EL2014 - TOURNAMENT SETUP AND RULES (proposal)

Hereby announce proposal for setup and rules for EL2014. The proposal is open for review untill 19th of December. Any changes meanwhile will be separately announced. A summary of the most notable changes compared to EL2013 is found by the end of this post.

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EL2014 - Tournament Setup and Rules (proposal)
(J.Palmaer, updated 2014-11-28)

The European League (EL) is the league of European countries and nationalities playing team match tournament on Chess.com. Teams battle it out in fierce competition to determine the European League Champion for each year. The league is arranged by the European Chess Federation.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

Tournament schedule: The tournament starts by 6th of January 2014, and finish at cutoff by 31st of December 2014.

European country and national teams are divided into five divisions according to final outcome and rules of EL2013.

Teams for Division 1 to 3: 12 teams per divisions 
Teams for Division 4: 8 teams. 
Teams for Division 5: all other teams

Tournament format: Round-Robin with 11 rounds in Division 1-3, and 7 rounds in Division 4. No matches are arranged for Division 5, where improvements on TM leaderboard instead will be tracked and the basis for promotion.

Schedule:

R1+R2  January     /            R8    May
R3+R4  February    /            R9    June
R5+R6  March        /            R10  August
R7  April                  /            R11  September

Division 1-3 is playing R1-R11. 
Division 4 is playing R1, R3, R5, R7, R8-R10

TEAM MATCH SETTINGS

The teams are allowed to - but not forced to - start the games earlier than scheduled. Matches are also allowed to start later than scheduled, but all matches must been started before 31^st of October 2014.

All challenges must be filled out exactly as follows:

Match Name: EL2014 Rx Team ... vs Team .... 
Example: EL2014 R1: Team Russia vs Team England

Game Type: Standard chess
Starting Position: Standard Starting Position
Days per Move: 3 
Quick Description: leave blank
Rating: Min / Max: leave blank
Minimum Games: 5
Players per Team:

Min:

- Division 1: 50 players per team

- Division 2: 30 players per team

- Division 3 and 4: 10 players per team

Max: leave blank

Concurrent games per Opponent: 2

Start Time: the date must always be set by the earliest two (2) weeks and latest four (4) weeks from the date when created.

Auto Start: leave blank, do not select
Games are rated: select yes

SCORING, PENALTIES, AND TIE-BREAKS

Scoring System: Clear win = 2 scores, Tied = 1 score, Clear loss = 0 score. A match is counted as a clear win only if the team gets at least 3 points or more in the match against their opponent. The team losing such a match has a clear loss. Other matches with no clear wins are counted as tied.

Team match scores will be adjusted for all closed accounts and disqualified multi-team-players. If one player's account is closed or is a multi-team-player, s/he will lose both games by disqualification. If both players are disqualified, the points will be split 0:0 regardless of the actual result. However, opposing time-outing player won’t gain any points.

Tie-breaks: Based on the share of won games (in percentage) and the share of completeness. Unfinished games in the matches are counted as tied till they are finished.
 

PROMOTION FOR EL2015

2 top teams in Division 2 to 4 moves up to the mediate superior Division.
4 bottom teams in Division 1 to 3 moves down to the mediate lower Division.
2 bottom teams in Division 4 moves down to Division 5
2 best improving teams on TM leaderboard in Division 5 moves up to Division 4.

Any new or disqualified teams go to/stay in Division 5.

GENERAL RULES

Teams and players are allowed to participate in the tourney, as long as they follow these rules:

1.    One single team per European country or nationality is invited to this tournament. The best ranked ones on the team match leaderboard are invited in first hand. However, teams that been promoted to mediate superior divisions or stay in divisions are guaranteed to represent their country or nationality also for the next season. Country or nationality names and flags must be applied to the team profiles.

2.    The teams are allowed and encouraged to insert following text into their profile description: “This team represent [country or nationality name] in the European League.”, and to copy these rules into the team forums, so that all participants are aware of them.

3.  At least one (1) team admin per team are encouraged to join the dedicated tournament forum for the season in order to receive all relevant info.

4.   When creating team matches, should game settings be applied according to the general match settings (see above). Warnings will be given to teams that not send or accept challenges, or not lock their rosters, or have too few participating players in the matches.

5. Before teams lock their rosters are team admins allowed to remove any player from their team or the match who has a 25% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or is suspected or detected multi-team-player.

6.   Scores and tie-breaks are given to the teams who play matches. Match results are adjusted due to closed accounts and multi-team- playing, and match results are to be accordingly adjusted.

7.  The current scoreboards and standings will be posted in the tournament forum. Team admins are encouraged to transmit this information to their team members. All figures presented before the cutoff are only preliminaries.

8.    Teams and players are encouraged to follow these rules. Teams could be warned and disqualified for this season if they repeatedly not starting matches or otherwise breaking these rules. Such team will be moved to the lowest division for next season.

9.    Team admins are encouraged to report any deviations and complaints due to these rules through the tournament forum. Any reports to be considered must be submitted before the cutoff and the week after.

10. Any changes or clarifications of these rules will be announced through the tournament forum.

SPECIAL RULES FOR MULTI-TEAM PLAYING AND CLOSED ACCOUNTS

a) Team members are allowed to join different groups and teams but they may represent and play with only ONE team in the tournament during a season. The rule in place is one player - one team - one season. It is recommended to do it for the country or nationality team corresponding to the member profile flag.

b) Team members may NOT help each other out or use any computer assistance during their individual games. Cheating is forbidden. If there is any suspected unfair play from the other side, should the team leaders report this to the tournament forum. Team leaders should not take matters into own hands.

c)  If a player repeatedly participating in matches with different teams will these teams lose ALL the individual games the player have played or is playing. And if a player’s account is closed, e.g. but not limited due to cheating, the teams the player represent will also lose the individual games the player(s) have played or playing.

TOURNAMENT FORUM

For more information, please visit the dedicated tournament forum for this season (EL2014): <link will be added when it's time to start tournament>

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SUMMARY OF CHANGES
- simplification of as many rules as possible
- best practices removed
- some alignments to Asian League and World League rules
- Certain rule changes:
   * No games will be arranged for Division 5, but we will track the teams improvement on TM leaderboard as a basis for promotion.
   * Increased minimum number of players in Division 1 and 2.
   * Increased minimum completed games required for players (5 instead of 1)
   * Start times must be specified for the matches
   * ok to remove players that frequently time-outs (>25%), cheating, or are suspected or detected multi-players before the matches starts.
   * Fewer points won (3 instead of 4) needed for making clear wins
   * More strictly rules for multi-team-playing; two warnings leads to disqualification and losing all games.
   * Time-outing players not earn any points due to playing against player with closed accounts (e.g. cheaters) or multi-team-players.
   * Exceptional promotions to EL2015, which will lead to fewer teams will play in Division 1 and more teams in Division 4 in EL2015. Make the tourney more challenging for more teams and players.

Johan thanks for posting the rules

I suggest to play in January R1 + R2, in February R3 + R4, in March R5 + R6 and in April R7 and so on

All we know that calendar for national Teams is overloaded, due to this I think after short winter holidays we could play more matches in the beginning of the year before WL and Chess960 WL starts

Hi Johan,

All changes are fine by me, good luck to all teams in 2014.

Kind regards

Andrew Argyle, Team England (Super Admin)

There seems to be a lot of work behind " scenes". I hope, you have people enough to share this job to carry out and all goes well. 

(1) "And if a player(s) were found obviously is cheating, the teams the player(s) represent will also lose the individual games the player(s) have played or playing."

Exactly what criteria will be used to determine whether a player is "obviously" cheating?  Who will make this decision, and what process will be used?  Will the automatic loss of games be retroactive to previous matches where the multi-team playing was not detected?   

(2) I have yet to see a convincing reason for why the 'Clear Win' makes this competition more fair.  In my mind it trivializes hard-fought games,* and allows the nonsensical result that a team can win every single game but still come in third.**  The proposed rule does not fix these concerns for me.  If you want to use the Clear Win rule as some sort of retroactive tie breaker, fine.***  But any win - by whatever margin - should be counted as a win for determining the initial standings.  

*For example, Israel beat Galicia and Schweiz by one point each.  The clear win rule renders the winning games irrelevant.  I find it ridiculous that the final playing Israeli (or member of the other team) could have simply resigned his game yet still received the same result for the team.    

**From the last communication we received on the subject Johan claimed the clear win rule would determine "which of Team Galicia and Team Schweiz will win Division 4."  Israel, it appears, is not in contention.  Perhaps it matters very little in this particular case because all three teams advance, but we should consider the patent unfairness of this result in a scenario where it would, in fact, prevent a team from being promoted by leaving them in 4th place.  

*** Personally, I would rather not see any tie-breakers.  We seem to have plenty of time for teams tied in the standings to simply play each other to determine a winner.  A three-way tie might push it, but ... maybe that's when all of the complicated tie-breaking nonsense should start.  

2 top teams in Division 2 to 4 moves up to the mediate superior Division.
4 bottom teams in Division 1 to 3 moves down to the mediate lower Division.

These numbers suggest that number of teams in Division is changing? Since the 11 round format is still on... something is wrong

Answer: This is promotions for El2015, not EL2014. So for EL2014 there won't be any change in the number of teams playing in Division 1-3, but in EL2015 would only 10 teams playing in Division 1, 12 in Division 2, 12 in Division 3, and 10 in Division 4. 

Sounds reasonable. I will listening if someone else have opinions about this, but otherwise I'll promote it.

As more and more getting automatized the workload is not so heavy anymore. However, some kind of tournament board would be good to have. I'll think about it, and propose something.

@shavit: I will look closer to the very situation in Division 4 in between Team Israel and Team Galicia once again. But from my point of view it sounds reasonable that a team that makes more clear wins than another team get in favour. However, I will look closer on the very situation in Division 4.

Johan what about cases when Team having less wins would stand higher than other just due to clear win rule - will it be FAIR?

Great 4 me! Thx 4 all!

I can just about understand why the clear win rule is in place for divisions 1 and 2 where there are many boards in each team but divisions 3 and 4 are likely to have many matches with only 10 boards. How about only applying the clear win rule for divisions 1 and 2?

It's no fair to give a clear win in a team match if there is an advantage of 3 or more points for ALL divisions without any difference. I don't agree the clear win rule, but at least if applied it must be according the number of boards in a team match. The advantage points for a clear win in a team match must be greater if the number of boards is bigger. It could be fixed a number for every division according the minimum number of players required.

hi Johan

I propose change in rules proposed by You

I think rules about clear wins must be rethinked

and I propose ALL wins be counted 2 points and rational deadlines be installed for particular matches to determine winners

Does anyone actually support the clear win rule?

WL  and  AL have 10 as a minimum number of games the player must finished before joining matches. We in EL 2013 have 1 instead of 10. How about here we also have 10 ?

@MoriMemento what about newcoming titled players, it's impossible to encourage them to play regular matches 

oK, that I understand.

Johan, this is just an unsupported assertion, not a counterpoint to the concerns I raised in my previous post.  Please explain why you believe it is reasonable that a team can go undefeated but still finish in third place.