US Team Chess League

USTCL Rules and Regulations

Length of Season: 1 year, starting in July.
Format: Round-robin. Number of rounds per division (see your division-specific forum threads below)
1. - Division 1 - 10 teams, 9 rounds
  - Division 2 - 10 teams, 9 rounds
  - Division 3 - 8 teams, 9 rounds (last two TBA)
  - Division 4 - 8 teams, 9 rounds (last two TBA)
  - Division 5 - 8 teams, 9 rounds (last two TBA)
League Standings: Standings will be posted on the 2025-2026 Season Page. Only matches that have been clinched will be shown as a result in the standings.
Prizes: Trophies for places 1 thru 3. Trophies will be awarded by January 1st of the following year.
Player Eligibility: A player can only play for one team in this league throughout a season regardless of division. Once they play for a team, they must stay with that team throughout the season. USTCL admins will post notifications of multi-team players in e division thread a few days before the match is due to start.
Promotion/Relegation: The top two teams in each division (except Division 1) on June 30th will be promoted to the next higher division. The bottom two teams in each division (except Division 4) will be relegated to the next lower division.
Unfinished Matches: If a match result has not been determined by the season end date, but it is necessary that the match conclude in order to determine the divisional composition for the following season, then the remaining incomplete games within that match will be decided using chess.com's analysis tool. If a player is leading by a score of 2.0 or more, they will be determined to have won that game. If the difference is less than 2.0, the game will be determined to be a draw.
Tiebreakers: The first tiebreaker will be head-to-head results. The second tiebreaker will be the Sonneborn-Berger score. Uncompleted games will not be scored for the purposes of the second tiebreaker.
Score Adjustments: Match scores will be finalized after taking into consideration the account closures of members due to cheating or abuse, and also after applying penalties for multi-team players (see rule 6). This will occur prior to announcing the final standings.
Forfeits: There are two types of forfeits that may be awarded:
1. Challenge Forfeits: In order to claim a forfeit win due to no acceptance of a challenge, please post a note to the league forum thread that a challenge has been issued, and include a link to the active challenge. Challenges expire around 7-8 days after being issued. If a challenge expires, it shall be the responsibility of the team who did not accept the original challenge to send a new challenge, or a forfeit win will be awarded to the issuer of the original challenge. If match registration has not started at least 72 hours before the scheduled start time, a forfeit win will be awarded to the challenging team.
  If no note has been posted, the result will be a double forfeit, and will count as a 0-0.
2. Minimum Board Forfeits: In order to claim a forfeit win due to lack of boards, teams must have clear evidence that a team did not meet the minimum boards at the match's intended start time. If a match has started late, the team claiming a forfeit must have visual evidence (e.g. a screenshot) that shows that they met the minimum on time. Past matches do not count as visual evidence for this purpose. If no such evidence is available, the must must be played as a normal match. Teams are encouraged to make sure Auto-Start is set to No when setting up challenges to make adjudicating these forfeits easier.
Communications: Team admins should not communicate directly with non-admin members of the opposing team. Please work directly with the opposing team admins and/or USTCL admins through private messages to avoid public conflict and confusion. Please see Team Admin best practices for additional details.

Fairplay Rules for Players:

Opening databases without engine evaluation and opening books are permitted in Daily Chess, but the use of engines and tablebases is never permitted.

See here for the applicable rules: https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com.

If you are not clear about the rules - ask.

USTCL 2025 Schedule

Team Admin Guidelines: Filtering Players

Per the spirit of the US Team Chess League (USTCL), teams are encouraged to seek out new members and strengthen their teams. In order to ensure teams are accepting players in a fair manner, the following guidelines must be followed:

Do not remove players from matches, EXCEPT:

a. Players with timeout of 15% or higher (removal allowed)

b. multiplayers (removal requested)

Accept all players into your group who have a reasonable connection to your state or province. Players may only be denied in the following cases:

a. new players who have been on chess.com for less than 3 months (denial allowed, not required)

b. abusive players (denial recommended)

c. players who have no connection to your state or province, or are already members of another state or province's club

Do not remove players from your group, EXCEPT:

a. abusive players

b. multiplayers

c. nactive players (more than 1 year)

d. closed accounts

Do not deny players access to your group because of:

a. rating

b. timeouts (dealt with by allowing removal from matches)

c. suspected cheating (recommended to report to chess.com)

d. number of games completed (dealt with by match minimum)

Team Admin Guidelines: Match Setup

Match Settings: When setting up matches, please use the following parameters
1. Match Name: USTCL 2026 R#: Team A vs Team B (Replace # with the number of the round)
2. Quick Description (optional): Opening databases without engine evaluation and opening books are permitted in Daily Chess, but the use of engines and tablebases is never permitted. See here for the applicable rules: https://support.chess.com/article/648-what-do-i-need-to-know-about-fair-play-on-chess-com. If you are not clear about the rules - ask.
3. Game Type: Standard Chess
4. Days per Move: 3 days
5. Start Date: 14th of the month
6. Start Time: 7 PM PT (10 PM ET)
7. Rating: None (Open)
8. Players per Club: Minimum varies per division - D1: 15, D2: 10, D3: 6, D4: 3
9. Concurrent Games per Player: 2
10. Rated: Yes
11. Auto-Start: No
12. Minimum Games: Varies per division - D1: 10, D2: 10, D3: 5, D4: 5
Removal of Players: Team admins may remove players from their roster who exceed a timeout ratio of 15%, or are ineligible due to rule 6. Removed players must be published in the team match thread prior to the start of the match. Example: Player A was removed in accordance with timeout rule: Timeout ratio 55%. Teams may not remove players from their roster or discourage players from joining a match to obtain a more favorable matchup.

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