BACKGAMMON TOURNAMENT RULES

Note: Whenever you need to send a message to me, you should send a message either to pbmserv@gamerz.net with subject: message *your-id* *password* pbmtourney or send a message to pbmtourney@yahoo.com.

1. Tournament set-up.

This tournament will be a knock-out tournament. This means that each contestant will play one other at a time. The winner of the match will advance to the next round, the loser will be out of the tournament.

2. Match play.

Here it DOES matter by how many points you beat your opponent! So keep an eye out for that doubling cube!
The first player to reach 10 points or more, will win the match and advance to the next round.

Here's a complete protocol of how you should act:

The first game in the match will be started by me. I will provide a match-number that should be used by both players as a reference whenever they communicate with me.
The player to move first (the one playing 'X') must send a message to me with subject 'match xxx: board yyyyy started' before he makes the first move. Here xxx is the match-number as provided by me and yyyyy is the boardnumber given by Richard's PBeM-server.
The game is played as usual at Richard's PBeM-server. The only exception is that if you resign voluntarily (without your opponent doubling), and you haven't moved any men off the board, your opponent automatically is granted a gammon, even if the server only gives him 1 point. If you even still have men on the bar or in your opponents' quarter, he will automatically be rewarded a backgammon. So you should not resign unless you are doubled or have moved a man off the board! This rule is installed to stop people from resigning to avoid a gammon.
The Crawford rule also applies here. It says that if you or your opponent reach 9 points, the first next game doubles are not allowed. The games after that, doubles can be made again.
As soon as the game ends, the winner will send a message to me with subject 'match xxx: board yyyyy won by *id* by ## points'. Again xxx is the match-number as provided by me and yyyyy is the boardnumber given by Richard's PBeM-server.
If no player has reached a total of 10 points or more, the winner starts up a new game. Now step 2 and on is repeated.

3. Time restrictions.

Basically, every player can move at its own speed. But because the tournament will be registered outside Richard's PBeM-server, you can automatically forfeit a game when you don't make a move for a long time! If this happens, you will automatically lose the match as well!

To make sure the tournament will not have to wait on some notoriously slow movers, a 75%-rule is installed: if 75% of the matchups have a winner, the remaining matches will have one week to come to a finish as well. If at the end of this week still no winner is known, then the winner will be decided by the following rules:

The one with the highest total of points will be the winner.
If both players have an equal amount of points, the one with the least time used on the last finished game will win the match.
If no games are finished at all, the one with the least time used on the current, unfinished game will be the winner.
If a player feels he/she is being treated unfair because of the above rules, (like when the opponent took a lead and then started to move very slowly to intentionally stall the match until the 75%-rule is enforced), a protest can be send to me and I will make a decision. This decision is final!

4. Matchups.

For round #2, a number of players from round #1 will be randomly chosen from the ones that lost a finished match in the first round (that is, the match finished before the 75%-rule was enforced) to complete the field to a 'power-of-2' number of players.
Matchups will be completely random for each round of the tournament, except that in round #2, no 'lucky losers' from the first round can play against eachother.
If the first round has an uneven number of competitors, one randomly chosen player will move to the next round without having to play.

5. Participating.

If you want to participate in the tournament send a message to me, stating you would like to participate in the backgammon tournament and your userid at Richard's PBeM-server.

Ronald Lokers