Team matches between clubs

A team match is a contest between two chessmail clubs on five boards. Each club fields a team of five players, and every board plays two rated correspondence games with swapped colors. The club with more points at the end wins the match.

Team matches are new and are currently being tried out with a few clubs. Every club can already set up its teams. If your club would like to take part in the test, send a message to shaack.

Setting up teams

The club admin manages teams under Club admin > Teams. A team consists of exactly five active club members. A club can have several teams, for example a first and a second team, and a player may be in more than one team of the same club. There are no substitutes.

You do not have to define an order. When the match starts, the boards are assigned by correspondence chess rating, with the strongest player on board 1.

The club's teams are visible to everyone on the club's Team matches page, together with the running and finished matches. This way every member can see whether they are in a team.

Challenging a club

The club admin challenges another club. They pick one of their complete teams, the opponent and the time control, and can add a message. The default is three days per move. The admins of the challenged club receive an email and also see the challenge in their club admin to-dos.

Until the opponent accepts, the challenger can still change the team and withdraw the challenge. Only one open match at a time is possible between two clubs. A challenge that remains unanswered for 14 days expires.

Accepting

The admin of the challenged club picks one of their complete teams and accepts. If the club has no complete team yet, they set one up first. The match starts immediately on acceptance: both lineups are fixed, the boards are assigned and all ten games are created. Every player in the lineup receives an email.

The games of a team match are ordinary correspondence games. They appear among your own games, are played with the chosen time control and count towards the standard rating. The game info links to the team match.

Result

Every won game earns the club one point, a draw half a point. With ten games there are ten points to win. The match is finished as soon as all games are finished. At 5:5 the match ends in a draw.

The match page shows the boards with both players, their ratings at the time of the start, a link to every game and the current score.

If a player drops out

After the start the lineup can no longer be changed. A player who does not move loses their games on time, as in any other correspondence game, which happens quickly at three days per move. If a player leaves the club before the challenge is accepted and is not replaced, their board stays empty and is forfeited 2:0 to the opponent.