2012 USBGF National Club Team Championship

It is with great pleasure that the U. S. Backgammon Federation presents the 2nd USBGF National Club Team Championship. Take the traveling trophy, now housed with the Chicago Bears, home to your club!  Your valued feedback from last year’s inaugural event has been considered, and the registration desk is now open.  The major change from last year is that the top TWO teams from the Group Play round will enter into the Playoffs.

So Captains, mark your calendars, read and understand the terms of contest spelled out below, and send in your Team Registration emails to clubs@usbgf.org no later than March 20, 2012. You will find there is no entry fee, but the traveling trophy will be awarded to the first place team and certificates will be awarded to players of the top four teams at the USBGF awards dinner on June 9 in Los Angeles. Photos of winning team players will be featured on the USBGF Hall of Fame website page and the July-August 2012 issue of PrimeTime Backgammon electronic magazine. There are a just a handful of easy hoops that each player, three-person team, and local club must jump through to qualify for this event.  You won’t find more fun, prestige, and recognition anywhere else!

TOURNAMENT STAFF

Co-Director:                Justin Nunez,  AKA nightmare73      justin_nunez@yahoo.com

Co-Director:                Joe Russell,     AKA ez2bcubed         ez2bblue@sbcglobal.net

CAPTAIN’S RESPONSIBILITIES

Captains must send the Team Registration email by Tuesday, March 20, 2012 (please see below), and ensure that all qualifying criteria are met by each of three team members and, if desired, one floater.  Only the Captain may communicate with the Director on issues other than reporting results.

TEAM REGISTRATION

To qualify a team to play in this tournament, Captains must send an email to clubs@usbgf.org, by March 20, 2012, with the following information:  1) the name of their local club, 2) the name of their team, and 3) first names, last names, email addresses, GridGammon nicknames, and seeds (A, B, C, F) for each player and floater.  No person not included in the Team Registration email may substitute for, or replace, an original team member once the tournament begins.  There are no entry fees or registration fees to play in this event, but there are a small number of player, team, and local club qualifying criteria that must be met by March 20, 2012 (please see below).

PLAYER QUALIFICATION

All players must be Premium or Youth Members of USBGF as of March 20, 2012 not to expire before April 20, 2012.  It’s only $40 for a one year membership (or $100 for a three year membership) or $15 for Youth age 25 and under).  Please visit usbgf.org/membership/join and have your PayPal account information or credit card handy.

TEAM QUALIFICATION

Teams will consist of three players each.  An optional fourth player (or Floater) may be designated as well.  No team may have more than one player who is a 32-Giant. Captains must also be a playing team member.  As the name of this event implies, team members must consist of active members from the same local club.  For purposes of this event, “active” is defined as having participated live in at least one local club event in the six months prior, or at least two local club events in the twelve months prior, to the Registration Deadline of March 20, 2012. Local clubs may field as many teams as they wish.

CLUB QUALIFICATION

All sponsoring local clubs must be USBGF Affiliated Clubs by Tuesday, March 20, 2012.  This is very easy, and FREE.  To be a USBGF Affiliated Club, your local club director must simply email your club’s profile (contact information, website, venue, and playing times) to clubs@usbgf.org, so that the profile can be posted for viewing on the USBGF website, and so the club can be qualified for the Cash Dividend program (details at www.usbgf.org).  Either the club director or a designated USBGF liaison must be a Premium member of USBGF.

ONLINE VENUE

GridGammon will be the primary online venue for this tournament. Matches may be played at other venues (such as SHG, FIBS, etc.) only upon mutual agreement by both players as well as the Director.  This means that one player cannot insist on playing anywhere other than GridGammon, and that a Director can require that a match or series be played on GridGammon.  To get their FREE GridGammon player accounts, Team Members should simply email support@gridgammon.com, providing your full name, the name of this event, and your preferred nickname.  It might take a few days to receive a reply with your password.  Once you have your nickname and password, you can download the FREE software at http://gridgammon.com/.  If it is your first time playing on GridGammon, it is recommended that you play a few practice matches before the start of the tournament to familiarize yourself with the controls and the graphics.  Please feel free to contact any of the Directors for a FREE GridGammon tutorial.  Don’t wait until the last minute to do this!

TOURNAMENT FORMAT

The format will be very similar to the World Cup of soccer, with plenty of action for each player. There will be two phases: Group Play and Playoff. In Group Play, a ‘to-be-determined’ number of equal-sized groups of teams will be randomly drawn, and Round-Robin play will take place until each team has played every other team in its group.  In the Playoff, the top TWO teams from each group, according to their team’s Win/Loss record in Group Play, will then advance to a randomly drawn single-elimination knockout.  In both phases, each round will consist of contests between pairs of teams, in which each team member plays a best-of-three series of matches against one player on the opposing team.  The match ups within each contest will be determined by seeding. For example, player ‘A’ from Team 1 plays player ‘A’ from Team 2, and so forth.  The seeds for each team must be initially emailed by the Team Captain to the Director in the Team Registration email, and any changes to the original seeding can only be made, via an email from the Team Captain to the Director, before the start of either the Group Play Phase or any of the rounds in the Playoff Phase.  The winner of the contest is the team with two or more best-of-three series wins.  At the end of Group Play, ties within a group between teams of equal records (for example two teams with a 2-1 record) will be decided by the team that has the fewest individual match losses.  If there is still a tie, then the head-to head results between the two tied teams will decide.

A Floater’s replacing of a seed must be announced to the Tournament Director and the opposing team before the first game of a set.  Floaters may not play more sets in any round than the maximum a seed could have played.  In other words, a floater can only be used for an entire set in a match-up, and he cannot take over for another player once the best-of-three set has begun.

MATCH LENGTHS

Group Play matches will be 7-points; Playoff matches will be 7-points in the Round of Sixteen, 7-points in the Round of Eight, 9-points in the Semi Finals, and 11-points in the Finals.

MATCH SCHEDULING

Each round must be completed within the scheduled period.  In the Group Play phase, each player on each team can expect to play a guaranteed total of 6-9 seven point matches, with 2-3 matches (best-of-three series) played per round.  Teams that advance to the Playoff Phase will obviously play more than the minimum number of matches, continuing to play best-of-three series until their team is eliminated.  The players on the winning team can expect to play a maximum of 12-18 seven point matches throughout the entire event.  Once a round begins, players should contact their three like-seeded opponents (one from each team, according to seed) as soon as possible to schedule their matches, via GridGammon messages or email.  It is recommended that players CC the Director (and Captain) on all scheduling emails or messages sent to opposing players.  Messages should politely suggest (not require) several reasonable dates and times that you are available to play.  And it is recommended that times be stated in terms of GGT (GridGammon Time), which is the same as EST (Eastern Standard Time).  A GGT clock can be found in the lower right corner of the GridGammon Lobby screen.

REPORTING RESULTS

Results must be reported as follows:  at the end of each best-of-three series, the winner, or the winner’s Captain, must log into the USBGF web page, navigate to the Results Reporting page, and fill in the required fields.  An email will automatically be generated and sent to both Directors for them to update the online drawsheets.  Please do not report after every single match.  Links to Draw Sheets for each individual group will be available for viewing on the usbgf.org website and will show the status of each contest (team vs. team outcome) as tournament advances.  Players will also find a Directory of Team Groupings, Player names and nicknames, and Seeds, to assist them in determining who their opponents are. 

RECORDED MATCH FILES

Player participation in this tournament implies full consent of the USBGF to record or request any or all tournament matches with the purpose of making the match files available to its members for download from the USBGF website.

TROPHIES AND CERTIFICATES

First Place: Traveling team trophy and certificates for players

Second Place: Certificates for players

Third/Fourth Place: Certificates for players

TEAM PLAYER BENEFITS

A traveling trophy for the first place team and certificates for players of the top four teams will be presented at the USBGF Tournament of the Stars awards dinner on June 9 in Los Angeles.  Photos of winning team players will be featured on the USBGF Hall of Fame website page and the July-August 2012 issue of PrimeTime Backgammon electronic magazine. Copies of the final and semi-final matches annotated by a top-level player will be posted on the USBGF website and printed copies presented to winning teams.

CAVEAT

Tournament directors reserve the right to alter tournament format and schedule depending on number of participating teams and other circumstances beyond the directors’ control.

2012 TOURNAMENT CALENDAR

March 20 (Tuesday)       Deadlines for Team Registration, and Team/Player/Club Qualification

March 23 (Friday)           Announce random team draw for Phase 1 (Group Play) on USBGF website (lasts for 3 weeks)

April 13 (Friday)             End of Phase 1 (Group Play)

April 14 (Saturday)          Round of 16 play BEGINS (and lasts for two weeks)

April 28 (Saturday)          End of Round of 16

April 30 (Monday)      Round of 8 play BEGINS (and lasts for 10 days)

May 9 (Wednesday)   End of Round of 8

May 11 (Friday)          Semi-finals begins (and last for 10 days)

May 21 (Monday)       Semi-finals end

May 23 (Wednesday) Finals begin (and last for 10 days)

June 2 (Saturday)        Tournament ends

June 9 (Saturday)        Awards dinner at Four Points at LAX by Sheraton, Los Angeles