Devon County Chess Association
RULES FOR TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL COMPETITIONS
September 2017
General
The DCCA organises team and individual competitions to foster the development of affiliated clubs and of individual members of the Association. In all its competitions DCCA expects that both teams and individuals will conduct themselves in an ethical manner and compete in the best interests of the game and in a spirit of fair play.
The Competitions
The team competitions are:
Division / Trophy / Number of Boards / IndividualGrades Less Than / Team Grades Less Than
1 / Bremridge Cup / 6 / Open / Open
2 / Mamhead Challenge Cup / 4 / Open / 640
3 / Schofield Cup / 4 / 166 / 520
4 / Moyle Challenge Cup / 4 / 136 / 400
Junior / Bloodworth Shield
(Age under 18 on 1st Sept.) / 4 / 135 / n/a
Rapidplay / Ralph Newman Cup
(30 mins. – 2 Games) / 4 / Open / 600
Knockout / Peter Rooke Memorial Challenge Trophy / 8 / Open / 1120
The individual competitions are:
Competition / Grade LimitsThe Thomas Winter-Wood Memorial Trophy for club champions / None
The Ladies Championship for the Ladies Championship Challenge Cup / None
The Devon Championship for the Winter-Wood Championship Cup / Over 169
The Intermediate Championship for the Festival of Britain / 140 to 169
The Minor Championship for the E J Winter-Wood Trophy / Under 140
Entries and Fees
1.Teams
Team(s) may be entered by any affiliated club. Teams must comprise of players who are at least Bronze members of the English Chess Federation.
2.Individual Competitions
Any member of the Association who is also at least a Bronze member of the English Chess Federation may enter an individual competition (with the exception of the Thomas Winter-Wood Trophy for which the Clubs must nominate their Club Champion or Runner-up, see Rule 15 below).
3.The Council has the power to determine in which Division/Competition teams/individuals shall play and may, in its sole discretion, reject any entry.
4.All entries must be made in the form and by the date notified to clubs by the Competition Secretary and must be accompanied by the appropriate fees in accordance with those determined at the Annual General Meeting.
Team Fixtures
5.At its autumn meeting, the Council shall determine the format for each Division and Competition (single or double round, single or multiple sections, knockout etc.) and the timescales within which each round of fixtures is to be played.
6.The Competition Secretary will provide schedules of pairings for each Division together with details of the captains of each team. It is the responsibility of the home team to contact their opponents and arrange the date and start time for each match. Rapidplay Division fixtures are normally played on weekday evenings and all other fixtures on Saturday afternoons; fixtures may be arranged at other times by mutual agreement. No fixture involving a Division 1, 2 or 3 team should coincide with a County match and no fixture should clash with any WECU or DCCA congress or other such event.
7.Fixtures can be arranged at mid-way venues or on Sundays providing that both captains agree.
8.Clubs are required to send a copy of their completed fixture list to the Competition Secretary at the earliest possible date but in any case before 31 October so that the full program may be published in timely fashion.
Individual Competition Fixtures
9.The Competition Secretary will provide schedules of pairings and details of opponents to participants in each competition. The ‘home’ players have the black pieces and are responsible for providing the venue (normal club standard playing conditions) and for contacting their opponents to agree the date and start time for the fixture within the timescales notified to them. No fixture should clash with any other relevant chess event.
All Fixtures
10.The date of a fixture cannot be altered without the agreement of both teams (or players) and the Competition Secretary; such an agreement shall not be withheld unreasonably 7 clear days or more before the fixture.
11.No fixture may be arranged outside the timescales notified without the prior agreement of the Competition Secretary.
Qualifications
12.A player must be a bona fide member of his/her club and a member of the English Chess Federation before playing in a DCCA team competition. (N.B. any member of an affiliated club is, by definition, a member of the Association). An entrant to a DCCA Individual Competition who is not a bona fide member of an affiliated club must pay the appropriate individual affiliation fee before playing and must also be a member of the English Chess Federation. (Note – see rules 34 and 35relating to penalties for rule infringements)
13.In any one season, a player may represent no more than two clubs and no more than one team in any one Division.
14.All players in team events other than Division 1 and the Junior Division must be graded. A player who does not appear in the current ECF or DCCA grading list must be allocated a notional grade before being included in a team (see rule 34). Such a grade will be allocated by the Competition Secretary in the light of information provided by the club, whose prime responsibility it is to actively check any significant changes as a result of league, congress and other competition results during the season. The agreed grade is solely for the purpose of determining whether a team complies with the limits applicable to the Division and will have no bearing on the actual grading of the game concerned. The Competition Secretary may consult the Grading Officer if he considers it appropriate to do so.
15.A player may participate in only one individual competition except that a club may enter their current champion, or at their discretion the runner-up, in a formal competition, for the Thomas Winter-Wood Memorial Trophy competition for which the Competition Secretary will invite entries at the end of the season. Fixtures for this will be arranged on a similar basis to other individual competitions, except that play will take place during the summer.
16.A player will be deemed ineligible to enter the Individual Competitions if, in the previous season, he/she has failed to complete his games and/or withdrew from the competition. (Exceptions to this may be made at the discretion of the Competitions’ Secretary).
17.All participants in the Individual Competitions must provide a substantive reply to communications from other participants regarding arrangement of games within seven days of receipt. All such communications should be copied to the Competitions’ Secretary
Conditions and Rules of Play
18.In team events, players shall be arranged in descending order of strength, except that no player shall be placed above another who has an ECF, DCCA or notional grade that is 20 or more points greater.
19.Immediately before the start of play, match captains shall exchange team lists and then determine by lot which team shall have white on the top board; colours will alternate on lower boards. In the Rapidplay Division, colours so determined shall be reversed for the second round of games.
20.At the time scheduled for start of play, the clocks of the player(s) with the white pieces shall be started. In the event of unforeseen circumstances, the captain of the home team, or the ‘home’ player in an individual competition, should not seek to exploit the situation if it is possible to take such circumstances into account.
21.No change may be made to teams after lists have been exchange. If a player is absent and a captain wishes to introduce a substitute, this may be done only with the agreement of the other captain and before one hour has elapsed after the start of play. In such a circumstance no adjustment may be made to the clock and the rate of play may not be varied.
22.The current FIDE Laws of Chess and WECU guidelines for events at which no arbiter is present shall apply to all games except where modified by these rules.
23.If a player’s mobile phone rings in the playing venue, while the match is in progress, the player shall loose the game (FIDE Article 12).
24.In the Rapidplay Division at each board two games are played and, in each, the players have 25 minutes on their clocks for the complete game& a 10 second increment after each move, which is played under the Rapidplay Rules, a copy of which is appended.
Except in the Junior Division, in all other team and individual competition games each player starts with 90 minutes on the clock and an increment of 30 seconds after each move.
In the Junior Division (Bloodworth), the rate of play shall be at the discretion of the tournament controller.
25.If a draw is claimed under Rule 10.2 of the Rules for Quickplay Finishes and cannot be resolved, the relevant documents shall be sent by the claimant’s match captain with a fee of £5.00, to the Competition Secretary who will appoint an independent Arbiter whose decision shall be final. The Competition Secretary will notify both teams of the Arbiter’s decision and return the fee if the claim is upheld.
26.Duplicate scoresheets should be used for Division1 (Bremridge), Division 2 (Mamhead) and the Knock-Out Competition (Peter Rooke) and Individual Competitions. Duplicate scoresheets must be sent to the Competitions Secretary with the Result Sheet.
Results
27.One copy of the fully completed official DCCA Result Form and full set of duplicate score sheets, must be sent by each team to the Competition Secretary to arrive within seven working days. This form is used for grading and care must be taken to ensure that names are correctly spelled, full correct initials are given, notional grades are clearly marked as such and that only currentECF or DCCA grades are recorded.
28.The result of each game in an individual competition must be signed by both players, sent to the Competition Secretary by the winner or, in the event of a draw, by the ‘home’ player, to arrive within seven working days.
29.In all Divisions except the Knockout, two match points are awarded for a win and one for a draw. If at the end of the season two or more teams in a Division have equal match points, the tie will be broken in favour of the team with the greater number of game points or, if those are equal, in favour of the winner of the match(s) between the teams involved in the tie. In the event that the tie cannot be broken on the foregoing basis, it will be resolved by a subsidiary contest in a form to be determined by the Competition Secretary after consultation with the teams involved.
30.In the Knockout Division a tie on game points in any match will be broken in favour of the team with the lower total of board numbers on which games were won (board count) or, if that falls, by the successive elimination of result(s) on the bottom board(s) until one team has a higher total of game points than their opponents. Only if games were drawn on all boards will there be a replay, which will take place at the venue of the away team within a timescale to be agreed with the Competition Secretary.
31.In Individual Competitions, any tie will be broken by applying the relevant principles of Rule 33.
32.In Individual Competitions if two or more players finish level on points then they shall play off using reverse colours and venues to the previous match. If the play off game results in a draw then further play of game(s) should follow using the reversal of colour and venue procedure. If only two players take part and are level after home and away, they shall agree either a midway venue and toss for colours or both players can agree a venue using rule 9 guidance.
Penalties
33.Unless there are exceptional circumstances (as so determined by the Competitions Secretary) the following penalties will be applied:
*Exceeding the team-grading limit - default of the match.
*The team fielding an ineligible player will have one point deducted from the team score (in a double-round match the deduction will be two points).
*Failure to submit fixtures or a result within the prescribed timescale - the deduction of one penalty match point for the first offence and two points thereafter.
34.Discretionary penalties may be applied by the Competition Secretary, with or without prior warning, in the case of other infractions of the rules. Such penalties may include but are not limited to the default or double default of games or matches, and the imposition of a financial penalty of up to £10.00. Such penalties would not be imposed lightly and only where necessary to the orderly and fair conduct of the competitions.
Trophies
1.Each trophy remains the property of the Association to be held for one year by the winner whose name shall be inscribed on it. If, after the procedures prescribed in Rules 30 - 33 have been completed, a tie cannot be resolved in a way acceptable to the Competition Secretary, the trophy shall be held for equal periods by the co-winners. It is a condition of acceptance of a trophy that the holder undertakes to safeguard it and return it on the required date in good condition. The Thomas Winter-Wood Memorial Trophy is normally presented at the Autumn Council Meeting each year and all other Trophies at the Annual General Meeting.
2.A trophy shall be deemed winnable providing that there are at least 2 entries for a competition.
Jurisdiction
1.Any question concerning the interpretation of these rules or any dispute arising under them, which cannot be resolved with the Competition Secretary, shall be referred to the Council whose decision in all matters shall be binding.
QUICKPLAY FINISHES
(Extract from Article 10 and Appendix D of the 1997 FIDE Rules)
10.1A ‘Quickplay’ finish is the last phase of a game, when all the remaining moves must be made in a limited time.
10.2If the player has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw before his flag falls. This concludes the game. He may claim on the basis:
a)that his opponent cannot win by normal means, or
b)that his opponent has been making no effort to win by normal means.
In a) the player must write down the final position and his opponent verify it.
In b) the player must write down the final position and submit an up-to-date scoresheet which must be completed before play has ceased. The opponent shall verify both the scoresheet and the final position.
The claim shall be referred to an arbiter whose decision shall be final.
10.3Illegal moves do not necessarily lose. The position before the irregularity shall be reinstated or, if this cannot be identified, the game shall continue from the last identified position prior to the irregularity. For a first illegal move, his opponent shall gain two minutes extra time. For a second illegal move by the same player, his opponent shall gain another two minutes extra time. For a third illegal move, the player who played incorrectly shall lose the game.
10.4If both flags have fallen and it is impossible to establish which flag fell first the game is drawn.
RAPIDPLAY RULES
(Extract from Appendix B of the 1997 FIDE Rules)
B1A Rapidplay Game is one where all the moves must be made in a fixed time between 15 to 60 minutes.
B2Play shall be governed by the FIDE laws of Chess, except where they are overridden by the following Laws.
B3Players do not need to record the moves.
B4Once each player has made three moves, no claim can be made regarding incorrect piece placement, orientation of the chessboard or clock setting.
B6The flag is considered to have fallen when a valid claim to that effect has been made by a player.
B7To claim a win on time, the claimant’s flag must remain up and his opponent’s flag down after the clocks have been stopped.
B8If both flags have fallen, the game is drawn.
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