Boilerplate Rules

If you have participated in previous tournaments like the LAWC, ACWC or etc, you can skip this section and go directly to the tournament-specific rules. However, the "Boilerplate Rules" also apply

1. Tournament Organisation

This tournament will be played on Lichess only.
In case of any disputes, the Tournament Directors (TDs) must be contacted, who hold the right to make the final decision.
Failure to comply with the rules of the tournament might result in disqualification at the TD's discretion.
If a player withdraws from the tournament, their previous match results are kept as it is.

2. Player Eligibility

The player's account must be created at least 6 months before the time at which they register. If you have an account which doesn't satisfy the age requirement but you have had an older account, you are requested to play from the older account ,which satisfies the age requirement.
The player must have at least 1000 rated antichess games played on lichess on the account on which they are registering. At least 100 must have been within the last 3 months.
The player must not have:
- one cheat-detected game in the past 12 months.
- two cheat-detected games in the past 24 months.
If a player is found to have been banned by lichess in the past 12 months, they cannot participate. If this is found after the tournament starts, they are disqualified, and all their played matches are forfeited in favour of their opponents.
If a player is found to have entered the tournament with multiple accounts, both accounts are disqualified, and the player may or may not be restricted from participating in future Antichess tournaments.
BOT accounts cannot play.
The player must have a non-provisional antichess rating at the time of the announcement of the initial pairings.

3. Armageddon Rules

Black gets 3 minutes on the clock and draw odds (if a draw happens, Black is considered the winner).
There is no increment.
Both players make a time offer for White. The lowest offer plays White.
In case of identical offers, the flip of a coin on the House Discord Server will decide who gets White.
The offers must be made privately to a TD who is online at the time the time of the armageddon game. If no TD is online, the players may mutually agree to have a third party mediate the offers.

4. Timeline

There is one match per week in all rounds.
The new pairings will be published every Tuesday (at max).
All matches of a round must be finished by Monday 23:59 UTC.
The TD reserves the right to prepone the future deadlines if all matches finish earlier than Monday 23:59 UTC.

5. Match Negotiations

Each player is required to offer at least 3 separate times at which they can play to their opponents within 72 hours of the end of the previous round unless an offer has been accepted before that.
You may begin scheduling with your opponent as soon as the pairing is known.
You must ping your opponent on the forum for any post that concerns them. Editing a post is not allowed.
To prevent time zone confusion, you must communicate all times in UTC.
A player must be able to accept new messages while being included in the pairings.
The 3 offered times must not all be within 24 hours of each other and at least 3 hours apart.
If someone is found to purposely repeatedly offer unsuitable times to their opponent just so that they can claim a forfeit (eg: your 3 offered times are all 2-3 am for your opponent, and when your opponent asks you to offer more, you offer the same ones on different dates), the TDs may take action on you.
If 3 offers are not made in time, the player at fault must accept an offer made by their opponent.
If both players make 3 offers and none of the 6 times are suitable for both players, each player must offer 3 more times, different from the ones offered before.
If no agreement is reached before the weekend, the TDs will determine if the fault lies with a particular player.
It is not allowed to agree to a draw without playing the series.
If the TDs determine the fault of one player, the player must accept an offer given by their opponent.
If no player is at fault, the match will be ruled as a 0-0 draw. Note that this will affect your team's tiebreaks, so it is recommended to put forth your best efforts to schedule a match.
Case-by-case exceptions can be made at the TD's discretion.

6. Reporting Cheats

Accusations of cheating must be made privately to the TDs. Any accusation in public will result in the disqualification of the accuser, regardless of whether the accusation was true or not.
For the above rules, "Public" also includes the non-private channels on discord servers whose link is available for anybody to join (eg: Lidiscord, The House Discord, etc)

7. Match Rules (except the format)

Each player has a right to call a break once during a match. The break can last a maximum of 10 minutes.
If no break is called, the rematch offer must be accepted immediately. Repeated failure to do so will result in a forfeit.
If a player leaves without completing the match, they get 10 minutes to come back, and this is counted as their break. If they don't come back in 10 minutes, their opponent gets the option to claim the win. If they have already utilised their break before they left, their opponent immediately gets the option to claim a win.
If a player forfeits twice, they are disqualified from the tournament.

8. Disqualification and Withdrawals

If a player is disqualified while having an incomplete pairing, their opponent wins the match.
If a player is banned by lichess, they have the opportunity to prove to the TDs that their ban was NOT for cheating. If they can prove it, their completed matches are reopened. If they cannot, their completed matches are adjudicated in favour of their opponents.
If a player gets banned by lichess for games not related to the tournament, they are still disqualified, and the above condition applies.

Tournament-Specific Rules

These are the rules which are different from the ones used in previous tournaments

9. Tournament Format

There will be teams of 4 players each, who will compete against each other in a Swiss-System Tournament. However, if the number of teams participating is less than 10, each team will be reduced to 3 players each.
The tournament will only happen if the number of teams participating are 10 or above.
The next stage after the Swiss-system will be a knockout stage between the top teams. The number of teams qualifying to the knockout stage are:
Number of Teams        | Knockout Stage
10 to 15                             | Top 4 Teams
16 to 31                             | Top 8 Teams
32 to 63                           | Top 16 Teams
If more than 63 teams participate, then a Candidates Stage will be held, similar to ACWC and LAWC. The rules for the candidates stage will be announced soon after the closure of registrations, if it is required.
If a player withdraws from the tournament, they go through the same process as a player getting disqualified from the tournament, and the case is treated as such. However, their previous match results are not affected.

10. Team Rules

A player can only be part of one team. You also cannot make a team in which you are on multiple boards.
While registering, players are requested to register their entire team at once. However, if players want to register but haven't found teammates yet, they can contact the TDs, and the TDs will recommend them teammates.
Each team should assign one player as the captain (it is recommended to make the strongest player the captain).
Each team should not have more than two AGM or higher in it.
If a player is eligible for AGM title but hasn't claimed it yet, they are considered an AGM or higher for seeding.
The 6 strongest players currently: Pinni, Preslav, TUGR, Tetiksh, Sude and Valentino will all be in different teams if they decide to participate.
Restrictions for players on board 4:
1. If a team has 2 players who are AGM or above, their Board 4 player should not be above 2000 rating.
2. If a team has only 1 ASGM and no AGM, their board 4 should not be above 2100 rating.
3. If a team has only 1 AGM and no ASGM, their board 4 should not be above 2150 rating.
4. If a team has no AGM or ASGM, their board 4 should not be above 2200 rating.
The rating restriction counts since 1 January 2025. If the player has crossed the rating threshold before 1 January 2025 but not after (they should not be rated above the threshold since 1 Jan), they are eligible.
1. If a player crosses their rating threshold on three different days or more since 1st January 2025, they are considered above that rating. Players crossing the rating cap once or twice since 1st January 2025 and then falling back are not considered above their threshold.
2. If the player crosses the rating threshold and maintains it for more than one day, they are considered above the threshold.
3. Players crossing the threshold with a high RD (Above 80) are not considered above the threshold.
The team will have to replace the board 4 player if the player crosses the threshold before 25th April 2025.
The 4 boards will be ranked according to the player's strength/rating. This is done by the TDs when the team registers.
After the TDs determine the order of the players on each board, they will also inform the captain of the team if the team is allowed to interchange the boards of certain players (if the TDs think that those players are similar/comparable in strength/rating). The team is allowed to make those changes and submit their final, board-wise list to a TD. The team can also choose to keep the same order as given by the TDs.
Due to the above rule, it is also possible that your captain may end up not on board 1, which is perfectly fine.
Each team is allowed to change their captain ONCE in the tournament. However, this change will only take effect from future rounds.
To prevent discrepancies, no two TDs will be in the same team, and no TD will be the team captain.
A team is allowed to have 5 members. However, only 4 players can play at a time. The 5th player is allowed to replace players who have a similar rating as the 5th player. For this change to take effect, the team captain must inform the TD before the next week’s pairings are released as to which player is going to sit out the next round.
1. For the knockout stages, a team can only make changes to the lineup of 4 players who are going to play, if they finish their match (and win) before it is known as to whom they will face in the next round.
2. Tip: It is not recommended to have a 5th member if all 4 players of the team are apart in rating.
If a player of a team gets disqualified, the team is allowed to name a replacement with the following conditions:
1. The replacement must be willing to participate in the tournament.
2. The replacement must qualify under the eligibility criteria.
3. If, after the disqualification of a previous player, the matches are re-opened, the replacement must be willing to play the re-opened matches before the stage ends.
4. The replacement must be at least 100 rating points lower in strength/rating than the player the person is replacing.
If two players from a team get disqualified during the tournament, the entire team gets disqualified.
If the captain of the team gets disqualified, the entire team gets disqualified (the captain cannot be replaced). However, if the player who is the current captain wants to be replaced, the player has to make another player the captain (provided that the captain hasn't been replaced before), and only after one round is played with another player as captain can the initial captain withdraw.
1. A team with 5 players is allowed to let their captain sit out of a round (if the 5th player has a similar rating/strength as the captain).
2. The captain cannot sit out of the knockout stage.
The team is allowed to include players who are chatbanned, but the Captain must be willing to mediate for the chatbanned player and help the player schedule their matches.
A new feature on lichess gives a person a full communication ban, which prevents them from even sending DMs to other players. These players cannot be captains. If such a person exists on a team, the team Captain should inform the TDs before the start of the tournament. During the tournament, the match negotiations of the person will be handled by the captain.
The TDs may call for a team captain to be replaced if the original team captain is not following the rules properly. If this is done, the team still has the option to change their captain ONCE in the tournament after this, as long as the new captain is not the one removed by the TDs.

11. Match Rules Related to Format

This tournament will have matches played over multiple time controls. Each match between two players will have 3 parts:
1. 4 games of 2+5
2. 6 games of 1+2
3. 8 games of 0+2
The parts can be played in any order the players decide. If they are not able to decide on a particular order, the order to be followed will be 0+2, 2+5, 1+2.
The players have 1 minute between the two parts of the match to send a challenge to their opponent of the time control of the next part. If the next part does not start within 1 minute of the end of the previous part, it is counted as the break of the player at fault. If the break was already taken by the player at fault before, the opponent may choose to claim a forfeit of that part of the match.
Each part of the match has equal scoring. Hence, 2.5-1.5 in 2+5 gives you more points than 4.5-3.5 in 0+2.
Each part of the match has 48 points up for grabs. The points per win or draw in each part are given below. A loss gives 0 points.
Time Control | Win | Draw
2+5                   | 12    | 6
1+2                    | 8     | 4
0+2                   | 6     | 3
Each match has 576 points up for grabs. If a team reaches 289, it wins the match. However, it still has to play the remaining games (if any).
For the knockout stages, the match will be of 4 parts, with the extra part having 4 games of 5+0, and similar scoring as 2+5. If the players cannot agree upon the order of playing the time controls, the order should be 0+2, 2+5, 5+0, 1+2.
The final (and bronze medal match) will have 5 parts, with the extra part having 8 games of 0.5+1, and similar scoring as 0+2. If the players cannot agree upon the order of playing the time controls, the order should be 0+2, 2+5, 0.5+1. 5+0, 1+2.
The result of the match played must be given to your team captain, who will give the result of the team to the TDs when all 4 players finish their matches.
Note that the individual score on each board adds up to make up the team total. Hence, it is also possible for your team to lose on 3 boards, win on one and still win the match.
Since the scoring is complicated, the TDs will contact all the team captains on how to report the scores to the TDs before the start of the tournament.

12. Tiebreaks in Knockout Matches

If a knockout match ends in a tie on total score, then the first tiebreak applied is the Captains' result.
1. If both team captains are on the same board (have faced each other in the match), then the winner of that match gets the "advantage point" for the tiebreak match.
2. If both team captains were on different boards, no team captain gets the "advantage point" for the tiebreak match.
If no player has the "advantage point", then the captains play 4 games of 3+0 against each other to decide the winner. If this ends as a 2-2 draw, an armageddon game is played.
In the tiebreak match, the "advantage point" counts as a 1-0 score before the start of the match for the player with the advantage point. Therefore, after the 4 games are played, the player with the advantage point gets +1 added to his score. If the final score here reaches 2.5-2.5, an armageddon game is played.

13. General Rules Different from Previous Tournaments

TDs: The main tournament directors are cFlour and TheUnknownGuyReborn. Other tournament directors (if any) will be announced soon.
Accusation of cheating: You are allowed to discuss the possibility of an opponent cheating with the members of your team. However, if you talk about it to somebody outside your team (especially to the person you are accusing), and they send screenshots of you accusing them/some player to the TDs, you will be disqualified.
Tiebreaks: The ties for the Swiss Stage will be broken by:
1. Points Difference (Points Scored - Points scored by your opponents against you)
2. Points Scored (If your team has had 0-0 draws between players, this will rank you lower as compared to other teams)
3. Median-Buchholz Method
Situations involving a TD: If a certain situation which requires a TD to get involved has another TD as one of the players, the "player TD" will not take part in the decision process.
Inbox Flooding: If a player is found to be bombarding their opponent with excessive messages unrelated to the scheduling of matches, their opponent may contact a TD and ask to cut off direct contact. Henceforth, the player sending excessive messages to their opponents may only schedule matches through mediation by their team captain.
1. If the captain does "Inbox Flooding" for no reason, the TDs reserve the right to replace the captain.
Duration: The tournament will last 9 weeks if the number of teams is 10-15. It will last 11 weeks if the number of teams is 15-31. Accordingly, two weeks more if more teams register.
In case of any scenario not listed in the rules, the TDs reserve the right to decide at their discretion.