1st Annual World Cities Open Swiss

Here you will find information regarding the 1st Annual World Cities Open Swiss Tournament.

THE RULES:

A. Participation

To participate a team should meet the folllowing criteria:

a) Its name or Location field in the Settings should clearly state which city it represents. 

b) Meet the requirements to the minimum number of players per match.

B. Tournament Format

The tournament played by the Swiss system in 8 rounds. 12 leading reams of the tournament will form the WCT Division 1 and play a round-robin the next year.

C. Schedule

The rounds are started each month from end of April till beginning of November at the distance of 3-4 weeks. The exact shedule of games with deadlines a) to accept the challenges (i.e. Challenge Date) b) to start matches (i.e. Start date) will be published at the  season start. 

Swiss pairing principles 

1. The pairing for the new round takes place at the date when the schedule for the new round is published. The following criteria are taken into account for pairing:

a) Provisional team score for the date of pairing. Recalculation for the closed accounts is applied. If the score difference is 2 points and less, the match is considered drawn. 

b) Provisional Buchholz coefficient (sum of team scores of all opponent teams)

c) Power (nb of players + average rating)

The procedure of pairing is transparent. The provisional team scores and additional criteria (if needed) are published together with the schedule

2.  In general, teams are paired to others with the same team score. 

3. Pairing for the first round
The Team's list is arranged by Power and divided into two equal parts: The teams from the upper part of the list are placed on the left and those from the lower part, on the right. 

The first player from the left-hand list plays the first player from the right-hand list, the second plays the second, etc.

4. Pairing procedure for the remaining rounds. 

Teams are divided into groups based on their provisional team score from highest to lowest. Each group including an even number of teams. 

Within the score group teams are arranged by Buchholtz and Power and their pairing proceeds as above (#3). 

The priority is to pair all teams within their score group.

5. If the number of teams of the score group is odd, a team from the next possible lower score group shall be transferred to the score group to be paired, who has not yet played with at least one of the players of the higher score group.

If there is a choice, then the team with the highest Power is to be transferred.

6. Exempt: In rounds 1, 2, 3 any participating teams also scheduled to play each other in WCL playoffs or CWC Participation round will be also forced-paired to play each other in WCOS to avoid excess match load.
The player eligibility issues in these matches will be ruled by the provisions of WCL or CWC correspondingly.
The recalculations and final results for the purposes of WCOS will be defined by the rules of WCOS. 

D. Matches.

 Match name: 2015 WCL R(n): Team 1 vs Team 2

 Starting Position: Standard

 Days per move: 3

 Rating range: Open

 Min Players: 5

 Concurrent games per opponent: 2

 Auto Start: Yes (Match start date)

 Rated: Yes

All challenges should be sent and accepted within 48 hours from the Challenge date of the round.

All admins must lock their teams at latest by the Start date of the round. 

If a team has issued a challenge, but it was not accepted on time the team admin should

 a) try to contact the admin of the opposite team, and if unanswered;

 b) post a link to the challenge or the match in the dedicated Match Problems topic.

 The matter will be adressed by the TD to establish the reason of the delay and to start the match as soon as possible to the interest of the league and both teams. If a team cannot play temporarily for an excusable reason, the match can be rescheduled. 

G. Fairplay

If a player account is closed by Chess.com, all of his matches will be declared lost. 

One player is not able to play for two different teams in the league for the same year (but can belong to several teams and play other matches for them). If such case occurs in a match, all wins and draws scored by that player will be subtracted from match score.

In any league match it is not allowed to have more than no more than 1 foreign flag in the first 10 tables and 2 foreign flagged players for every following 10 tables in the match.  If such case occurs in a match, all wins and draws of extra non-flagholders will be subtracted from match score.

 The players that have the corresponding city name indicated in their profile do not count as non-flags even if they have flags of other countries.

 A team admin is obliged to check his squad and remove all extra players with a foreign country flag.

 If an admin sees that his opponent team has:

 a) extra  players with a foreign country flag,

 b) known players playing for multiple teams,

 he should  report the fact to the opponent team's admin ASAP and if the latter does not remove or explicitely refuses to remove them, report the issue in the Match Problems topic.

 Under no circumstaces shall admins discourage low rated players to join their Team or remove any players, especially low rated, from their roster - unless they have a foreign country flag or already play for other League teams, or have above 25% of timeouts. 

 The team admins shall inform their teammates about the rules content, especially in what concerns the fairplay rules.

H. Disputes and claims

Any disputes and claims connected to the above rules, their application, match results, player eligibility, any decisions of the TD, and other issues in connection with this tournament should be ruled by the Referee Committee basing on the rules above, best practices and common sence. Its ruling shall be final and definite both for the TD and the participants.  

THE TEAMS:

World Cities Open Swiss