot above). Result: I couldn't register, play, etc... same for a few other members. I had no problem in opening Tournament tabs, only Match Tabs. I tried with another browser, I refreshed the page several times, I restarted my computer, but the situation remained unchanged until the match started.

This is a message I just received from Thomas; probably you all received the same message as well:ThomasjEvans wrote:I need your help regarding making a decision regarding the Czech Republic-Venezuela match: https://www.chess.com/.../lcwl-round-2-czech-republic-team-vs-venezuela-team-match-negotiation-threadI am not sure whether to award a forfeit win to Czech Republic, or a double forfeit loss.It seems that to me, CZE have not made sufficient effort to arrange the game beforehand (they say that Venezuela may not have got 4 players, but given they got 2 in 15 minutes, getting 4 in an hour is not unlikely).I have no doubt that CZE were more active, but the question I am asking is were they active enough?I await your opinion on this.Thanks,ThomasJEvansPost scriptum:I also have the option of awarding a 0.5-0 forfeit, which I may choose to do if it is felt that the blame lies on both teams, but less so to Czech Republic. This may be the fairest option not to award CZE the full forfeit win.And this is my answer to Thomas:bumiputra (7 min ago) wrote:I read their thread now. I thought we would not be using those after all...But I digress...About the present situation, I think we must try asking Teams to arrange unplayed Matches anyway...I would then consider the unplayed match as a (temporary) draw for the pairings and a double 0 for standings.When a team doesn't get enough players online at the set time, this should be a forfeit... but the case was very particular, so I would follow the line above:have the match replayed any time the teams think it is conveninet and consider it a draw (0,5/0,5) for pairing pourposes and a 0/0 for standings (until the match isn't played).I also insist we should include SPECIFIC arrangements for Match Creation in our match negotiations format. Meaning: team representatives should agree about a time to play but also about a time to meet in order to create the match. Also, match creation should be dealt with the day before the match!