Rules
BBL Tournament Rules
Tournament Format - Groups: The participants of the bi-monthly BBL Tournaments are initially divided into four groups, according to a rating snapshot five days before the official start day of the tournament. For the group seeding, the entire list of registered players is sorted by the ratings and divided into groups according to the formula available on the Results page. Both groups are to use the round-robin format, where each player gets to play one BG game with every other player in the group.
Tournament Format - Playoffs: The top four players from each group form eight "Sweet 16" pairs. The winners of the Sweet 16 matches will form four "Elite 8" pairs, their winners will play in two "Final 4" matches and, subsequently, the winners of those will determine the Tournament Champion. All playoff games are to be played in the "best of three" match format, with each match featuring three backgammon games, starting simultaneously.
The Point System: A single game victory is counted as 1 point and a loss counts as 0 points, regardless of whether the game was finished by a gammon. However, the victories and losses by gammons are counted towards the tiebreakers during the group games (see Section 5 - Tiebreakers for Playoff Seeding). For increased transparency, any individual game finished by a gammon will be highlighted in the table of results as GREEN (victory) or RED (loss). Gammons will not have any impact in the playoffs.
Special Features: The Double-Cube feature is not allowed to prevent discrimination against non-paying members who have this feature that is unavailable for them on ZE.
Tiebreakers for Playoff Seeding (TB):
When more than one player has the same number of victories, the following tiebreaker rules apply:
TB1 - Highest number of wins in the Face-to-Face games between players with the same points.
TB2 - Highest number of wins by Gammons.
TB3 - Lowest number of losses by Gammons.
TB4 - Highest number of wins against higher-placed player(s) in the group.
TB5 - Highest ZE Rating at the moment of playoff seeding.
IMPORTANT: Tiebreaker Rules are reset (start over with TB1) for the remaining players at any time when any player(s) lose on one of the tiebreakers. For any non-playoff placements, the group place will be declared as shared.
Dropping the Tournament: If a player for any reason decides to drop the tournament or allows time to expire in three (3) or more tournament games, this player will be disqualified from the tournament and all their games will be not counted in the table of results.
Code of Conduct
The Backgammon Blitz League (BBL) is the place for friendly competition among ZooEscape (ZE) players. Please respect your opponents at all times.
The league's name means everyone agrees to play fast, without unnecessary delays. Please make every attempt to make at least 2-3 moves each day and not stall this league's fast-paced tournaments.
All games must be started by the Official Tournament Start Date.
If you have a limit of the simultaneous games on ZE (i.e. 25 game limit for non-paying members), please try to reduce the number of games you're playing before the start of each BBL tournament.
Players should have a ZE rating of at least 1700 to participate in the tournaments.
All game challenges for the BBL tournaments must have a clear BBL indicator and Time per Turn of 2 days. For the convenience of the participants, the direct challenge links are posted on the Results page.
In order not to delay the tournament games, the following ZE settings are required for all participants:
Backgammon Game Priority: Least Time Left to Move
Automatic Dice Rolls: On
Backgammon Forced Turns: On
At least one day before the beginning of each tournament, please review the final participant's list and ensure all of your opponents are off your ZE ignore list.
At least one day before the beginning of each tournament, please review your ZE challenge criteria (if applicable) and ensure there are no conflicts with the players' ability to challenge you for the tournament games.
By default, all tournament games are played as rated games, using the ZE rating system. Unrated games are NOT allowed as ZE does not keep a history of unrated games for validation.
The winner of each game is responsible for reporting the result on the dedicated form, located on the home page of this site. Please report results within 24 hours, as the results table on this site will be updated multiple times during the day.
To speed up the pace further, consider communicating with your opponents about the best time of the day when both players are online to make the most moves. If your game is out of reach to your opponent's advantage, please consider resigning and reporting results to avoid further delays.
Players are highly discouraged from causing noticeable delays to the tournament. Any game that lasts longer than 10 calendar days without written notice to the League's Host is considered to have a noticeable delay. Players who fail to submit results within 24 hours from the completion of the game they won or cause noticeable delays will be issued a warning ("yellow card") for each occurrence, captured on the Results page. Players who receive more than 3 warnings during a current tournament shall miss the next tournament. Those receiving more than 5 warnings during a current tournament shall be disqualified from that tournament and their results will be stricken out.
Life is unpredictable and sometimes we all have to postpone games. Since this is a Blitz league, please do not utilize the ZE postponement feature during the BBL Tournaments unless it is absolutely necessary.
The League's Host has the right to disqualify any player who postponed their games for more than 5 days or failed to begin all group games after the Official Tournament Start Date to prevent significant tournament delays.