SB Monthly 4 Regulations

These are the SB Monthly 4 regulations. Please read this page before committing and signing up to the tournament.

In a nutshell

  • 4-round tournament from November 2025 to February 2026
  • Swiss format
  • One game per month on FICS
  • The default game control is 90' + 30'' inc., but you can influence this by setting game control preferences.

Joining

1. Understand how Snailbucket works.
2. If you have not yet done so: Create your SB account.
3. 3. Log in. Sign up to the tourney between 13 and 29 October.

The number and size of the buckets depend on the number and rating gaps of the participants. You can check a potential distribution of confirmed players in the provisional buckets page. Buckets will be finalized after the sign-up deadline.

BYEs: Contact TD pchesso before the 29th of the previous month.
Late-joining: Allowed for round 2. Deadline: November 29th.

Profile

1. Please speed up negotiations by marking bad times in your profile. You may change them throughout the tourney, as long as you have no pending game.
2. You may also set Game Control Preferences. If two player's preferences match, that game control will be used. If they don't, the default (90' + 30'' inc.) will be used. You may change game control preferences throughout the tourney, as long as this is done before game forum creation of a round.

Negotiations

Posting of round 1 pairings: 3 November, 2200 FICS server time. Access your game forum, start negotiations.
Posting of rounds 2-4 pairings: 3rd day of a month, 2200 FICS server time. Access your game forum, start negotiations.
1st contact deadline: 6th day of a month, 2200 FICS server time. Meet this deadline, or you may have to accept one of your opponent's offers.
2nd contact deadline: 8th day of a month, 2200 FICS server time. Meet this deadline, or your opponent may claim a forfeit win.

Make this tournament a memorable, friendly experience for your opponent.
Please speak English.
Talk to your opponent only in your game forum.
Make at least three distinct time offers (hours apart and/or on different days).
Use FICS server time. That's EDT/EST which you can compare to your local time by typing the date command.
Pay attention to your opponent's bad times.
Reply to your opponent reasonably fast (ideally within 24 hours).
Allow 24 hours buffer between setting the clock and game start.

FICS settings

Check your server settings. Type (or copy and paste) into your FICS command console:

var

If necessary, make the following adjustments:

set notakeback 1
set private 0
set noescape 0
set rated 1
set autoflag 1

We have written a Help article about avoiding to lose a game accidentally. The short version is:

set f7 !private and !noescape and rated
set formula f7

Starting the game

Check your FICS settings (see above). Send your opponent a match challenge, e.g. "match pchesso 90 30 rated black". If the server warns you that a disconnection will be considered a forfeit, abort the game. You and your opponent must "set noescape 0". Resend the match challenge.

If you arrive more than 15 minutes late for your game, your opponent may claim a forfeit win.

Game play

Applicable TL rules apply:

  • silence
  • fair play
  • no kibitzing
  • no takebacks
  • no repetitive draw offers

Assistance of any kind is prohibited during your game.

Tie-breaks

A tie-break round with shorter time controls may follow for those who are tied for first place.