Chess Rulebook

1. 1. Season Format: The season format is determined by the number of participating teams:
      1. For less than 32 teams:
         • Regular season (a 7-week Swiss team tournament)
         • The Top 24 teams qualify for a single elimination playoff with the top 8 teams receiving a first round BYE
      2. For more than 32 teams:
         • Teams are divided into Divisions of 16 teams based on strength, location, and timezone.
         • Each division is further split into two groups of 8 based on similar criteria.
         • Within each group, teams play a 7 week Round Robin.
         • Top 2 teams of each group qualify directly for quarterfinals. Teams 3 through 6 of each group qualify for wildcard weekend determining the other 4 teams of quarterfinals. (A3 - B6, A4 - B5, B3 - A6, B4 - A5). Teams placing 7th and 8th after regular season are eliminated. Quarterfinal qualifying teams are ordered based on their regular season standings and paired up as following: 1v8, 4v5, 2v7, 3v6. Semifinals are determined by the winner of the first two quarterfinals and the winners of the last two quarterfinals.
   2. Time Control:
      • Corporate: Time control for each game for each player is 7min + 2 sec increment per move
      • Collegiate: Time control for each game for each player is 5min + 2 sec increment per move
   3. Point System / Tiebreaks
      • A match between two team consists for 16 games played (see III. Match Rules)
      • Each win of a game will give the winning team 1 board point.
      • A draw of a game will give both teams ½ board points.
      • Once all games are played, the team with the larger amount of board points will receive 2 match point. In the case of teams achieving a tied board score during their match, both teams will receive 1 match point.
      • For standings, the following tiebreak order is used:
        1. Match points
        2. Board points
        3. Buchholz
        4. Avg. team rating
   4. If a company fields multiple teams, intercompany matches are avoided as much as possible for the first 3 rounds but not guaranteed.

1. Roster submission: Team captains are required to submit a match roster of 4 players participating in the match by Thursday 6pm Pacific Time.

2. Match format: A match between two teams is run in the Scheveningen system in which every player of one team players every player of the opposing team.
   For Team A and Team B with each players 1-4 this results in following games in which the first named player will receive the white pieces:
   Round 1: B4-A1 B3-A2 A3-B2 A4-B1
   Round 2: A1-B3 A2-B4 B1-A3 B2-A4
   Round 3: B2-A1 B1-A2 A3-B4 A4-B3
   Round 4: A1-B1 A2-B2 B3-A3 B4-A4

3. The player with the white pieces is required to send their opponent a challenge (see VI.3 Match Challenge).

4. A team has a 15 min grace period from the scheduled match time to arrive for a match. If a team does not arrive within this grace period, the match will be counted as forfeited and the offending team will receive a warning.

5. Players are given a minimum break of 2 minutes and a maximum break of 5 minutes between games.

1. Anti-Cheat
   • The tournament directors reserve the right to require individual players to use an external camera during their matches, if the league feels it is warranted.
   • A cheating committee will be formed, and made up of several members. This Committee holds final authority over Fair Play discretion.
   • The league reserves the right to change results of the match due to any violations of Fair Play Policy.
   • Appeal process:
     If a player raises suspicions of their opponent violating fair-play regulations, that player can do so by contacting the Tournament Directors no less than 12 hours after the match is played. The Tournament Directors will investigate the violation claims and act according to the findings. Players that raise concerns against one of their opponents maliciously or without any supportive argument may receive a warning themselves based on the discretion of the Tournament Directors.
2. Penalties & Misconduct
   
   • Late lineup submission
     • Team captains are required to submit a match roster of their 4 players participating in the next match by Thursday 6pm Pacific Time. Late submissions will be penalized by 1 boardpoint for the upcoming match.
     • Failure to submit a lineup at least 2 hours before the match will be counted as forfeit and the team will receive a warning.
   • Lineup changes: Lineup changes after a lineup was submitted will result in a 1 board point penalty.
     
   • No-show: If a team does not show up for their scheduled match without notifying the other team of their forfeit (See general CEA rules for forfeiting), the match will be counted as forfeited and the offending team will receive warning.
     
   • Cheating: If the Tournament Directors detect a player cheating in the event, the player will be disqualified resulting in losses of all previous games played by this player. Previous rounds will be adjusted accordingly at the time of cheat detection. The team rostering a cheating player will receive a warning but is allowed to continue playing on if the resulting warning does not result in their third team warning. The violating player will not be allowed to participate in any current and future CEA organized tournaments.
   • Team warning: A team is disqualified from the tournament if it accumulates three warnings over the duration of the tournament.

• Each week, one or more matches will be selected for live broadcasting.
• Matches will be broadcasted on twitch.tv/cea_chess and twitch.tv/chess
• The Tournament Organizers will decide which weekly match will be broadcasted during the week leading up to the match and will coordinate with team captains accordingly.
• Games that are broadcasted might be asked to reschedule to a non-default time in order to maximize broadcast exposure through partnering platforms.

1. Tournament Direction

• Any kind of CEA communication to captains/teams, reschedule/forfeit reporting, and technical support will happen through CEA’s discord server.
• CEA Game Leads and Tournament Directors will be present during the matches to support any kind of technical issues and questions.

• Disconnection: If a player disconnects during their game, the game continues as is with clocks running. A player that disconnects is allowed to contact the tournament organizers to request a delay for any future games of a given match. Such a delay cannot exceed 10 minutes and has to be granted explicitly by the tournament organizers.

This section will grow with more technical information and FAQ until the start of the tournament.

Any national ratings will be converted by the Tournament Direction into USCF ratings which will be used as tournament ratings. Such ratings are only used for pairings and team order purposes. The tournament itself is not rated with FIDE or any national rating system.

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