SB Rapid 1 Tourney guide

SB Rapid 1 is a four-round tourney to fill the gap until T92. Notable differences to Teamleague, in a nutshell:

  • It's not a Round Robin for teams; it's a Swiss for individuals.
  • In every round, you don't play one game of 45+45; you play four games of 10+15.
  • New pairings aren't posted once every seven days, but once every 14 days, giving us more time.
  • There's no bot (TD) to assist; you must take care of your noescape variables etc.

Enjoy the tournament, good chess!

Joining

Send pchesso an FICS message to sign up. Deadline: Saturday, August 24th. Please clear some old messages and "set mailmess 1", so I can message you back.

Playing dates

  • Round 1: Tue, August 27th - Mon, September 9th
  • Round 2: Tue, September 10th - Mon, September 23rd
  • Round 3: Tue, September 24th - Mon, October 7th
  • Round 4: Tue, October 8th - Mon, October 21st

Tie-breaks

Sophisticated tie-break rules (Sonneborn, Buchholz etc.) will not be used. If a champion isn't found after round 4, a fifth round may follow, but only for those who are tied for first place.

BYE requests

You may request one 0.5 point BYE. Deadline: the Saturday before the beginning of the respective round, 2200 server time. Late-joining for round 2 works accordingly.

Match format

Every round will consist of four rated rapid games against the same opponent. Time control: 10+15. Use "match" to start your first game, and from then on "rematch", so that colours are always reversed. Feel free to arrange quick breaks between the games. Please report the result.

Game play

Every reasonably applicable TL rule applies:

  • silence
  • fair play
  • no kibitzing
  • no takebacks
  • no repetitive draw offers
  • 15 minutes grace period for showing up
  • posting of pairings Tuesday at 2200
  • 1st contact deadline Thursday 2200
  • 2nd contact deadline Friday at 2200 etc.

Sportsmanship

Assistance of any kind is prohibited during your game. The TDs reserve the right to forfeit and/or ban any player who exhibits poor sportsmanship, lacks common courtesy in game forum negotiations, disrespects an FICS rule laid out in "help abuse", or is in any way a disagreeable troublemaker. We can only monitor posts on our website, but we ask that you practise good sportsmanship in your FICS tells and whispers, too.

Alert

In Teamleague, a bot (TD) automatically sets your variables before a game. Not in Snail Bucket (yet). You must do this manually, upon joining the tournament. In order to check your 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

The noescape variable is particularly important to avoid accidentally losing a game. Creating a formula can add safety. We have written a Help article about it. The short version is: 

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

Use the match command to start your game. Add an "f" at the end; that activates your formula for the game: 

match OPPONENT 10 15 rated f