Pandanet IGS Pandanet

Rules

  1. Overview
    1. The Pandanet Youth Go European Team Championship (PYGETC) is organized by the European Go Federation (EGF)
    2. National teams of European countries, who are members of the EGF, can participate
    3. The PYGETC is a tournament in different leagues (depending on the number of the teams) played on the internet
    4. The winner of the top league gets the title “European Youth Team Champion” for one year
    5. The yearly season starts in January and ends at next year’s European Congress
  2. Organisation
    1. National teams – must be built at the beginning of a season (old teams and new ones). Details see §4
    2. Team captain – each team has to nominate a team-captain and a proxy for the captain
    3. League Manager – every league is headed by a league manager
    4. Appeals committee – a team of three experienced players from three different countries form the appeals committee.
    5. Project lead – two persons (one must be member of the EGF-executive-board) operate as PYGETC project managers
    6. Webmaster + Pandanet (IGS) support-team + League tool expert – as appointed
  3. Playing on the internet – general aspects
    1. All games must exclusively be played on the Pandanet (IGS) Server
    2. Fair play is the base of the whole competition. While playing it is, for example, forbidden to use tools like programs with AI, stored games or literature. Players are required to use video conferencing for monitoring purposes and all players are expected to familiarize themselves with the EGF Fair-Play Guide (Oct 8, 2023 edition)
    3. In case of differences during or after a game, first of all the captains should try to solve the problem. If no solution is found the responsible league manager should be consulted who will decide. Against this decision it is possible for a team captain to escalate the case by involving the appeals committee. The decision of the appeals committee is final
    4. Both captains are responsible that their players choose the right rule-set, colours, thinking time, komi and byoyomi
    5. If mistakes in colours or time-settings are found within the first six moves the game should be stopped and restarted with correct parameters. After move seven the (wrong) settings are valid for the game. Wrong komi can be adjusted at the end of the game
    6. The player with the black stones invites the player with the white stones at the beginning of the game
    7. A game is lost by time if a player fails to play 25 moves in the defined byoyomi period (10 minutes)
  4. Teams
    1. Teams are national teams. Their name is the name of the country they represent
    2. A team must be formed at the beginning of the season with at least 6 players and an upper limit of 12 players
    3. Teams are open for amateur players younger than 18 on 1st January.
    4. All players must be citizens of the country they represent
    5. Players with multiple citizenships can start for only one country, but might change their country team for the next season
    6. The team is fixed for the whole season after defining it (see (2)). No players can be added and none can be removed
    7. The players of a team must be ordered (from 1 to 12) according to the rating list of the European Go Database available at the beginning of the season. The strongest player gets number one. The exact date of the list to be used is published by the project leaders
    8. The order keeps unchanged for the whole season (see §1 (5)) regardless of any changes in the European rating lists
  5. Team Captain
    1. The national Go organisation nominates the team captain
    2. The team captain represents the team in all cases. The captain need not to be a member of the team, but must be a citizen of the country they represents
    3. The team captain keeps contact with to the responsible league manager and (if required) with the project leaders, and vice versa
    4. The team captain informs the project leaders by November 15th (exceptionally by January 31st in 2024), at the latest, if the team wants to start in the coming season
    5. The team captain informs the project leaders by December 15th (exceptionally by February 10th in 2024), at the latest, about the team players for the coming season
  6. The Leagues
    1. The size of a league can vary between 4 and 8 teams
    2. The desired size for a league is 6 teams. The league lasts at one game in three weeks from January (exceptionally from February in 2024) to May
    3. The leagues are ordered hierarchically (A, B, C …) – the A League is the top league
    4. The exact structure of the leagues is published by the project leaders latest on September 1st (exceptionally on February 1st in 2024)
    5. Teams entering in subsequent years start in the lowest division regardless of strength. Their captains should be aware of §5 (4) and (5)
  7. League Managers
    1. For each league there exists a responsible league manager
    2. League managers are nominated by the project leaders
    3. League managers are in charge of announcing the matches on the web in close cooperation with the team captains
    4. After the matches of a round the league managers publish the results and implement them in the tables
    5. League managers act as judges in case of difficulties (see §3 (3))
  8. Schedule
    1. The schedule for the whole season is published by the project leaders, latest on January 10th (exceptionally on February 10th in 2024)
    2. For leagues with a size between 5 and 10 the system to play is round robin
    3. For leagues with 3 or 4 teams round robin is played twice
    4. The schedule for the rounds in the leagues lasts from January to May
  9. Up and down between the leagues
    1. The champion of a league (except the A League) gets the right to start in the next season in the upper league (exceptionally, in 2024, two best teams of the B league start the next season in the A league)
    2. The last placed team of a league (except the bottom league) has to start the next season one league lower (exceptionally, in 2024, no teams from the A league are dropping to the B league)
    3. The second placed team of a league (except the top league) and next to the last placed of the adjacent upper league play a deciding match. The winner starts the next season in the upper league whilst the loser starts in the lower league (this rule applies for future seasons) See also §13
    4. If a team quits the PYGETC after a season the affected league will be filled up (except the bottom league). (1) and (2) keep valid. If the deciding match has been played before the message of the withdrawal of the team has been sent to the project leaders the loser of this match will play in the upper league as well. But if the withdrawal message is published before June the deciding match (3) is cancelled, the second placed team starts in the upper league in the next season and the next to last placed team of the upper league keeps in this league for the next season
  10. Arranging the match
    1. Both team captains get in contact latest 7 days before the planned date, published at the beginning of the season, to confirm the default date and start-time, or fix another date
    2. If a captain is prevented from looking for the team by the deadline (as defined in (1)) then a proxy must be nominated
    3. The results of (1) and maybe (2) must be sent to the responsible league manager as soon as possible, latest 3 days before the start of the match. This e-mail is required, in any case, even if no changes from the announced default schedule are agreed. The league manager publishes time and date in an appropriate way to address interested observers who want to follow the games
    4. The date of the match can be moved up to 7 days earlier (from scheduled Wednesday back to earliest the previous Wednesday), so the games for a particular planned date can take place on 8 different days at most. The last date and time to start any game in the match is the original planned date (Wednesday) at 21:30 GMT. Games played after this date are not valid and will be counted as not played for both parties (see §15)
    5. Four of the five games within one match must be played at the same time and date. One game can be started at a different time, as long as (4) is considered. If one game is scheduled separate, the rule to announce this game 3 days earlier to the league manager is still valid
    6. Whenever the team captains cannot find a date accepted from both sides, the original planned date published at the beginning of the season (default date) must be taken
    7. With the email about the agreed time and date (as in (3)) the team captains have to tell each other and their league manager the names (with IGS Userids) of the players they plan for the match ordered by boards. Last minute changes in the team on the scheduled date are still possible (see §11 (1))
    8. To solve the problem of the different time-zones in Europe the following rules for starting a match according to the published schedule of the season are valid:
      1. within the same time-zone, start at 20:00
      2. one hour difference, start at 20:00 / 21:00
      3. two hours difference, start at 19:00 / 21:00
      4. three hours difference – special arrangements required

        For an overview about the European countries and their time-zones, look at the section “remarks”.
  11. The Team Event
    1. The match starts with contact of the team captains confirming the names of the players. The captains have the right to change their announced team composition but should consider (10)
    2. The match is played on five boards with Japanese rules. Players on the first three boards are “under 18”, ordered by rating at the beginning of the season. Board 4 is a female player “under 18”. Board 5 is a player “under 12”
    3. All games should start at the announced or separately agreed time and day. If a game cannot be started within 30 minutes of the planned schedule the team who is responsible for the delay loses the game on this board. See also §15
    4. All games are played without handicap on Pandanet-IGS (exception: over-the-board finals, see §14)
    5. The thinking time is 60 minutes per player with Canadian byoyomi of 25 moves in 10 minutes
    6. White gets 6.5 Komi
    7. The “home-team” (first team in the announced match) gets black on boards one, three and five, white on boards two and four
    8. The team who has won more boards gets two match points (MP); the losing team gets no match points. If neither team shows up at the agreed schedule, no MPs are given
    9. Each team gets for a won game one board point (BP) and for a lost game zero board points. This is also valid if a game is won without playing (see (3) for example). If both teams leave the same board free, no BPs are given, for additional penalties see §15
    10. The players for the first three boards must be nominated according to the ordered list of players fixed at the start of the season (stronger players play on higher boards than weaker players of the team). A violation of this rule results in losing the game on that board
    11. The player for the board four must be a female player
    12. The player for the board five must be a player younger than 12 on 1st January
    13. It is possible to play a match with less than 5 players. Besides losing the non- played games, empty boards force additional penalties, see §15
    14. After the match, the team-leader of the winning team has to report the result as soon as possible (latest after 12 hours) to the responsible league-manager, including the names of the players of both teams. In case of a jigo the team-leader of the team who won on board one is in charge to report the result
  12. Table
    1. The league manager generates the table after each round
    2. The order within the league is as follows:
      1. Won Match points (MP)
      2. Won Board points (BP)
      3. BPs won at board 1
      4. BPs won at board 2
      5. BPs won at board 3
      6. BPs won at board 4
      7. Lot
    3. Penalties might reduce MPs and/or BPs (see §13)
  13. Penalties
    1. Penalties normally reduce the match points and board points in the table
    2. If a board is left empty (or no show within the 30 minutes after defined start) the penalty is one board point (BP)
    3. Leaving board 1 empty (see (2)) results in an additional one BP-penalty
    4. BP-penalties are cumulated. 4 BP-penalties force an additional match point (MP) penalty
    5. If a team does not start at all two times in a season, the team is set on the last place of the table, losing all games. No more games for the team in the current season are possible. Additional penalty: No start in the next season and restart afterwards in the lowest league
    6. Not announcing the planned date of the match and/or the team composition in time forces a yellow card. Each two yellow cards result in a one BP-penalty
    7. Any cheating results in losing the complete match on all four boards with an additional four MP-penalty
    8. Second cheating disqualifies the team for the running season and the next two seasons
  14. Date / Validity
    1. This rule set is coming into force on January 18th 2024

Remarks:

1) Overview about European countries (full EGF-members) and their time-zones

GMT (Western European Time):
United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, Iceland
GMT+1 (Central European Time):
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia
GMT+2 (Eastern European Time):
Finland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel

2) All communication between teams and between teams and organisers should be in
English unless two teams agree to use a common language

Back
League A
# Team G BP W-D-L P
1 Ukraine 4 12 3-0-1 6
2 UK 4 10 3-0-1 6
3 Romania 4 10 1-0-3 2
4 Croatia 4 8 1-0-3 2
League B
# Team G BP W-D-L P
1 Germany 4 15 4-0-0 8
2 France 4 9 2-0-2 4
3 Poland 4 9 1-0-3 2
4 Turkey 4 7 1-0-3 2