Rules

RULES

General:

1. The North American Racing Kings Championship (NARKC) is a variant chess tournament hosted to determine the best North American Racing Kings Chess player. It will be a competition played in rated games on lichess.org

2. The rules below are guidelines and framework for the competition but are not limited and all-encompassing. Not every outcome and complication can ever be predicted with event management. Therefore, the Tournament Directors (TDs) will have final say among any unique matters at any given time for any given case. However, the TDs will refer to the rules for their decisions and exercise correct authority when necessary.

3. This event is intended to be competitive and amongst the best racing kings players within the North American region; this event is not all-inclusive, but is considered an open event.

4. No prize or private trophy, digital or physical, will be given for participation, completion, or victory of this tournament.

5. These rules are based on and modified from the 2024 RKWC rules. Most credit for these rules is due to the 2024 RKWC.

Entry Requirements:

**If you are chat-banned and cannot post in forums, please private message james126 or seth_777 via lichess.**

1. Account must not be marked as in violation of the Lichess TOS

2. A registrant may only sign up on one account they are in control of

3. Registrant must have joined the United States RK Team on Lichess.

4. Rating deviation must be below 55 or account must have had 200 rated rk games played within the last 21 days

5. Registrants must reside in or be a citizen of the United States or Canada. Proof of eligibility will be determined on a case by case basis. A USCF profile would also be accepted.

6. Registrants must have the intent of playing a tournament with multiple pairings of 10-game blitz matches with tiebreaks for a minimum 6 week period from tournament start date (October 21st of 2024).

7. Registrants must meet one of these 3 requirements as well:

   1. Minimum lichess racing kings peak rating of 2150 at time of registration and rk rating maintained above 2050 for last 14 days

   2. Minimum lichess racing kings peak rating of 2150 and rating had been maintained above 2050 for last 100 rk games

   3. Invited by event organizers

Tournament Rules:

The tournament format is:

Double elimination until there are 2 players left (1 in the winners, 1 in the losers)

You will be paired with a player for a round. Each round continues for one week (Monday - Sunday), by the end of which you are expected to have played your match. Please note the following stipulations:

1. All games are rated. If accidentally a match is casual, then the first time the result will be processed with a warning from the TD. 

2. Results AND games of each match should be communicated to the Tournament Director (TD) (seth_777 and james126), or posted in the relevant forum thread upon completion.

3. Each match will consist of TEN (10) games of 3+2. 

- Match final will be two best of 10 matches. If the player in the winners bracket wins the first match, he wins the tournament. If the player in the losers bracket wins the first match, the players will play an additional match. The winner of this match wins the tournament

4. Either player can stop the match if someone reaches a decisive advantage (5.5 points within the first 10 games of a match).

5. If the score is 5-5 after 10 games, then armageddon games will be played. White will have 3 minutes on their clock and must win. Black will have 1.5 minutes on their clock and can either win or draw to “win”. The Black player must give white an additional 90 seconds before the match starts in order to set the tiebreakers clock up correctly.

6. A player can request a maximum of one break between games, of approximately 10 minutes, during a match. The player requesting the break will have to communicate this clearly to his opponent.

7. If a player loses a match, they will enter the losers bracket. If they lose a second match they will be eliminated from the tournament.

8. Assuming there are 32 players, after the first round there will be 16 players in the winners' bracket and 16 in the losers' bracket. After the second match there will be 8 players in the winners' bracket and 24 in the losers' bracket, and so on.

9. The tournament ends when the last player in the winners bracket and the last player of the losers bracket play each other.

10. The initial pairing will have the top seed vs bottom seed, the second seed vs second from bottom etc. For example, in an eight-player event: (1) v (8), (2) v (7), (3) v (6), (4) v (5). The winner of (1) v (8) will then play the winner of (4) v (5) and the winner of (2) v (7) will play the winner of (3) v (6).

11. The initial seeding will be based on the average between a players peak rating and their rating at the time the tournament entries are closed (October 20, 12:00 EST). Both of these ratings are taken on and are rounded off as whole points. In case of a tie in the seeded ratings, the higher current rating will be used as the decisive factor.

12. If somebody is unable to complete a series, or has to withdraw, then their opponent is considered the victor. Byes may be issued in the case of an odd number of players.

13. If someone knows they will not be able to play a certain week when a round is scheduled, they must notify the TD BEFORE they play their PRIOR match. At the TD's discretion their match may be moved to the following week. This will only occur a maximum of 1 time every 2 years per player.

Match Negotiations:

1. Players may begin negotiating a playing start time as soon as their next pairing is known.

2. Each player is responsible to offer at least 3 separate times for the match, unless an offer has been accepted before that number is reached.

3. The 3 offered times should be no closer than 3 hours to each other and no more than 2 on a single date.

4. If 3 offers are not made in time the player at fault must accept a time chosen by the opponent.

5. If both players fail to make 3 offers by the deadline, then a match arbiter will assign a time.

6. A player should respond to an offer by accepting or making a different offer, preferably within 24 hours.

7. If a player is excessively or repeatedly late for scheduled matches they may be forfeited.

8. If both players make 3 offers but no agreement is made before the weekend then a TD will determine if fault lies with a particular player.

9. If a player is at fault, then their opponent will decide the match time within constraints set by the TD, if no player is at fault the TD will assign a match time.

About cheating, bans, and forfeits:

1. Accusations of cheating or other actions that violate the Lichess ToS must be sent to Lichess moderators using the report function. Additionally, it is possible to notify the TD’s privately.

2. Public shaming is against the Lichess chat policy and will, if necessary, be reported to Lichess moderators. Additionally, public shaming of a player in the context of the North American RK Championship may result in a sanction from the TDs. This can include but is not limited to a warning, the forfeit of a match, or removal from the United States RK team and Discord Server.

3. If it is brought to the TD's attention that a participant of the North American RK Championship has been marked as having violated the Lichess ToS by the Lichess moderation team, the concerned player will have all their matches automatically forfeited unless the match is more than 3 rounds ago in the losers bracket.

4. The use of chess engines or cheating during their NARKC games will lead upon TD discretion to a lifetime ban from all NARKC tournaments, along with their names added to a blacklist. This rule will extend retroactively to all NARKC’s.

5. In case a player gets a cheat detected game during an NARKC match, the match will automatically be forfeited in the opponent’s favor. In addition, the player will be forfeited from any of their future pairings.

6. Participants of the North American RK Championship are not permitted to play their matches in any other way than on lichess.org, and using the account that they registered with. If it is noted that a player's account is closed, their remaining matches will be forfeited at the end of the week provided that the account is still closed by that time.

7. If it comes to a TD’s attention that any match in the NARKC was intentionally forfeited or lost by a player, this will lead to an immediate disqualification from the tournament. Additionally the TD may issue a 1 to 3 year NARKC ban depending on the seriousness of the case.

8. In case of a double forfeit, the higher ranked player by the tournament system will be advanced, however this will only happen once per player.

9. If a Tournament Director is involved in any type of incident that requires intervention of the tournament organizers, responsibility to handle the incident is handed over to the remaining TD(s).

10. Any case that is not specific to situations outlined by the rules above will be handled by TDs’ collaboration. Actions taken can include but are not limited to: match forfeits, tournament suspension, ban for 1 to all future NARKCs, or reasonable anti-cheat measures.

These rules are based on and modified from the 2024 RKWC rules. Most credit for these rules is due to the 2024 RKWC.