The Online Charity Challenge is a new event for online players, open to everyone – not just UKBGF members! Enjoy playing top class opponents and raising funds for a truly deserving cause. The more you support our charity, the more play you get! The winner will not only get a unique trophy, they will have the right to nominate a UK charity for the 2018 event.
Tournament director and sponsor: Julia Hayward
Current Standings
The main tournament draw is available here.
Registration
Registration is open to anyone. Games will be played on GridGammon, so you are advised to ensure you have an account and can run the software before registering – Julia can advise on getting a GridGammon account. Draws will be sent out by email including contact details for other players, and the draw will also be available to view on Challonge. To register, you will need to make a donation to our chosen cause on JustGiving, specifying (at least) your GridGammon nickname.
Register now and support Bristol MIND
UKBGF Members: A £5 donation gets you 1 entry (guaranteeing you at least five games), £10 gets you two entries (ten games), £15 three (fifteen games). Do be careful that you have sufficient time to play all your games!
Non-members: A £6 donation gets you one entry, £12 gets you two entries, £18 three.
Format and Schedule
The tournament will have two phases. In the first phase, players will be entered at random into 6-person round robins playing 7 point matches. If you’ve entered multiple times you’ll be drawn into more than one group, giving you increased chances of getting through to the second stage. These will start on November 8th 2017 and all games need to be played by 22nd January 2018. (Note: these dates have been pushed back a week from the original – unwell TD)
The top players in each group, plus enough best runners up to make up an even draw, will go through to the second phase. If you’ve had multiple entries and qualify twice, you’ll earn a first-round bye in the second phase. If – like Gaz last year – you qualify three times, then you get a bye and a half – it sounds complicated but all will become clear!
The second phase is a simple knockout of all qualifiers – 11 pointers up to the semi-finals and a 15-point final. Deadlines for matches will be at two week intervals, meaning we should have a winner before Easter.
Charities
The 2017 Charity Challenge will benefit:
Bristol MIND (nominated by Gaz Owen, 2016 winner)
One in four of us will suffer mental health problems in any given year. Bristol Mind aims to promote mental health and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. Their services include advocacy, low-cost counselling, confidential helplines, hate crime services, information services and training courses.
In 2016 we supported Cancer Research and Ashanti Development.
Get your favourite cause up here!
Do you have a favourite cause you’d like to help? The winner of the 2017 Challenge will earn the right to nominate one of the charities for 2018, and the tournament sponsor may nominate another. Charities must be registered with the Charities Commission in the UK and be non-party-political/non-religious to be eligible for nomination.
Additional rules
Games will be played on GridGammon, except by mutual agreement, with pip counts ON. You are expected to be reasonably understanding should disconnections occur mid-game. Tournament matches will be ratings-optional – that is, you are free to play rated (and we expect most will) but a player who wishes to play unrated takes precedence. You can find our generic Online Tournament Rules here.
In the group stage, tie breaks will apply in this order:
- Head to head results between tied players
- Sonneborn-Berger score (sum of defeated opponents’ scores)
- Play-offs
Online matches do not count towards the UKBGF Rankings.
Finalists will be required to inform the Tournament Director of the agreed date, time and location of the final game in good time so that prospective spectators can be informed. The final game must allow spectators to watch. We will be happy to announce other games in the second phase should players wish to have spectators present.
Forfeits will only be awarded as a last resort, at the TD’s sole discretion and generally only if evidence of one of the following can be provided:
- lack of response to emails,
- failure to appear on one occasion without good reason, or two separate occasions for any reason,
- deliberate in-game disconnection or other inappropriate behaviour
Gift Aid – sadly we are not able to reclaim Gift Aid on any donations, as under UK tax regulations they are strictly defined as “payment for services”.
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