TANTRIX ONLINE TOURNAMENT RULES

ADDITIONAL RULES FOR TEAM TOURNAMENTS

Knowledge of these rules is only essential for team captains and deputy captains.

In the World Team Tantrix Championship, the normal Tantrix online tournament rules apply with the following additions and differences.

In what follows, please note that a “match” refers to all of the games played when two teams meet whereas “mini-match” denotes all of the games between two specific players within a match.

Please also note that “controller” can mean an assistant controller as appropriate.

The issues covered below are:

1. Captains and their responsibilities
2. Pairings, results and tie-breaks
3. Team order changes and substitutions
4. Defaults

1. CAPTAINS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Overall country captains: (TEAM captains can ignore this sub-section)

An “overall captain” for each country is decided by a vote among the top five players from that country in the pre-tournament Elo seeding list.

The overall captain then (on their own or in consultation with others) co-ordinates the recruitment of players for that country's teams, co-ordinates the distribution of players between teams, appoints team captains for each team and is responsible for ensuring that teams from their country are entered in time. They are allowed to appoint themselves to captain one or more teams if they so wish.

During the tournament itself, the only responsibility of a country’s overall captain is to co-ordinate the movement of players between if a substitution becomes necessary at any point, i.e. to sort out any disputes between individual team captains over this.

As with the other captains, the overall captain’s role is a practical one and it is best given to the best organiser from that country, not necessarily the strongest player.

Team captains:

Team captains are responsible for:

- deciding on the order of players within their team

- appointing a deputy captain for their team

- ensuring that members of their teams know about the rules that apply to tournament games, especially things like the time limit

- ensuring that their players know what to do during the tournament (e.g. how to arrange games and how to submit results) and that their players arrange and play all of their matches on time

- keeping track of anything that might stop a player in their team from completing their games and taking appropriate action (such as drafting in substitutes) within any applicable time limits

- communicating with the tournament controller/s and opposing captains, meeting deadlines and generally keeping people informed as appropriate to help the tournament to run smoothly

Team captains should also ensure that their team members understand that being in a team does not mean that players are allowed to help each other during matches with comments on the game or by any method (i.e. the usual cheating rules apply) and that while watching the games played by other members of their teams is to be encouraged, things like distracting behaviour in the game room are strictly forbidden.

Team captains can of course consult with other players in their teams as much as they like and can do any extra things they want to do to keep their players enthusiastic, such as periodically updating players on the team’s progress or pep-talks by email, but the responsibilities listed above are the only essential ones.

Deputy captains:

Captains should appoint a deputy captain who is authorised to take urgent decisions if they are uncontactable for any reason during the tournament.

Controllers and opposing captains should send all emails related to the captain’s role to both the captain and the deputy captain. Getting into the habit of using “Reply all” will probably serve you well in tournaments.

2. PAIRINGS, RESULTS AND TIE-BREAKS

Pairings:

There will be a specific order of players within each team, determined by each team captain subject to the restrictions that are mentioned in section 3 below.

The top player in one team (who we will refer to as “Player A1”) will play a set number of games against the top player in the other team (“Player B1”) in the other team, with A2 playing B2, and so on down the order.

Match results:

Matches and positions in groups will be decided by the total tournament points (“TPs”) scored by each team, not by the number of games or mini-matches won.

Tie-breaks:

If two teams are tied (i.e. exactly equal) on TPs at the end of any phase or round, they will be separated based on their TP scores in the match played between them.

If this does not separate the teams (e.g. because the match between them was a knockout match), the match score will be recalculated ignoring the TPs scored by the bottom player in each team. If this still fails to separate the teams, the results of the next player up in each team are also ignored and this continues until one team is in the lead.

NB. This does NOT always make the games between no. 5 players irrelevant. If this is not obvious to any of you (at least one person jumped to this ridiculous conclusion last year), then may I respectfully suggest that you need to think a bit harder!

3. TEAM ORDER CHANGES AND SUBSTITUTIONS

Changing the order within a team:

The official order of players within a team may be changed by the captain at any time before the tournament draw takes place by sending an email to the tournament controller.

If a captain wishes to change the team order in between matches or after the draw but before their first match, they must let the controller and the opposing captain know before the deadline for the previous round or within 24 hours of the end of their previous match, whichever is later.

The new order then becomes their official order for deciding whether they are to changing again (and hence whether the next paragraph applies) in later rounds

This rule is intended to allow captains to make changes based on genuine differences in form only, not to allow them to “sacrifice” one player against the opposing team’s no. 1 in order for the other players in them team to get easier games than they otherwise would have or to allow players in their team to avoid players they habitually play badly against.

So, if one captain does change their team order, the opposing captain has 48 hours to change their team order too and must also make it clear whether this is a temporary change for that match only or a permanent change to their official order.

Captains who want to change their team order must make sure that their players know about it because under most circumstances changes to the order will not be possible after any games have been played in a match.

Changes to the team order during a group phase are not allowed except in exceptional circumstances. Two captains can however agree that one of them will change their team order for the match between them only. For example, it might be desirable for B2 and B3 to switch when team B plays team A if A2 and B2 are unlikely to be able to find mutually convenient times to play and pairing A2 v B3 and A3 v B2 is more likely to result in all of the games being played.

Player substitutions:

The players who make up a team may not be changed after entries for the tournament have closed (or during the tournament) except in exceptional circumstances.

What is classed as exceptional circumstances is at the discretion of the tournament controller, but generally this would cover being prevented from finishing games before the deadline due to illness, severe computer problems or having to be somewhere remote and without Internet access.

Team captains may also be able to substitute problem players in preference to them defaulting some or all of their games.

Pretending that a player has become a problem player or otherwise unavailable in order to be able to bring in a player who is in better form and thus strengthen your team is against the spirit of this rule and is classed as cheating. Controllers can refuse to allow a substitution if they are suspicious that this might be the reason behind it.

If a substitution becomes necessary during a group phase, the results of games already played by the substituted player continue to count. The substitute should play at the same place in the order as the substituted player and only has to play that player’s unplayed games.

All substitutions are subject to the provisos that:

- no player may play for more than one team in a group phase or in any one round of a knockout phase

- no player may play for more than one country in a single tournament

- no player may play for a lower team (e.g. a B team) after playing for a higher team (e.g. an A team) in the same tournament

4. DEFAULTS AND WITHDRAWALS

Defaults:

As mentioned in the “substitutes” section, if you have a problem player in your team, a substitution is preferable to a default as long as it is not done deliberately to gain an advantage against the spirit of the substitutions rule.

A substituted player and the player who replaces them in the order count as a single “player” for the purposes of this section.

If a player defaults a game, the usual rule (new since the start of this year) applies – i.e. the opponent gets a 15.0-5.0 TP win in the game, or the average scored by the defaulting player’s opponents in all the games the problem player actually played if higher.

If one player in a team defaults more than six games (two matches) in the group phase, all of their games (played and unplayed) will be treated as 15.0-5.0 TP wins for their opponents (or the average scored against them in games actually played if higher) for the purposes of deciding the final positions in the group.

If more than one player in a team defaults more than three games, the whole team will suffer a “total default”, i.e. all of their results will be wiped from the table. That country may be barred from entering next year at our discretion, so do not let this happen!

As usual, defaulting a game deliberately to gain an advantage for your team or any other team is classed as cheating and suspicious cases will be dealt with severely at the discretion of the controller/s.

As a special concession in team tournaments only, captains are allowed to agree draws for hard to arrange games. However, they can only do this if all possible results of the game/s concerned, if played, could have no possible effect on which team qualifies for the next round or what place they qualify in.

The previous paragraph was included to avoid the possibility of having to apply total defaults to teams when it is just before the deadline, the whole group has been decided and players have lost interest. This should however be a very last resort and players should generally be encouraged to complete their games whatever the situation in the group.

In knockout matches, the opponents get a 20.0-0.0 TP win for every game defaulted.

Another new rule this year about being able to claim penalty points on second no-shows (and in certain circumstances on first no-shows) even if another attempt is going to be made to play the games concerned also applies.

In all cases, it is points scored in games actually played that will count towards Elo ratings as usual.

Withdrawals are equivalent to defaults. Withdrawals should be done through team captains (so that they can look for alternatives), not by individual players writing to their opponents and saying that they do not want to play.

* ENDS *