LCML Season 1 - Rules of Play

LCML SEASON 1

RULES OF PLAY

1. Pairings are announced by the Tournament Director (TD) in the home page of the LCML site and published in the tournament page. As soon as pairings are published in the tournament page, team captains shall contact their opponent captain and negotiate the date/time of their match. The date of the match must be set within the published deadline. Derogation to this rule can be asked by captains upon valid motivation.
2. Captains shall launch the challenge as soon as the system allows for doing it, i.e. not earlier than 7 days from the foreseen date of the match (see https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/how-to-launch-a-challenge-a-tutorial for details). When the challenge is accepted, the captain who launched the challenge shall post a note on the tournament page containing the link to the match.
3. Matches shall be named as “LCML S1 Rn Team A vs Team B” where n is the number of the Round (1 for the first round, 2 for the second, etc.); time control shall be 10+5 (10|5), that means 10 minutes per game + 5 seconds per move; a different time control can be agreed between teams, provided it is >=10 min.; all other parameters (game type, rating, players per group) must be left at their default values.
4. If a team (say Team A) does not respond to the challenge launched by the opponent team (say Team B), then the captain of Team B shall inform the Tournament Director of this fact before the deadline. The Tournament Director will try and contact the captain of Team A to have explanations. In case of no response in due time, Team B will win the match by forfeit, getting 1 match point and 10 game points. If no claim is issued and the match is not launched at the deadline, both teams will loose the match by forfeit (0 match points, 0 game points for both teams).
5. Games are played over an unlimited number of chessboards. At the start of the match, both teams shall have at least 5 players ready to play. If a team deploys less than 5 players, that team will loose the match by forfeit (0 match points), but games shall be played anyway, since game points remain valid (*).

(*) For example, if Team A deploys 4 players and Team B deploys 7 players, then the match will be played over 4 chessboards; suppose Team A wins 5 to 3, then Team A gets 0 match points and 5 game points, Team B gets 1 match point and 3 game points.

6. IMPORTANT If the match starts with less than 5 players, due to the fact that a single team deployed less than 5 players, the team that brought more than 5 players shall provide evidence of this fact. The easier way to do so, is to take a screen shot of the list of players before the game starts. No derogation to this rule is possible. Failing to provide evidence of the number of players ready to play can cause the application of rule 5 also to the team that deployed more than 5 players.
7. Standings are made considering, in order: 1) match points; 2) game points; 3) won games minus lost games; 4) direct match.
8. After Day 1, teams will be divided in two Divisions: Div.A will be formed by the teams of the first half of the standings, Div.B by the teams of the second half of the standings. From Day 2 on, the two Divisions will play two separate round robin tournaments. At the end of the two tournaments, the winner of Div.B and the first three teams of Div.A will play a new round robin tournament to elect the winner of LCML S1.

It is perhaps important to say here that general LCML Regulations are valid unless there is a different rule appointed for a specific season > https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/lcml-regulations

Yes, you are right, I will amend the general regulations accordingly. Thank you.

One important point on 5.

If 1 team brings enough boards but other don't it really don't make much sense that board points are counted only on played boards, but just like in case of unplayed forfeit (where it is counted as 2-0 on each unplayed board) team that brought enough players should be given 2-0 for every missing board.

On the same example from above:

- if Team A deploys 4 players and Team B deploys 7 players, then the match will be played over 4 chessboards; suppose Team A wins 5 to 3, then Team A gets 0 match points and 5 game points, Team B gets 1 match point and 3 game points.

Team B should be given 2 extra board points for that one missing board from Team A, so the final score would be 5-5 in board points and forfeit win for Team B since Team A failed to reach minimum participants.

I mean, if we have board points as a tie-breaker and not only for statistical purposes, it is very important to count the points properly, as explained above. Otherwise it makes little sense to count 10-0 if one team provides 5 boards and other 1 or none, 0-0 would make more sense if the same principle of actual result is used (which does really not make much sense).

yes, Rules 5 and 6 will be changed and operating from Day 2 on.