The Online Charity Challenge is an annual 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 2020 event. Tournament director and sponsor: Julia Hayward
Current Standings
The main tournament draw will be available here once we get started.
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 The Alzheimer’s Society
Entry: A £5 donation gets you two lives, £10 three lives, and £15 five lives (see below). There will be trophies for the top 3 finishers.
Please make sure you include your name or Gridgammon nickname with your donation so that we know who you are! If you don’t want to appear on the donations page, you could alternatively mail Julia separately.
Format and Schedule
This year, following the success of the multiple-elimination UKBGF Online Championship, we’ll be adopting a similar format, but with people able to choose the number of lives they start with. The more lives, the more chance of being the last one standing. Each round involves an 11 point match. The first two rounds will start with random draws on November 11th 2019 and you’ll have three weeks to play those matches. Lose a match, lose a life! After that, we pair people up with opponents who have similar numbers of lives left; everyone still with lives intact gets another opponent every two weeks until we are left with just the one champion.
Charities
The 2019 Charity Challenge will benefit The Alzheimer’s Society (nominated by Steve Waller, 2018 winner) 
Research: We are the only UK charity investing in research into dementia care, cause, cure and prevention. We’ve committed to spending £150 million on cutting-edge research over the next decade. Every project we fund directly addresses the needs and concerns of people affected by dementia. Campaigns: We fight for the rights of everyone affected by dementia. Our campaigns keep dementia firmly at the top of the political agenda. And we raise awareness, pushing for a more dementia-friendly society so people with the condition can live without fear and prejudice. Local support services: Our 3,000 services across England, Wales and Northern Ireland offer information, care and support to people with dementia, their families, friends and carers. Services include Dementia Cafés, Singing for the Brain® sessions, and Dementia Advisers, Dementia Support Workers and Side by Side volunteers who support people to keep doing the things they enjoy. In 2018 we also supported the Alzheimers’ Society; In 2017 we supported Bristol MIND, and 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 2019 Challenge will earn the right to nominate a charity for 2020, 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.
Deadlines: will be strictly enforced unless you contact julia@ukbgf.com in good time to make an arrangement to defer a game. If I haven’t heard from either player by the cutoff time, then you both lose a life.
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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