WCL 2023: rules

World Cities League (WCL) Rules
(updated October 2022, changes in italics)

1. General principles

• The World Cities League (WCL) is a team match tournament between city teams on chess.com. Its main purpose is to give chess.com members the opportunity to compete with players from other cities in a friendly sphere.
• The board of the WCL consists of the admins of the chess.com group “World Cities League HQ”. All details of the league organisation not specified in the rules are under the discretion of the board. The board will let its decision be guided by the principles of inclusion (make matches happen!) and fair play.
• One single team per city is invited to the World Cities League. If there are several teams for a city, the best ranked one on the team match leaderboard is invited first.
• Region teams can participate if there are no participating teams from cities within the respective region. When conflicts between overlapping regions and cities arise, the board decides on a case-to-case basis.
• All teams should mention a city in their name. The suggested text for the team profile description is: “This team represents [city or regional name] in the World Cities League.”

2. Set-up of the league

• The WCL is played out on an annual basis, with the first round starting in November and the last round starting in July. The year of the season is the year in which the last round starts.
• The WCL consists of four divisions, with Divisions 2 and lower containing several parallel groups. The normal division size is 10 teams. Groups in Division 4 may be smaller, depending on the total number op participating teams.
  • Division 1 with 10 teams.
  • Division 2 with 20 teams in two parallel groups.
  • Division 3 with 30 teams in three parallel groups.
  • Division 4 with all remaining teams in several parallel groups.
• All (groups in) divisions play a Round Robin tournament with one round per month. The normal starting date of each round is the first Wednesday of each month.
• After the finish of each season, teams are promoted and relegated:
  • Two teams are relegated from Div. 1 to Div. 2.
  • Two teams promote from Div. 2 to Div. 1 (one per group).
  • Six teams are relegated from Div. 2 to Div. 3 (three per group).
  • Six teams promote from Div. 3 to Div. 2 (two per group).
  • Nine teams are relegated from Div. 3 to Div. 4 (three per group).
  • Nine teams promote from Div. 4 to Div. 3 (the top two from each group and one wild card selected by the WCL board).
    
• The Chess960 World Cities League (Chess 960 WCL) and the European Cities League (ECL) follow the rules of the WCL closely. They have their own formats and schedules as described in Appendix F (Chess 960 WCL) and G (ECL). Schedules are set up to complement the WCL so that city matches are ongoing throughout the full year.

3. Announcement of rounds and match challenges

• Date and time of the start of a round are announced by a news item in the WCL HQ group two weeks in advance.
• Match challenges should be issued (by either of the teams) and accepted as fast as possible, but one week before the start of the round at the latest. See Appendix A for the necessary match parameters.
• If for unforeseen reasons the match challenge is accepted later than one week before the start of the round, the match start can be delayed by one week at most (so that there remains one week for registering players). This is under the discretion of the WCL board and must be co-ordinated by message exchange.
• If a challenge is not accepted at the announced start of the round, the team that has received the challenge loses by forfeit (match result: 1 for the challenger, 0 for the challenged).
• If neither of the teams issues a challenge until the announced start of the round, both teams lose by forfeit (match points: 0 for both teams).
• If the match starts and ends regularly, match points are allocated 1-0 for the winner or ½-½ in case of a draw. The match result may be corrected for several reasons, see Sections 4-6.
• Teams are not allowed to lock their rosters before the scheduled start of the match.
• Unaccepted challenges may be cancelled after the announced start date of the round.

4. Minimum number of players

• In each division, there is a minimum number of players for each match
  • for Division 1: 20 players (WCL), 14 players (ECL), 15 players (Chess 960 WCL)
  • for Division 2: 15 players (WCL), 10 players (ECL), 10 players (Chess 960 WCL)
  • for Division 3: 10 players (WCL), 5 players (ECL), 5 players (Chess 960 WCL)
  • for Division 4: 5 players (WCL)
• A team that does not reach the player minimum at the scheduled date, loses the match by forfeit.
• A forfeit loss can be overruled if both teams agree to start the match with the required number of players later. A delayed match start may not be later than the start of the following round.
• Forfeited matches may be cancelled after the announced start date of the round.
  

5. Foreign flag players

• The flag of the country the city is located in is considered the home flag of the team.
• All players with a different flag than the home flag are considered “foreign flag players”. This also applies to the international flag.
• The number of foreign flag players is limited to 1 in each cumulative (possibly incomplete) block of 4 players (i.e. max 1 player on boards 1-4, max 2 players on boards 1-8, max 3 players on boards 1-12 etc.)
• Foreign flag players in excess of these cumulative maxima are considered irregular players and their results are corrected according to Appendix D. Foreign flag players are checked from top to bottom: The players on the highest possible boards are considered regular, the rest irregular.
• A violation of the foreign flag player rule must be claimed in the forum of the respective league/division. It is not checked automatically.
• For a number of teams additional flags are recognised as home flags. These teams and the additional home flags are listed in Appendix C.
• If a team thinks that its characteristics warrant its addition to this list of exceptions, it can send a request to the WCL board. Granting this request is under discretion of the WCL board.

6. Multi-team players

• Each player is only allowed to play for one team during one season in one league.
• A player who has played at least twice for each of more than one team is considered an irregular multi-team player and his game results are corrected according to Appendix D.

7. Match result correction for closed accounts

• If players’ accounts are closed -- either by chess.com or by the players themselves -- these players are considered irregular players and their results are corrected according to Appendix D.

8. Removal of players

• In general, admins are not allowed to remove players from the rosters of their teams.
• As an exception to the general rule, admins may remove players in the following cases:
  • Players with a timeout percentage of at least 25%.
  • Multi-team players.
  • Foreign flag players in excess of the foreign flag maximum.

9. Final results of a season

• For a season starting in November, the cut-off date for promotion and relegation is September, 30th. The match results at this cut-off date determine promotion and relegation of teams for the following season.
• The final standings of the season will be determined after all games of all matches have been finished or ultimately on December, 31st. Promotion and relegation decisions will be unaffected by this.
• The ranking of the teams both at the cut-off date as in the final standings will be determined by the following criteria in descending order:
  • Number of match points.
  • Neustadtl (Sonneborn-Berger) score.
  • Results in the direct encounters of the tied teams.
  • Total game points balance (total points scored less total points scored by the opponents in all matches).
  • Random draw.

10. Rule changes

• Rule changes appear as updates in the forum thread “WCL rules” and are announced as a group news item.
• Rule adjustments are preferably performed at the start of a season, but might also take place during the season.
• Rules can be discussed in the forum thread below.

Good luck to all teams in their matches and to all players in their games!

Appendix A: Match parameters

• Match Name: WCL[year] R[round]: first city vs. second city (for example, WCL2017 R1: Moscow vs. Zagreb)
• Game Type: Standard Chess
• Days per Move: 3 days
• Rating Range: none
• Minimum Games: 0
• Players per Club: min: differs by division, see below; max: leave free
• Concurrent Games: 2
• Start Date: [as announced by WCL board]
• Start Time: see below
• AUTO-START: off
• Games are RATED: on

Start time:

• Recommended starting time of the match is 9 AM Pacific Time.
• Deviating starting times are accepted if they are on the same calendar day.
• If teams disagree about the preferred starting time, the team on the left hand side of the pairing ("home team") may decide and formulate the challenge.

Appendix B: Team power

Wildcard granting and team allocation to the parallel groups of one division is based on past performance in the WCL or other city team competitions. If information of this sort is not available, a tentative indicator of the team strength is calculated: Average rating of the group + number of members of the group.

Appendix C: Foreign flag exceptions

• Teams of English cities (London, Bristol, Birmingham, Solihull, Hastings): British and English flags count as home flags.
• Teams of Scottish cities (Glasgow): British and Scottish flags count as home flags.
• Teams of Catalan cities (Barcelona): Spanish and Catalan flags count as home flags.
• Teams of French cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Metz, Montauban): French, Monaco and Guadeloupe flags count as home flags.
• Teams Sevastopol and Makeevka: Ukrainian and Russian flags count as home flags.
• Team Prishtina: Kosovo and Albanian flags count as home flags.
• Team Tabriz: Iranian and Azerbaijan flags count as home flags.
• Vatican City: Vatican and Italian flags count as home flags.
• Team Bijeljina: Flags of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia count as home flags.
• Province of Ulster: British and Irish flags count as home flags.

Appendix D: Match result corrections

The following players are considered “irregular players”:

• Players whose account is closed by whatever reason.
• Excess foreign flag players (see Section 5).
• Multi-team players (see Section 6).

The results of irregular players will be corrected in the following way:

• Irregular player against regular player: 0-2.
• Irregular player against irregular player: 1-1.

Appendix E (Chess960 WCL):

• The Chess960 WCL is played out on an annual basis in addition to WCL, with the first round starting in April.
• League will be played in 3 divisions
  • Division 1 with 10 teams (last 2 teams are relegated to Division 2);
  • Division 2 with 10 teams (top 2 teams are promoted to Division 1, last 4 teams are relegated to newly created Division 3 with 8+ players);
  • Division 3 all other teams in one or several parallel groups (top 1 team is promoted to Division 2, the second team is promoted to newly created Division 3 with 8+ players);
• Match Name: 960 WCL[year] R[round]: first team vs. second team (for example, 960 WCL2023 R1: Team Lviv vs. Team Zagreb)
• Minimum players: Division 1 (15+), Division 2 (10+), Division 3 (5+)
• Ultimate deadline for the season is June 30th

Appendix F (European Cities League):

F1) Set-up of the league:

• The ECL is played out on an annual basis in addition to WCL, with the first round starting in November and the last round starting in July. The year of the season is the year in which the last round starts.
• League will be played in 3 divisions in 2023:
  • Division 1 with 10 teams;
  • Division 2 in 2 parallel groups with 10 teams;
  • Division 3 in 3 parallel groups of 8 teams;
• Promotion and relegation will be managed as described here.
• Match Name: ECL[year] R[round]: first team vs. second team (for example, ECL2023 R1: Team Kyiv vs. Team Zagreb)
• Minimum players: Division 1 (14+), Division 2 (10+), Division 3 (5+)

F2) Merging of WCL and ECL matches

• If both teams play in the same division of WCL and ECL, than WCL match is counted for ECL by default too (all rounds of 2023 season will be considered).
• If both teams agree, then they can set up a separate match as per ECL schedule.
• Setting up of the match on ECL schedule with proper name is considered as agreement to play a separate match for ECL.