ECL RULES 2017

European Cities League (ECL) Rules (2017)

The European CITIES League (ECL) is a team match tournament between european city teams on chess.com.  For all world cities there is the World Cities League (WCL). The main purpose is to give a chance to players to play against people from other cities in friendly competition.  All players are asked to choose one team to play for at the beginning of the year.

One single team per CITY is invited to this tournament. The best ranked ones on the team match leaderboard are invited in first hand.

All teams should mention a city in their name. If a regional team is registered first then no other city in this region can participate. A single city inside a regional team can replace the region team when the city team has at least a year of formation and at least the 1/3 of the members of the regional one.

The teams are allowed and encouraged to insert following text into their profile description: This team represents <City name>  in the European Cities League.”  and to copy these rules into the team forums, so that all participants are aware of them.

Thanks to yneves for implementing this great website!: http://chessleagues.com/

- League should be played out on an annual basis

- A group of at least 10 members can access the league on Division 3. Exceptionnaly a new team can access directly on Division 2 if a month before the tournament starts the power of the new team is higher than the average power of the teams already on Division 2.

- The power of each team is counted as follow: Average rating + # of members + 10 points for each Division (teams on Div. 1 +40 points).

- The minimum number of players required per match in order to be valid is:

for Division 1: 15 players (WCL), 12 players (ECL)

for Division 2: 12 players (WCL), 10 players (ECL)

for Division 3:   7 players (WCL), 6 players (ECL)

for Division 4:   5 players (WCL)

- In case that a match starts with less players for one or both teams, the opposing team needs to report a screenshot of a match dated from before of the start in order to receive extra board points for the missing games (ex. if 2 players are missing from team A, team B starts with +4 points). In order to start a match with less players each team would just “lock” their players and then the match could be started.

(older rule 2016)

- The minimum number of players allowed per game in order to be valid:

Division 1: 12 players

Division 2: 10 players

Division 3:   6 players for the preliminary rounds of Phase 1 and  8 players in case of Phase 2.

Note: Players: 4+ or 6+ or 8+ (be aware that the min. players without handicap are 6+ or 10+ or 12+) depending on the Division. This is about how to fill the minimum required players to start a match even with the handicap of missing players. If a team wish to claim extra points for the missing players of the opponent team, it must send a printscreen taken before the match starts.

- In case a match starts with less players for a team, the opponent team starts the match with extra winning points for the missing games (ex. if 2 players are missing from team A, team B starts with +4points).

- Vacation are allowed, with the recommendation that it uses as little possible

- Time to challenge the group is 7-10 days, then the group must be locked. All teams must have locked their teams at the latest by official start date of the round. If not locked after a last call anouncement, it will be penalized according to already established rules. In case of a mutual decision to postpone a match, the last date for the postoned matches is August 31.
If two teams play in the same division for both WCL and ECL they should play double match except those cases when both teams agreed to play separate matches.

- Teams on the left side should send a challenge, but also teams from the right side can do that for them, if they have not received any challenge.

For Divisions 3 and eventually 4, the s. admin announces the groups depending on the number of the teams.

3  top teams of DIVISION 2 move up to the 1st DIVISION.

3 teams at the bottom of DIVISION 1 move down to the 2nd DIVISION.

4 top teams of DIVISION 3 move up to the 2nd DIVISION.

4 teams at the bottom of DIVISION 2 move down to the 3rd DIVISION.

- If the teams in the group equal to the number of points we would apply the elimination system:

1) Who has more team victories

2) the result between the teams and if it is a draw then,

3) Who has more individual victories (in first 12 tables with all teams in the group - 24 victories maximum) - no 1 elimination system in case of nock out match

4) Who has more individual victories with black pieces (in first 12 tables with all teams in the group - 12 victories maximum) - no 2 elimination system in case of nock out match

5) Who has more individual victories with black pieces (in all tables except the 5 last tables) no 2 elimination system in case of nock out match

All matches which had not be finished on the sheduled day (60 days after the match has started or on the cutoff day if one) and a player get more than 3-point advantage on his opponent, he would win. With only 3 points advantage or less the match would be declared a draw.

- If a player is kicked out for cheating  or acount closed by Chess. com or multi-player, all of its matches will be declared as lost but his team will not be further penalized. However, a game lost by time won't gain a point.

- The annual tournaments start no later than February 1st of each year.

- One player will not be able to play for two different teams in the league for the same year, but he can belong to several teams and play other games. If such case occurs in 2 or more WCL/ECL matches for each of 2 or more teams, all of its games will be declared as lost. However, a game lost by time won't gain a point.

From 2017 - A foreign country flag (including the international flag) can not be more than 25% on every 12 boards and in total. All of extra foreign flags games will be declared as lost, but their team will not be further penalized. However, a game lost on time won't gain a point. Boards that will be considered as extra foreign flags are even numbers of foreign flags in match (the second, the fourth, the sixth etc.). Exceptions are regions within a country recognized by UN (UK and England, Spain and Catalonia etc.). Additional exceptions from this rules can be granted on request at the annually start of the tournament by the WCL board and are published in a list in the appendix to the WCL rules.

Exception for 2017: Sevastopol runs with Ukraine and Russia flags, Pristhina runs with Kosovo ans Albania flags.

- Scoring system is W: 3; D: 2; L: 1; who not accept the challenge or not send a challenge (-1); who accepted the challenge but did not get enough players to start the match (0). The opponent of the team that does not accept a challenge or does not have the required number of players gets 3 points.

- New round in the main groups stage will begin every 1 to 4 weeks. The teams are allowed to - but not forced to - start the matches earlier than scheduled. Matches are also allowed to start later than scheduled if published on the round start time on the appropriate forum, but all matches must been started before 31st of August 2017. If two teams play in the same division for both WCL and ECL they should play double match except those cases when both teams agreed to play separate matches.

- Before teams lock their rosters are team admins allowed to remove any player from their team or the match who has a 20% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or is suspected or detected multi-team-player. The removed players can not be though more than 10% of the total players (can be removed the 10th, the 20th and the 21th and so on. Can not be removed the 9th or the 19th as second removed). If more removed players, all of extra removed players will be declared as not played and the opponent team gets +2 points.

All challenges must be filled out as follows:

- Match name: ECL2016 R1: Team 1 vs Team 2: Example ECL2016 R1: Moscow vs Paris

- Starting Position: Standard chess

- Starting position: Standard starting position

- Days per move: 3

- Rating range: Open

- Players: 4+ or 6+ or 8+ (be aware that the min. players without handicap are 6+ or 10+ or 12+) depending on the Division. This is about how to fill the minimum required players to start a match even with the handicap of missing players. If a team wish to claim extra points for the missing players of the opponent team, it must send a printscreen taken before the match starts.

- Concurrent games per opponent: 2

- Auto Start: No, or on a specific date and not later than August 31.

- Rated: Yes

Adjustements on the rules may published on the group's forums.

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

All participating city teams agree with these rules.

GOOD GAMES!

OK.

Let's start the discussion

The rules are in a bad state, reeking with spelling, grammar and other sorts of mistakes even besides logics.

You need to start with giving the text to someone who knows English well enough.

Thanks Marignon once more for your good faith remarks and for non stop by sending your comments. You prove that you really care about the cities tournaments. Please suggest a specific improvement, linguistic or other.

You should remember that I have suggested lots of them - to no positive outcome. I am tired now.

Just one of tens other grammar and spelling issues:

All teams should mentionne a city in their name.

Of course, the right English spelling is:
All teams should mention a city in their name.

thx

"Players: 6+ or 8+ or 10+ or 12+ depending on the Division." is contradictory with "In case a match starts with less players for a team, the opponent team starts the match with extra winning points for the missing games (ex. if 2 players are missing from team A, team B starts with +4points)." Because with those number set as minimum, such cases can not even happen. Instead, I suggest > 3+ (4+), 5+ and 6+, because 1+ don't have much sense, this way maches would be still competitive, at least for a draw. One more thing, 6+ (8+) or 10+ or 12+ should be clearly stated in match Quick Description box. This way, we can prevent cases that opponents are not aware that 6+ is not necessary minimum by the rules, but only the minimum for starting the match with handicap.

Also, I must express the compliments for inserting this rule, it is much better than current WCL rule where some teams have big problems to start matches.

Another proposal, instead of making potential problems with locking of the squads, we can simply use set Start date and time.

I don't quite understand this "Intl flag counts as a foreign flag. Flags playing separetely on EL or WL are different flags" - is Intl flag, playing only for one national team, counted as domestic flag? As this is Cities and not Countries competition, we can also add here that name of the corresponding city in players profile is also counted as domestic flag, no matter if the actual flag is Intl or even from another country.

Also "25% in every 10 tables" is a nice improvement! However, in cases of big matches (with 2,3,4,...x10 boards) it is almost the same as 20% so maybe it is nice to say so? And in cases of small matches (let's say on 11, 12, 13 boards) this formulation is really not enough. Better would be 25% in every 10 boards and in total. For example, if team don't have any foreign flag in first 10 boards, there would be nothing wrong to have 3 foreign flags in last 3 boards (in 13 boards match), and with current rule it is not possible, because in second ten boards, number of foreign flags is 3 (more than 25%).

Regarding this foreign flags rule, "Will be considered as extra flag player the second, the fourth, the sixth etc." is both not defined well nor satisfactory. Extra flags are extra flags, there is no need for additional explanations. If 2/10 is allowed, 3 of them are not according to the rules. And team with extra flag must be punished if opponents want so. So, you can simply remove points from any 1 of those 3 boards, in which foreign player actually won most points (if 2 or all 3 won the same number of points, it really doesn't matter which one you will choose).

And sinse this is a principle question, so it maybe requires a real debate and/or voting process, I left this for the end.

"all of its matches will be declared as not played if he won them and lost if he lost or draw, but his team will not be further penalized. However, a game lost by time won't gain a point" I'm sure that many competing admins don't like this version of recalculations in case of a closed accounts. It can be made much simpler and more fair.

I see that the same reasoning is used also for multiplayers and extra foreign flags, and probably in those two cases it have some justifications.

But for closed accounts, it would be much better to simply say that all of its matches will be declared as lost, but his team will not be further penalized. There is absolutely no need to award closed accounts with not counting games that they've won, or to award them with not counting points for their opponent if he timed-out. First is really obvious I think, and the second is best and easiest way having in mind problems with vacation activation for non-premium members.

P.S. I've just realized that in case of extra foreign flags, 1,5-0,5 will be recalculated as 0-1, and 1-1 with two draws as 0-2, but 1-1 without a draw is still 0-1. Am I right? I really don't think this is good. Why we want to award victories of players who shouldn't be playing that games at all? You may just then use the same "all of its matches will be declared as lost, but his team will not be further penalized" also for multiplayers and extra foreign flags, and in those two cases as compromise (although it just complicates things unnecessarily from my point of view) you can also add "However, a game lost by time won't gain a point"

- Before teams lock their rosters are team admins allowed to remove any player from their team or the match who has a 20% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or is suspected or detected multi-team-player. 

A. The removed players can not be though more than 10% of the total players (can be removed the 10th, the 20th and the 21th and so on. Can not be removed the 9th or the 19th as second removed). 

1. There is no way to control this.

2. If hypothetically several players are closed or already play for another team, that rule would not allow removing them.

This needs to be removed from rules.

B
If more removed players, all of extra removed players will be declared as not played and the opponent team gets +2 points.

It is impossible to declare not played something that was not played.

Should be stated:
If other players are removed the opponent team gets +2 points for each removed player.

C. any player who has 20% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or is suspected or detected multi-team-player

1. suspected multi-team-player - what is it? one can suspect anyone.

2. no mention of extra flags.

Should be stated:
any player who has 20% or greater timeout percentage, or whose account is closed, or a multi-team-player or who is a foreign flagholder above 2 per 10 boards.

- A foreign country flag (Intl flag counts as a foreign flag. Flags playing separetely on EL or WL are different flags) can not be more than 25% in every 10 tables.

What would that give? 2,5 player per 10 boards? How can you imagine a half-player?!

It should be 2 players per 10 boards. 

Yes, Marignon, I wanted to comment about this (#7) also, but forgot.

Other pieces of text that need to be removed:

- Vacation are allowed, with the recommendation that it uses as little possible

You cannot control this

Thanks to yneves for implementing this great website!: http://chessleagues.com/

He does not help this league anyhow.

It would make sense in a team match with more than 10 but less than 20 players, but with a small addition to the rule (#6). Also in 20-30 match and so on, but with a smaller impact (only on the last part of the squad, with less then a 10 bottom players)

- Time to challenge the group is 7-10 days, then the group must be locked. All teams must have locked their teams at the latest by official start date of the round. If not locked after a last call anouncement, it will be penalized according to already established rules.

- Teams on the left side should send a challenge, but also teams from the right side can do that for them, if they have not received any challenge.

It is redundant. Any team can send a challenge.

Also fixed match dates should be used instead of locking.

From notes:

• taking into account too many games it would be better to have double matches as a Rule, therefor if the same 2 teams play in same divisions in both tournaments they should play only combined match except those cases where both Teams agree to play 2 separate matches

  by adriano81 17 hours ago

• Or at least more time between them, not like this, ECL will start immediately after WCL first round finished with opening of the matches. There is also another option, to pay special attention which teams have played in WCL before and include their meetings for later rounds. OK postponements are acceptable, but ONLY if both teams agree, and it is not the best way to deal with this.

  by Phoenix_Scorpion 18 hours ago Delete

• also this tournament really makes calendar of City Teams overloaded. Most games in WCL already played. how we can negotiate double matches then? Both tournaments should be more or less simultaneous like WL and EL

  by adriano81 18 hours ago

25% in every 12 boards and in total is indeed a necessary clarification.

Stefan, considering this one

- The minimum number of players allowed per game in order to be valid:

Division 1: 12 players

Division 2: 10 players

Division 3:   6 players for the preliminary rounds of Phase 1 and  8 players in case of Phase 2.

I doubt we can start the match with less boards, cause if we set 10 as a minimum (for example in Div 2) we cannot start with 7, 8 etc players

How we should deal with this?

@Anastasakis hope this clarification will be taking into account

if two teams plays in the same division for both WCL and ECL they should play double match except those cases when both teams agreed to play separate matches

I think it's very vital to avoid huge overloading for Teams taking part in both competitions, otherwise we may receive some quits due to given above reason

"if two teams plays in the same division for both WCL and ECL they should play double match except those cases when both teams agreed to play separate matches"

There is a point in the above suggestion. It can be added to the rules. Is there any other opinion on that?

There is a huge question concerning double matches in the current season. 

For example: https://www.chess.com/groups/team_match?id=609362

Will Athens ask to play another match or accept the result?

Bland_Joe, 3 players in 12 boards. How is this too much? OK, if opponents misuse this fact and register 3 foreign flags in top 3 boards, that wouldn't be very nice, but again, big cities (playing in Div 1) shouldn''t have problems with this because their matches are played on big number of boards.

However, I believe there is still a place for changing this. Is 2 foreign players in 10 boards better in view of Budapest? Similar thing was asked by Marignon earlier, and me. This current rule proposal was decided only by Anastasakis.