Players will be organized into divisions. Every player will play the same number of games during the regular season. The number of players will determine the length of the season. (The length of the season will be within +/- 1 of half the number of players.)
The total length of the regular season will be based on the number of games being played. In general terms, players should plan to complete one game per week. There is no requirement to follow any specific rate of play, the only requirement is that all games must be completed before the end of the regular season.
Upon completion of the regular season, the winners of each division and any wild-card teams needed to complete a bracket will advance to a single-elimination playoff. (The losers of the semi-finals will play a final game to determine 3rd & 4th place.) No more than half the number of players will advance.
When registration closes, I will organize the players into divisions and identify the pairings.
Players will be seeded into divisions by AREA rating. Unrated players will be ranked below rated players.
In the general case, players will play everyone else in their division twice, with enough non-division games to fill their schedule. However, if there are an odd number of players, it may not work out that way.
The full regular season schedule will be published before any games are played.
Players are responsible for scheduling their own games. The games can be played any time during the regular season. You do not need to play the games in any particular order.
For scheduling individual games, prime playing hours are being defined as Mon-Fri 5 PM-10 PM EST, and 9 AM-9 PM EST on Saturday and Sunday.
People are free to schedule their games at any agreeable time, but these are the windows of time considered “most acceptable”.
If your only time to play is going to be 1 AM - 6 AM EST on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, you’re going to have a tough time getting your games scheduled.
(Yes, this is biased in favor of US Eastern and Central time zone hours. If you don’t see yourself being available at all during these times, you may not want to commit to this event.)
While any reasonable and mutually agreeable method can be used between two people to try and schedule a game, I recommend using email. Each player will receive a complete list of all participant’s email address.
If you do use email for communication, please send me a copy of all scheduling requests and your actual agreed-upon time to play. If you don't use email, please send me an email summarizing your attempts to get the game scheduled.
If two people are unable to complete their game during the round, I will adjudicate in favor of the person who has demonstrated the most initiative in trying to get their game scheduled and who has made themselves most available during the prime playing hours.
If I have no evidence from either player that an attempt was made to get the game played, both players will be awarded a loss - eliminating both players from the tournament.
I also have access to the server logs showing when people are present on the site, and can verify no-shows.