Online League: Original Info and Rules

Organisation

The BGA League Tournament is a team tournament, played online over the course of each year, almost entirely on the KGS Go Server and in the "British Room".

The purpose of the league is to encourage interaction between players in different areas of the country and to encourage online play amongst members of the BGA.

Each team has three or more members, in most cases taken from a local Go club of the same name, but in a few cases from widely geographically separated members as a means of including those who are unable to attend a local Go club.

The teams are arranged into divisions of roughly equal size. Each team plays each other team in the same division at least once, and usually twice over the course of the season.

New entrant teams are assigned to a division containing players of similar strength at the organisers' discretion.

Each team has a captain, who is repsonsible for marshalling the players and organising the matches in co-operation with his or her counterparts in the other teams.

Matches

Three players from each team participate in each match. Each player from each team plays a game against his or her counterpart in the opposing team at a time to suit the players concerned.

The match is won by the team with the majority of won games.

Most games are recorded and from time to time teachers and experts may provide reviews of games to assist player development. From time to time reviews of games may appear in the British Go Journal.

Joining

We are now taking entries for the 2016 league season, which will get under way hopefully in February 2016. If you would like to join it, either as an individual wanting to be assigned to a team, or a new team wanting to join, please let us know as soon as possible. Please contact the Online League coordinators.

Note that we will consider applications from non-UK players to join teams and play in the league, but they must be prepared to pay their share of the subscription and also fit in with UK times.

Rules

A full description of playing games is to be found under rules.

Players wishing to captain a team must be members of the British Go Association, which can be joined here.

Subscriptions

We charge £15 per season for each team in the team league, together with an extra £5 each non-BGA member in each team.

Prizes

The champions of the top division in the league will win the League Tournament Shield, shown on the first page and in addition for the first 5 years will receive three copies of the GoGoD Database and Encyclopaedia.

The BGA Council wishes to express its gratitude to Games of Go on Disk for their generous donation of the online league shield and copies of the GoGoD CD.

The winners of the other divisions in each season will be promoted to the next higher division for the next season.

The bottommost team in each division in each season, apart from the bottom division, will be relegated to the next lower division for the next season.

Individual League

Originally there was an Individual League, but this was discontinued in October 2012. We named the prizes for that the Xinyi Lu Prize, after Xinyi Lu, an enthusiastic and well-liked player, who whilst leading (and ultimately still winning) the division 2 in the first full season of the Individual Leauge, was tragically killed whilst on holiday in China in October 2011.

League standings and history

You can see the current league standings and historical records using the menu items to the left, together with historical records. In the majority of cases you can download and review the actual games. For any further questions, please contact the Online League coordinators.

Rules

We would like to clarify how games should be played on the league to avoid confusion. (Please note that this is the current version, modified in practice and takes priority over the original specification at this document).

If something goes wrong please see here.

Standard Even Games

Games should be played with the following parameters on KGS

AGA Rules   
No handicap   
7.5 Komi   
Free Game   
Colours assigned as specified in the match allocation not according to strengths of players   
Byo-Yomi time control   
Main time 30 minutes   
Byo-Yomi time 30 seconds   
5 Byo-Yomi periods   
Indicate that it is a BGA League Game   

Team League Division 1

All games are played even. Please try to stick to the colours as they are assigned WBW or BWB to boards 1 to 3 regardless of strengths. One player may have to click the button next to his name to get the colours right.

League Divisions 2 and below

These divisions may have handicap games where the player strengths are sufficiently different, otherwise they should be even as described above. Please try to stick to the colours as they are assigned WBW or BWB to boards 1 to 3 regardless of strengths (wherever this is possible). One player may have to click the button next to his name to get the colours right.

Playing handicap games

Handicaps are assigned as the difference in rank minus 1 up to a maximum of 9. A handicap of 1 means no komi. If the difference in rank is less than 1, then the game is played as even with 7.5 komi and possibly with the weaker player as White.

So for example if a 1K player plays a 10K player then a handicap of 8 is used and 0.5 komi.

Or if a 2D player plays a 4K player then a handicap of 4 is used and 0.5 komi.

The komi on handicap games should be set to 0.5 except for handicaps beyond 9, as described below.

Handicaps beyond 9

If the handicap "would be" more than 9, then the white player gives 9 stones plus 10 points of reverse komi for each stone beyond 9. This might mean that the komi is -9.5, -19.5 etc.

So for example if a 1K player plays a 20K player then a handicap of 9 plus -89.5 (reverse) komi is used.

Handicap display

The software calculates the handicap "on the fly" from the currently-set ranks of the players. It is each player's responsibility to make sure that his/her rank is set correctly (each player can adjust his/her own rank). The players should be prepared to adjust the handicap before the start of the game if they know it is too much or too little to make the games as fair as possible.

General points

We suggest a "Free Game" as the KGS handicaps are ignored and in some cases wildly different strength players meet with non-standard handicaps and we don't think this should confuse KGS rankings.

If you suddenly realise during the game you've got the game settings wrong you must continue with it if 6 or more moves have been played. If you have played less than 6 moves you may abandon the game and restart it.

If there is an unavoidable interruption such as one player is disconnected or KGS crashes, please try to resume it as soon as possible or agree the result by one side resigning possibly in consultation with an agreed adjudicator.

If it is impossible to resume the game and it appears very close, record the game as a draw (Jigo). (This is why a column has been provided for draws in the tables - and potentially a team match could be drawn also).

Something wrong?

If something goes wrong, please don't flounder. Please don't enter any results that may be trouble to unravel. Here's what to do.

Errors setting up the game

If you make a mistake setting up the game, such as getting the colours, handicap (if any), time limits or komi wrong and you notice the error, you should abandon the game and restart it if less than 6 moves have been made.

If 6 or more moves have been made, then the settings must stand and the result reported as the server announces it.

You must abandon the game, not have one side resign if the colours are wrong at the start, as if someone just resigns it may confuse the algorithm to load the SGF from KGS, and mistakenly load that one rather than the "real" one.

This is another reason why games should be "free" so that abandoned games don't make the players get tagged as "escapers".

At the end of the game

Please be careful to correctly mark dead groups before pressing "done". If you can't agree about which groups are dead, play out the moves to prove it one way or another. This doesn't matter under AGA rules. If you get it wrong you cannot change the result from what the server announces.

Disputes about playing games

If you think that a handicap is wrong, because you are overgraded or your opponent undergraded, do not start the game or the outcome will be counted as the result. Query the matter immediately with your team captains or an administrator.

A dispute may arise about people not turning up for games or some irregularity during a game.

If this happens please contact an admin person or BGA council member as soon as possible as referee. The person chosen should not have any direct involvement with the match in question and should refuse to act as referee if he/she believes that there is any such involvement.

The person may decide:

To award the game to one side or the other.   
To declare the game to be a draw (Jigo). Note that this may cause the match itself to be drawn.   
To declare the game void and order its replay. The replay should normally be with the same colours, handicap or komi and time controls as the original game should have been (unless some of those were issues in dispute).   

In the last case, the referee may supplement his/her decision with a rider that a replay be made within a certain time or one of the other outcomes shall apply.

If you think that the decision of the referee was wrong, or that the referee had an undeclared interest in the result, then you should appeal to the BGA council for a final decision.

Games decided in this fashion (unless the referee decides that the result of the game should stand as it was) are entered as W+N or B+N or Jigo as appropriate and no SGF file should be included.

Errors entering results

The result must be entered exactly as reported by the server. We now let you correct incorrect colours, but please don't make a habit of this.

If you realise you have made a major error in the reporting of a result, please stop entering anything else, but report the matter to an admin person for him/her to correct.

Ordering of league tables

To clarify how the league tables are ordered, the rules are as follows:

For each match won, we give 100 points.  
For each match drawn (this can happen if some games were drawn), we give 25 points.   
For each match lost, we give 0 points.   
For each match played and completed, whatever the outcome, we give 0.01 points.  
For each individual game, we give 1 point(s) for each won game and 0 for each lost game. Drawn games are given 0.25 point(s),   

The intention of this is to give most credit for matches completed and won. If those compare equal, we use the number of individual games won. However we try to give some credit to matches actually completed even if they are lost.

Nevertheless, we would suggest that the league tables should not be taken too seriously in the early parts of the season.

Towards the end of the season, we try to encourage teams to complete matches and may mark games as drawn or defaulted by one side as appropriate.