Rule clarifications

The various recent rule clarifications made over recent seasons (including the new amendment regarding how to deal with additional division 1 places) may be found below:-

  1. (2014) Provided BOTH players agree, the time control will be 75 minutes for the first 35 moves (as previously) followed by 15 minutes for the rest of the game (as previously) with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move 36.     Alternatively, the 30 second increment phase may start when one player’s clock completes the first 75 minutes.   If either option is taken, a full score MUSTbe kept during the second period, even during the last 5 minutes on the clock. (superseded – see 8 below)
  2. (2014) All players MUST play at least two games in their division by the end of the calendar year. Note (2015), as far as possible, these should be actual games, not byes or defaults.
  3. (2015) Should a player complete less than half of their games during the season, they will be removed from the tournament and any games played will be scratched as far as the tournament is concerned (but will still count for grading) – for clarity, this may happen during the season if it is clear to the tournament controller that this is inevitable.
  4. (2015) Should a player complete at least half of their games during the season, their games will stand but any unplayed games will (at the discretion of the tournament controller) be scored as losses.
  5. (2015) In particular, if a division 1 player is removed from the tournament for playing none or less than half of their games, they will take one of the relegation places.
  6. (2015) Should players tie for points at the end of the season, the relative Sonneborn-Berger (or more accurately Neustadtl) scores will determine places for the purpose of promotion, relegation and titles.
  7. (2016) Once the 2 demotion and promotion places are settled, if because of withdrawal a further place or places arises, the place(s) will be filled by further promotion(s) from Div 2 of the next placed player(s) not by saving Div 1 players from demotion.
  8. (2016) The incremental time limit (35 moves in 70 minutes + 10 minutes for remaining moves, with 10 second increment from move 1) will be used, the 10 minutes will be programmed to be added when one of the clocks first reaches zero (i.e. after 70 minutes).  This will be mandatory in Division 1, 2 and 3 and encouraged in the Open.  Instructions for setup on the clubs clocks are as follows:-
    • If you scroll to Mode 21 you should see each clock showing 1:10 (= 1h 10m, but there is actually a 10 second increment hidden in there as well). A further 10 second increment will be automatically added after every move you play right up to the end of the game. No action is needed after Black’s 35th move – you just need to make sure that 35 moves have been played before the first clock gets down to zero. A black ‘flag’ will temporarily appear when that happens, to cover the rare cases when you need to know who got to zero first. As soon as the first clock reaches zero, ten minutes are automatically added to each clock and you must complete the rest of the moves in your remaining time. You still get the 10-second increments. A black flag will appear again if someone loses on time.
    • For the Open Tournament, Mode 21 is also encouraged but you can play a shorter form.  A minimum of 61 minutes is required for grading. Mode 18 has been set to 61 minutes (1:01) (+10-second increments) for the whole game.
  9. An amended guide to changing dgt settings may be seen  here.