Pandanet IGS Pandanet

Rule Set for the Pandanet Go European Team Championship

  1. Overview
    1. The Pandanet Go European Team Championship (PGETC) is organized by the
      European Go Federation (EGF)
    2. National teams of European countries, who are members of the EGF, can participate
    3. The PGETC is a tournament in different leagues played on the internet, with special final rounds for the top four teams of the A League played over the board at the European Go Congress
    4. The winner of the over-the-board-finals gets the title “European Team Champion” for one year
    5. The yearly season starts in September 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 commission – a team of three experienced players form the appeals commission
    5. Project lead – two persons (one must be member of the EGF-executive-board) operate as PGETC 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. All 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 commission. The decision of the appeals commission 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 professional and amateur players, female and male
    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 represent
    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 August 15th, at the latest, if the team wants to start in the coming season
    5. The team captain informs the project leaders by September 5th, at the latest, about the team players for the coming season
  6. The Leagues
    1. The size of a league can vary between 5 and 12 teams
    2. The desired size for a league is 10 teams. The league lasts at one game per month from September 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
    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 September 10th
    2. For leagues with a size between 7 and 12 the system to play is round robin
    3. For leagues with 5 or 6 teams round robin is played twice
    4. The schedule for the rounds in the leagues lasts from September to May
    5. Deciding matches (see §13) are scheduled for June
    6. The finals of the A League should be played at the beginning of the European Go Congress, normally in July
    7. The exact schedule for the finals will be announced by the project leaders in cooperation with the organizing team of the European Go Congress by May 1st at the latest
  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
    2. The last placed team of a league (except the bottom league) has to start the next season one league lower
    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. See also §13
    4. If a team quits the PGECT 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 10 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 Tuesday back to earliest the previous Tuesday), 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 (Tuesday) 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. Three of the four 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 four boards (exception: deciding game on five boards, see §13) with Japanese rules
    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 and three, 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 both teams have won the same number of boards both teams get one MP. 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 four 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. It is possible to play a match with less than 4 players. Besides losing the non- played games, empty boards force additional penalties, see §15
    12. 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. Lot
    3. Penalties might reduce MPs and/or BPs (see §15)
  13. Deciding matches
    1. Both affected league managers have to prepare a deciding match by contacting the captains in the different leagues
    2. All rules of §11 are valid in addition to the two following points
      1. The deciding games are played on five boards
      2. The team of the lower league gets black on boards one, three and five
    3. Part of the announced schedule for the season will be a date for deciding matches as well
  14. Finals at the European Go Congress
    1. The matches are played on four real boards without handicap, Japanese rules and the parameters of §11 (5) and (6)
    2. Each of the four teams has to play three games (round robin)
    3. The final order will be found by
      1. Match points
      2. Board points
      3. Mutual game (if only two teams are equal after a) and b))
      4. Place in the final table of the A League (see §12) after the matches on the internet
    4. Still valid for these matches are §12 (9), (10) and (11)
    5. Members of the EGF executive board operate as tournament leaders
  15. 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
  16. Date / Validity
    1. This rule set is coming into force on November 15th 2010

Remarks:

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

GMT (Western European Time):
United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal
GMT+1 (Central European Time):
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina
GMT+2 (Eastern European Time):
Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel
GMT+3 (Minsk Time):
Belarus
GMT+4 (Moscow Time):
Russia

All European countries except Russia and Belarus observe Daylight savings time starting on the last Sunday in March and ending on the last Sunday in October.

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

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