Ban Policy

While the RKWC rules are among the most detailed of the variant championships; it cannot anticipate every possible scenario. This document explains how bans are issued, how decisions are made when the rules do not explicitly cover a situation, and what role transparency, precedent, and moderator responsibility play in this process.

Decisionmaking

When unexpected situations arise that are not explicitly covered, decisions are made by the tournament directors based on the intent and spirit of the existing rules.

This process typically follows this order:

1. A new situation or violation occurs that is not fully addressed in the rules.
   
   

2. The tournament directors review the case and make a judgment.
   
   

3. That decision sets a precedent for future cases.
   
   

4. The precedent is then written into future versions of the rules where applicable.

Due to this process rules are retroactive. We edit the rules based on past situations to create consistency with future decisions.

Bans are issued on actions that violate the spirit of the rules. Some of these actions such as ban evasion or receiving a Lichess cheat detected game during an RKWC match are now explicitly written into the rules because of past precedent. 

Rule balancing

There is always a tension between writing strict rules and allowing enough flexibility for tournament directors to respond to new issues. If every scenario were codified, it would disallow judging cases that do not fit neatly into previous cases.