2/12/2018: Proposed Local Rule Changes for 2019
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
The way that we currently handle local designations is imperfect, and it's one of our main areas of focus for the 2019 season. For this season, they will remain the way they are, but we are planning changes.
The main goal for us is that teams retain some kind of "local flavor", while also having the flexibility to field regular strong lineups. We also want the rules to be as clear as possible. So here is the outline of how it will work in 2019 (all of this is subject to change). I wanted to share these ideas with all of you because I think this is something that concerns a lot of teams.
Starting in 2019, in order to get local designation you must LIVE in the region/city/country that you are playing for, or you must have lived there, at one point in your life, for at least four years. (spanning over four years such as 2013-2016 for example). There will be no other exceptions to the local rule requirement. In 2019, if you played on a club team, or lived somewhere for a year, you will NOT be eligible as a local player. We expect that streaming designations will still exist.
For large countries with lots of strong chess players, large land masses and huge populations (China, India, USA, Russia and perhaps some more), we will split the countries into "regions". This will be anywhere from 4-8 regions per nation. Each of these regions in the USA, might encompass 6-10 U.S. States (for example: Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska might all be considered one region). That means that ANYONE who lives in those states, or who lived in them for at least 4 years, will be eligible as a local player for your team if your team is based within that region. The format will be similar in other large nations, and we have already begun drawing up regions for other countries.
Other news that will greatly help team flexibility: Starting next year, it will be legal to field 2 Free Agents per match. We believe that two local players retains enough local character to meet our the goals of the PRO Chess League.
To give a slight reward to those teams who love using local players, we plan to raise the rating cap to 2520 if you use four local players. It will be 2510 if you use three local players, and it will stay at 2500 if you use two local players.
We even plan to institute a 2450 rating cap if you need to use just one local player (and three free agents), or a 2400 rating cap if you use all four free agents. We want to avoid completely the situation where a team cannot even field a legal lineup, and it seems clear that it will never be to a team's strategic advantage to play with such a lower rating cap. At the same time, the difference between 2500 and 2520 is close enough where a team shouldn't feel severely penalized for using two free agents in the lineup, and can still feel like they have every opportunity to compete and win.
As a last note, to be discussed in a later email, we are going to institute a change for how we handle the situation when a team cannot field a legal lineup. We intend to make this change for the current 2018 season. Right now our rules for that are terrible, even with my amendment from earlier in the season, and if it comes up it will cause a serious disruption to the league.
We have not had any teams unable to field a lineup as of yet, but we don't want to be in a situation where it severely disrupts the competitive balance of the league, especially with playoff spots and relegation on the line. We will ensure that any team who has to use more free agents than necessary will have a much lower rating cap, so that it is an obvious disadvantage, but at the same time we definitely want them to be able to field a team and compete. Stay tuned for that announcement as we work out the details.
Thanks to all of you for understanding, and keep in mind that the rules above for 2019 are not set in stone and may require some small tinkering, but I wanted to let you know that we are on the case!
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
2/8/2018: Local Rules
This is just a note to all teams that we have loosened our local requirements this year. I believe that some teams are not fully aware of the changes, as they have submitted players as Free Agents who would be categories as "local", and I have had to correct them.
Next year we plan to make all of these rules MUCH more clear, and at the same time making it much easier to field strong teams on a weekly basis. But the rules we have now are the ones we have to live with for this season and I want to make sure that all teams are completely aware of our rules and have the ability to take advantage of them.
The following things are a few examples of something that could give one of your players local status:
1. Your player used to live near your city
2. Your player has played for a local club team in your city for multiple years
3. Your player plays one third of their tournament games in your city
The above are just a few examples that are allowable for this season.
Next season the local rules will be very clear (either you live near somewhere or you don't, and that will be the only factor in play), but at the same time I promise that when you see them, you will see that it makes it more easier to build a team and not harder!
- Greg
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
The way that we currently handle local designations is imperfect, and it's one of our main areas of focus for the 2019 season. For this season, they will remain the way they are, but we are planning changes.
The main goal for us is that teams retain some kind of "local flavor", while also having the flexibility to field regular strong lineups. We also want the rules to be as clear as possible. So here is the outline of how it will work in 2019 (all of this is subject to change). I wanted to share these ideas with all of you because I think this is something that concerns a lot of teams.
Starting in 2019, in order to get local designation you must LIVE in the region/city/country that you are playing for, or you must have lived there, at one point in your life, for at least four years. (spanning over four years such as 2013-2016 for example). There will be no other exceptions to the local rule requirement. In 2019, if you played on a club team, or lived somewhere for a year, you will NOT be eligible as a local player. We expect that streaming designations will still exist.
For large countries with lots of strong chess players, large land masses and huge populations (China, India, USA, Russia and perhaps some more), we will split the countries into "regions". This will be anywhere from 4-8 regions per nation. Each of these regions in the USA, might encompass 6-10 U.S. States (for example: Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska might all be considered one region). That means that ANYONE who lives in those states, or who lived in them for at least 4 years, will be eligible as a local player for your team if your team is based within that region. The format will be similar in other large nations, and we have already begun drawing up regions for other countries.
Other news that will greatly help team flexibility: Starting next year, it will be legal to field 2 Free Agents per match. We believe that two local players retains enough local character to meet our the goals of the PRO Chess League.
To give a slight reward to those teams who love using local players, we plan to raise the rating cap to 2520 if you use four local players. It will be 2510 if you use three local players, and it will stay at 2500 if you use two local players.
We even plan to institute a 2450 rating cap if you need to use just one local player (and three free agents), or a 2400 rating cap if you use all four free agents. We want to avoid completely the situation where a team cannot even field a legal lineup, and it seems clear that it will never be to a team's strategic advantage to play with such a lower rating cap. At the same time, the difference between 2500 and 2520 is close enough where a team shouldn't feel severely penalized for using two free agents in the lineup, and can still feel like they have every opportunity to compete and win.
As a last note, to be discussed in a later email, we are going to institute a change for how we handle the situation when a team cannot field a legal lineup. We intend to make this change for the current 2018 season. Right now our rules for that are terrible, even with my amendment from earlier in the season, and if it comes up it will cause a serious disruption to the league.
We have not had any teams unable to field a lineup as of yet, but we don't want to be in a situation where it severely disrupts the competitive balance of the league, especially with playoff spots and relegation on the line. We will ensure that any team who has to use more free agents than necessary will have a much lower rating cap, so that it is an obvious disadvantage, but at the same time we definitely want them to be able to field a team and compete. Stay tuned for that announcement as we work out the details.
Thanks to all of you for understanding, and keep in mind that the rules above for 2019 are not set in stone and may require some small tinkering, but I wanted to let you know that we are on the case!
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
2/8/2018: Local Rules
This is just a note to all teams that we have loosened our local requirements this year. I believe that some teams are not fully aware of the changes, as they have submitted players as Free Agents who would be categories as "local", and I have had to correct them.
Next year we plan to make all of these rules MUCH more clear, and at the same time making it much easier to field strong teams on a weekly basis. But the rules we have now are the ones we have to live with for this season and I want to make sure that all teams are completely aware of our rules and have the ability to take advantage of them.
The following things are a few examples of something that could give one of your players local status:
1. Your player used to live near your city
2. Your player has played for a local club team in your city for multiple years
3. Your player plays one third of their tournament games in your city
The above are just a few examples that are allowable for this season.
Next season the local rules will be very clear (either you live near somewhere or you don't, and that will be the only factor in play), but at the same time I promise that when you see them, you will see that it makes it more easier to build a team and not harder!
- Greg
1/26/2018: Super Saturday Information
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to give you some more information about our Super Saturday Events.
The first thing is a minor rule change we will be instituting for these events. Because they take place on weekends, which are not our normal league days, and because they last about 3:50 instead of the usual 2:30, we wanted to add some flexibility for teams.
For the Super Saturday Weekend matches, and for these matches only, you will be allowed to use TWO Free Agents, instead of one. It's possible that not many teams will take full advantage of this, but this will help prevent those situations in which a team has difficulty fielding lineups because of the abnormal scheduling/conflicts involving tournaments and matches on the weekend.
For the matches on Feb 3+4, the lineups will be due on Thursday Feb 1 (the day after the 3rd round), so it might be a good idea to get them ready now.
As a quick reminder of the rules of these matches:
On Feb 3rd and 4th you will play every team in another division. So if you are in the Central Division, your team will play EVERY team in the Eastern Division. You will play ONE Round of 10+2 against each team, with the goal of scoring as many game points as possible. Your Board 1 will play the other team's Board 1 every round, and etc. That's 4 games against every team from the other division.
It will be a total of 8 games per player, and therefore it will be 32 games for the entire match (double the length of a usual match).
At the end of the event we will add up the scores. The top 6 scores get a win in the standings, the next 4 get a draw, and the last 6 places get a loss. Any game points you score are added to your tiebreak total, and the team with the most points gets a $500 bonus.
I know this is a brand new style of event in the PRO Chess League, so I'm glad to answer any questions you have about these events, and we will share with you the exact round by round pairings soon.
- Greg
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to give you some more information about our Super Saturday Events.
The first thing is a minor rule change we will be instituting for these events. Because they take place on weekends, which are not our normal league days, and because they last about 3:50 instead of the usual 2:30, we wanted to add some flexibility for teams.
For the Super Saturday Weekend matches, and for these matches only, you will be allowed to use TWO Free Agents, instead of one. It's possible that not many teams will take full advantage of this, but this will help prevent those situations in which a team has difficulty fielding lineups because of the abnormal scheduling/conflicts involving tournaments and matches on the weekend.
For the matches on Feb 3+4, the lineups will be due on Thursday Feb 1 (the day after the 3rd round), so it might be a good idea to get them ready now.
As a quick reminder of the rules of these matches:
On Feb 3rd and 4th you will play every team in another division. So if you are in the Central Division, your team will play EVERY team in the Eastern Division. You will play ONE Round of 10+2 against each team, with the goal of scoring as many game points as possible. Your Board 1 will play the other team's Board 1 every round, and etc. That's 4 games against every team from the other division.
It will be a total of 8 games per player, and therefore it will be 32 games for the entire match (double the length of a usual match).
At the end of the event we will add up the scores. The top 6 scores get a win in the standings, the next 4 get a draw, and the last 6 places get a loss. Any game points you score are added to your tiebreak total, and the team with the most points gets a $500 bonus.
I know this is a brand new style of event in the PRO Chess League, so I'm glad to answer any questions you have about these events, and we will share with you the exact round by round pairings soon.
- Greg
1/22/2018: Folding Teams Mid-Season (1/23/2018 - UPDATED)
I wanted to let the entire league know about this rule in advance, so it won't cause any surprises if it should ever arise.
If we have a team that is in danger of folding in the middle of the season, we may suspend the local/free agent rules to ensure that their opponents continue to get competitive matches. It is a major disruption to have a replacement team join mid-season. The rule reads as follows:
In the rare exception that a team is having immense trouble fielding regular lineups and is danger of folding, we may allow more than one free agent to play. This will be done only with the idea of ensuring a major disruption to the league doesn't occur from a team being replaced mid-season. If it's done there will be some rating restriction for the team: The team can never field a lineup that is above their average lineup for the season thus far. This is to ensure that the team isn't doing this for a competitive advantage, but is indeed due to the danger of the team folding. Any team that uses this option will not be eligible for the post-season and will automatically be relegated at the end of the season. In extreme cases it could be a team of four free agents playing as surrogates for the failed team. The rating restrictions may be waived if this happens before the third match of the season.
I wanted to let the entire league know about this rule in advance, so it won't cause any surprises if it should ever arise.
If we have a team that is in danger of folding in the middle of the season, we may suspend the local/free agent rules to ensure that their opponents continue to get competitive matches. It is a major disruption to have a replacement team join mid-season. The rule reads as follows:
In the rare exception that a team is having immense trouble fielding regular lineups and is danger of folding, we may allow more than one free agent to play. This will be done only with the idea of ensuring a major disruption to the league doesn't occur from a team being replaced mid-season. If it's done there will be some rating restriction for the team: The team can never field a lineup that is above their average lineup for the season thus far. This is to ensure that the team isn't doing this for a competitive advantage, but is indeed due to the danger of the team folding. Any team that uses this option will not be eligible for the post-season and will automatically be relegated at the end of the season. In extreme cases it could be a team of four free agents playing as surrogates for the failed team. The rating restrictions may be waived if this happens before the third match of the season.
1/15/2018: ZOOM Streaming
Hi everyone!
Just wanted to give a few updates:
1. If you are doing a live stream and wish to capture all of your players live webcams as they play, that is okay. If you wanted to use ZOOM to do it you would have to purchase your own license however. You would also still be required to abide by our ZOOM proctoring requirements.
What does that mean? It means that you would make sure that a recording of all four of your players is saved for us to review if necessary. You would also be required to have a proctor in the call as well.
This option is only available if you wish to record all of your players as they stream, for your live Twitch audience. Please get in touch if this is your intention and we can go over the details.
2. We understand that occasionally people can be disconnected from a ZOOM call, often through no fault of their own. We are not going to have any penalties for minor interruptions or occasional technical issues getting on to or staying connected to ZOOM. If we think the connection problems are excessive or intentional, then we may take action or require an in person proctor in the future. Keep in mind that ZOOM is just one part of the tools we use to detect Fair Play Violations.
3. We will be sending you the ZOOM meeting addresses shortly.
Hi everyone!
Just wanted to give a few updates:
1. If you are doing a live stream and wish to capture all of your players live webcams as they play, that is okay. If you wanted to use ZOOM to do it you would have to purchase your own license however. You would also still be required to abide by our ZOOM proctoring requirements.
What does that mean? It means that you would make sure that a recording of all four of your players is saved for us to review if necessary. You would also be required to have a proctor in the call as well.
This option is only available if you wish to record all of your players as they stream, for your live Twitch audience. Please get in touch if this is your intention and we can go over the details.
2. We understand that occasionally people can be disconnected from a ZOOM call, often through no fault of their own. We are not going to have any penalties for minor interruptions or occasional technical issues getting on to or staying connected to ZOOM. If we think the connection problems are excessive or intentional, then we may take action or require an in person proctor in the future. Keep in mind that ZOOM is just one part of the tools we use to detect Fair Play Violations.
3. We will be sending you the ZOOM meeting addresses shortly.
1/10/2018: Lineup Submission Forms
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
Sometime in the next 24 hours, you will receive a form that you will use for the rest of the season to submit your lineups.
Your lineups are due exactly two days before the day of the matches, at 8 PM GMT (3 PM Eastern Time, 12 PM Pacific Time).
I highly advise you to fill out these lineups early as you have nothing to lose. You can change them ANYTIME before the deadline and you can change them as many times as you want.
However if you fail to submit any lineup at all, your team faces big penalties.
The form is pretty self explanatory, you just click the week you want to submit your lineup for and then enter your four player team, but if you want to confirm it by privately emailing me as well, you can feel free to do that.
We will be sending periodic reminders to teams who haven't filled out their forms, usually 24-48 hours before the match is scheduled. If you don't see your name on the list of teams who hasn't filled out their form, it means you are all set.
Thanks and let me now when you receive the form. If you haven't gotten it in within 24 hours or so, please let me know as well. You will probably receive it long before that.
- Greg
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
Sometime in the next 24 hours, you will receive a form that you will use for the rest of the season to submit your lineups.
Your lineups are due exactly two days before the day of the matches, at 8 PM GMT (3 PM Eastern Time, 12 PM Pacific Time).
I highly advise you to fill out these lineups early as you have nothing to lose. You can change them ANYTIME before the deadline and you can change them as many times as you want.
However if you fail to submit any lineup at all, your team faces big penalties.
The form is pretty self explanatory, you just click the week you want to submit your lineup for and then enter your four player team, but if you want to confirm it by privately emailing me as well, you can feel free to do that.
We will be sending periodic reminders to teams who haven't filled out their forms, usually 24-48 hours before the match is scheduled. If you don't see your name on the list of teams who hasn't filled out their form, it means you are all set.
Thanks and let me now when you receive the form. If you haven't gotten it in within 24 hours or so, please let me know as well. You will probably receive it long before that.
- Greg
1/5/2018: Who has Signed the Contracts?
Hi all! Here is a public google sheet, that we plan to update daily, which shows which of your players have signed the contracts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BBGwzuq4yMHs53djvqffFlgkxkOzeWAm-OHqIaws-sE/edit#gid=0
Forgive us if there are one or two mistakes in there, just let us know if you think there are some. If it says "minor" next to one of your player's names, and there is nothing in column F, it means that they have signed BOTH contracts and are good to go. Check column F for your minors to see if they still need to sign one of the two contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if we made a mistake in some of these cases, so don't hesitate to let us know.
Once again, here are the url's for the contracts:
All players must sign this to play: https://www.prochessleague.com/agreement.html
And all players under 18 must ALSO sign this to play: https://www.prochessleague.com/agreement-child.html
So far almost half of our players have signed it, which is pretty good with two weeks to go! Thanks and please don't hesitate if you have any questions,
- Greg
Hi all! Here is a public google sheet, that we plan to update daily, which shows which of your players have signed the contracts:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BBGwzuq4yMHs53djvqffFlgkxkOzeWAm-OHqIaws-sE/edit#gid=0
Forgive us if there are one or two mistakes in there, just let us know if you think there are some. If it says "minor" next to one of your player's names, and there is nothing in column F, it means that they have signed BOTH contracts and are good to go. Check column F for your minors to see if they still need to sign one of the two contracts. I wouldn't be surprised if we made a mistake in some of these cases, so don't hesitate to let us know.
Once again, here are the url's for the contracts:
All players must sign this to play: https://www.prochessleague.com/agreement.html
And all players under 18 must ALSO sign this to play: https://www.prochessleague.com/agreement-child.html
So far almost half of our players have signed it, which is pretty good with two weeks to go! Thanks and please don't hesitate if you have any questions,
- Greg
1/4/2018 - Season Begins in Two Weeks!
Happy New Year to all of our PRO Chess League Teams!
I just wanted to remind you all that the PRO Chess League begins in two weeks, and therefore you'll be hearing a lot more from me over these weeks, especially next week. For now, it would be really helpful if you went to our Roster Addition Page, which is right here:
FIND THE LINK IN YOUR EMAIL
and added anyone who you wish to add to your roster.
Everyone who you have added should show up on your team roster page within 24 hours of you adding them. You can find these pages here:
https://www.prochessleague.com/teams.html
If you go to that page and a player is not on your roster, it means they have not been submitted yet!
A few other miscellaneous points:
1. I hope you have all downloaded ZOOM by now and tested it with your players. Keep in mind that when it says you need to pay $15 a month for meetings that are longer than 40 minutes, THIS DOESN'T APPLY TO YOU. This only applies to the host of the meeting, which will be a PRO Chess League staff member. You do not have to pay anything to use ZOOM.
2. To all of those teams who have signed the contracts, thank you! I will soon be granting you access to a spreadsheet which will help you to determine which players have and haven't signed the contracts. Keep in mind that these contracts are required in order to play.
3. If you haven't given me photos for some of your players, it would be extremely helpful if you would do so as quickly as possible.
Thanks so much for all of your diligence and hard work so far!
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
Happy New Year to all of our PRO Chess League Teams!
I just wanted to remind you all that the PRO Chess League begins in two weeks, and therefore you'll be hearing a lot more from me over these weeks, especially next week. For now, it would be really helpful if you went to our Roster Addition Page, which is right here:
FIND THE LINK IN YOUR EMAIL
and added anyone who you wish to add to your roster.
Everyone who you have added should show up on your team roster page within 24 hours of you adding them. You can find these pages here:
https://www.prochessleague.com/teams.html
If you go to that page and a player is not on your roster, it means they have not been submitted yet!
A few other miscellaneous points:
1. I hope you have all downloaded ZOOM by now and tested it with your players. Keep in mind that when it says you need to pay $15 a month for meetings that are longer than 40 minutes, THIS DOESN'T APPLY TO YOU. This only applies to the host of the meeting, which will be a PRO Chess League staff member. You do not have to pay anything to use ZOOM.
2. To all of those teams who have signed the contracts, thank you! I will soon be granting you access to a spreadsheet which will help you to determine which players have and haven't signed the contracts. Keep in mind that these contracts are required in order to play.
3. If you haven't given me photos for some of your players, it would be extremely helpful if you would do so as quickly as possible.
Thanks so much for all of your diligence and hard work so far!
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
12/29/2017 - Date Change for Super Saturday
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I made a scheduling error for our first Super Sunday Matches and put them on the same day as the Super Bowl. Unfortunately this would be a big problem for our American players and viewers as the second match would directly conflict with the game.
We have decided to change the date of that match to February 3rd instead of February 4th. Apologies for this inconvenience. This means that both special matches will be held on Saturdays. Please be patient while we update all of our schedule pages to match this information. It could take a little while before it's accurate everywhere on the Pro Chess League website.
Thanks for your understanding,
- Greg
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I made a scheduling error for our first Super Sunday Matches and put them on the same day as the Super Bowl. Unfortunately this would be a big problem for our American players and viewers as the second match would directly conflict with the game.
We have decided to change the date of that match to February 3rd instead of February 4th. Apologies for this inconvenience. This means that both special matches will be held on Saturdays. Please be patient while we update all of our schedule pages to match this information. It could take a little while before it's accurate everywhere on the Pro Chess League website.
Thanks for your understanding,
- Greg
12/27/2017 - DOWNLOADING ZOOM
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
As part of our initiative to curb cheating in online chess, all league players will now be required to use the video conference software: ZOOM, during their league matches.
ZOOM is an extremely easy program to use, and allows us to monitor all players at the same time. We used it during our qualifier events and it went very well. In fact we had zero incidents of unfair player throughout both qualifiers!
I would recommend to you that players on your teams download the ZOOM software as soon as possible and test it out. Here is the download link:
https://zoom.us/
More information on how this works will be given before each match, but basically we will give you a link that will take you to a meeting which all players in that day's matches will join. Then we can record all players at once as they play. This will basically be like the Skype calls we used last year in the playoffs, but much less intrusive, less complicated, and we can do it for all league players at once. It allows us to have just one person monitoring all of you, and if there is anything we are concerned about, we can go back and check out the recording.
For some players we may require an extra step of an in person proctor or a second recording of their actual computer monitor.
Let me emphasize again how important it is that your players have and test ZOOM well in advance of the first matches. We will not be allowing teams to play without it and we won't have any time immediately before matches to walk people through the process. My recommendation would be that the team manager sets up a meeting and asks all team members to join using ZOOM. If when you do this, you see every team member's face in the video conference, it means that your team should be prepared to use ZOOM during the season. If you have any specific questions about ZOOM or difficulty using it, please let me know and I will forward your questions to the appropriate staff member.
Thanks,
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
As part of our initiative to curb cheating in online chess, all league players will now be required to use the video conference software: ZOOM, during their league matches.
ZOOM is an extremely easy program to use, and allows us to monitor all players at the same time. We used it during our qualifier events and it went very well. In fact we had zero incidents of unfair player throughout both qualifiers!
I would recommend to you that players on your teams download the ZOOM software as soon as possible and test it out. Here is the download link:
https://zoom.us/
More information on how this works will be given before each match, but basically we will give you a link that will take you to a meeting which all players in that day's matches will join. Then we can record all players at once as they play. This will basically be like the Skype calls we used last year in the playoffs, but much less intrusive, less complicated, and we can do it for all league players at once. It allows us to have just one person monitoring all of you, and if there is anything we are concerned about, we can go back and check out the recording.
For some players we may require an extra step of an in person proctor or a second recording of their actual computer monitor.
Let me emphasize again how important it is that your players have and test ZOOM well in advance of the first matches. We will not be allowing teams to play without it and we won't have any time immediately before matches to walk people through the process. My recommendation would be that the team manager sets up a meeting and asks all team members to join using ZOOM. If when you do this, you see every team member's face in the video conference, it means that your team should be prepared to use ZOOM during the season. If you have any specific questions about ZOOM or difficulty using it, please let me know and I will forward your questions to the appropriate staff member.
Thanks,
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
12/26/2017 - PRIZES
Hi PRO Chess League Teams,
This is just a very quick note to assure you all that the prize fund will at least be the same as last year. This is regarding the top few team prizes, there may be some alterations to the other prizes, but the total amount will be at least the same as last season. More specifics will be announced in the next week or two.
Thank you, and I hope you are all having a great holiday.
- Greg
Hi PRO Chess League Teams,
This is just a very quick note to assure you all that the prize fund will at least be the same as last year. This is regarding the top few team prizes, there may be some alterations to the other prizes, but the total amount will be at least the same as last season. More specifics will be announced in the next week or two.
Thank you, and I hope you are all having a great holiday.
- Greg
12/6/2017 - WEBSITE AND TEAM PAGES
Dear PRO Chess League Management,
I'm pleased to announce that we have created team pages for all of you! On these team pages you can quickly see your schedule and rosters, as well as other team's rosters. These rosters will be updated as fast as possible (usually within 24-48 hours) whenever you add a new player to your team. Click on the links here to see your page: https://www.prochessleague.com/teams.html
One issue we are having is getting high quality photos. What we really want is at least one high quality photo for four key players on your team. We are only satisfied with the photos we have of 11/32 teams thus far. One major issue we have is that we cannot accept photos that are copyrighted or owned by someone else. These photos have to be taken by someone on the Chess.Com team, or yourself or someone who doesn't care if we use it without attribution. It's also ok if someone who owns the copyright to one of the photos writes to us and explicitly states that we need not credit them for their photo.
- If your team page has only 2 photos, it means we need more photos from your team, and these photos cannot be owned by a professional photographer or website.
A nice photo of you taken in front of a chessboard would be great, and with today's technology, almost every player should be able to do this from their own home. Soon I will start reaching out to teams individually to request photos of specific players.
Secondly, please double check your schedule on the team page to make sure it matches the league schedule. This was done by hand and it's quite possible there is some human error. The Schedule page is correct and has priority over the schedule on your team's individual page, so if you find an error let me know and I will change it ASAP.
Thanks for your assistance!
- Greg
Dear PRO Chess League Management,
I'm pleased to announce that we have created team pages for all of you! On these team pages you can quickly see your schedule and rosters, as well as other team's rosters. These rosters will be updated as fast as possible (usually within 24-48 hours) whenever you add a new player to your team. Click on the links here to see your page: https://www.prochessleague.com/teams.html
One issue we are having is getting high quality photos. What we really want is at least one high quality photo for four key players on your team. We are only satisfied with the photos we have of 11/32 teams thus far. One major issue we have is that we cannot accept photos that are copyrighted or owned by someone else. These photos have to be taken by someone on the Chess.Com team, or yourself or someone who doesn't care if we use it without attribution. It's also ok if someone who owns the copyright to one of the photos writes to us and explicitly states that we need not credit them for their photo.
- If your team page has only 2 photos, it means we need more photos from your team, and these photos cannot be owned by a professional photographer or website.
A nice photo of you taken in front of a chessboard would be great, and with today's technology, almost every player should be able to do this from their own home. Soon I will start reaching out to teams individually to request photos of specific players.
Secondly, please double check your schedule on the team page to make sure it matches the league schedule. This was done by hand and it's quite possible there is some human error. The Schedule page is correct and has priority over the schedule on your team's individual page, so if you find an error let me know and I will change it ASAP.
Thanks for your assistance!
- Greg
12/04/2017 - NEW SUBSTITUTION RULE
Hi PRO Chess League Managers,
This is a note to let you know that we will be changing our rules to eliminate mid-match substitutions. This means that whoever you put in your lineup will need to play all of the matches for that day.
Why are we doing this? A few reasons:
1. It's a lot simpler to explain to fans and a lot easier for them to follow. With our new Twitch partnership, and the prospect that the league may grow drastically in the coming years, this is a very important factor.
2. The amount of work our staff and programming team had to spend accounting for substitutions when building our league tools was immense. In fact it makes some of their jobs literally 10x faster.
3. It will make it much easier for us to present clear and concise Crosstables and information to our fans after matches have completed.
4. Less than 25% of lineups involved any substitutions last year, so we are adding a lot of work and confusion for relatively little gain.
I know there are some negatives involved with this, mainly in not allowing more players to get experience playing in the league and in removing flexibility from your lineups, but for the good of the league this is a change we have to make.
Please allow us a bit of time for us to update our rules page with this information. Also note that from now on you can find the updated rules on the PROChessLeague website at https://www.prochessleague.com/rules.html. They will no longer be updated on chess.com
Thanks for your understanding,
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
Hi PRO Chess League Managers,
This is a note to let you know that we will be changing our rules to eliminate mid-match substitutions. This means that whoever you put in your lineup will need to play all of the matches for that day.
Why are we doing this? A few reasons:
1. It's a lot simpler to explain to fans and a lot easier for them to follow. With our new Twitch partnership, and the prospect that the league may grow drastically in the coming years, this is a very important factor.
2. The amount of work our staff and programming team had to spend accounting for substitutions when building our league tools was immense. In fact it makes some of their jobs literally 10x faster.
3. It will make it much easier for us to present clear and concise Crosstables and information to our fans after matches have completed.
4. Less than 25% of lineups involved any substitutions last year, so we are adding a lot of work and confusion for relatively little gain.
I know there are some negatives involved with this, mainly in not allowing more players to get experience playing in the league and in removing flexibility from your lineups, but for the good of the league this is a change we have to make.
Please allow us a bit of time for us to update our rules page with this information. Also note that from now on you can find the updated rules on the PROChessLeague website at https://www.prochessleague.com/rules.html. They will no longer be updated on chess.com
Thanks for your understanding,
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
11/12/2017 - TWITCH PARTNERSHIP AND STREAMING
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to make you aware of an exciting new partnership that will bring a lot of attention to both the PRO Chess League and chess in general.
Twitch, the largest online streaming platform for esports, is now partnering with Chess.com. One of the primary reasons for this partnership was the PRO Chess League.
What does this mean for you? It means a lot of things! But first I wanted to talk about a major rule change that could benefit many of you. In esports, teams are often built around online brands. Yet our definition of "local" player is currently based only on geography.
We will still be using our same geography-based rules to determine local status moving forward, however we will be adding to this definition as well. From now on:
"If a player is closely associated with the team brand, that player has a new status designation"
How will we determine this? If a player streams for over 100 hours annually on your team's official twitch channel, they are now eligible for streamer status.
What is the "streamer" status?:
"Each team will be allowed to use 2 streamers, or 1 streamer and 1 free agent, in a given lineup. At least two players in every lineup will still need to be local using our typical geographically based requirements."
Because the season is only two months away, we are reducing this to 30 hours up until Jan 11 (1 week before the start of the 2018 PRO Chess League Season). And once the 2018 season begins, it will require 50 hours to get the local tag for this season.
Another way that a player can gain the new "streamer" status is by streaming from their own personal Twitch channel. Only time spent streaming on chess.com will be considered, and the PRO Chess League logo, along with the team that you plan to represent must be clearly on display during the stream, for those hours to accrue.
Apologies that we couldn't give you all even more of a heads up on this exciting new development, but it's all happened so recently.
With this new rule change, which mimics similar concepts used by esports, we expect a very bright future with our new partners at Twitch.
We will be making updates to the rules in the coming days to reflect these changes, but please reach out if you have any questions.
I hope that this results in a lot of exciting new opportunities for you to use players you may not have otherwise been able to use.
Thanks,
Greg Shahade
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to make you aware of an exciting new partnership that will bring a lot of attention to both the PRO Chess League and chess in general.
Twitch, the largest online streaming platform for esports, is now partnering with Chess.com. One of the primary reasons for this partnership was the PRO Chess League.
What does this mean for you? It means a lot of things! But first I wanted to talk about a major rule change that could benefit many of you. In esports, teams are often built around online brands. Yet our definition of "local" player is currently based only on geography.
We will still be using our same geography-based rules to determine local status moving forward, however we will be adding to this definition as well. From now on:
"If a player is closely associated with the team brand, that player has a new status designation"
How will we determine this? If a player streams for over 100 hours annually on your team's official twitch channel, they are now eligible for streamer status.
What is the "streamer" status?:
"Each team will be allowed to use 2 streamers, or 1 streamer and 1 free agent, in a given lineup. At least two players in every lineup will still need to be local using our typical geographically based requirements."
Because the season is only two months away, we are reducing this to 30 hours up until Jan 11 (1 week before the start of the 2018 PRO Chess League Season). And once the 2018 season begins, it will require 50 hours to get the local tag for this season.
Another way that a player can gain the new "streamer" status is by streaming from their own personal Twitch channel. Only time spent streaming on chess.com will be considered, and the PRO Chess League logo, along with the team that you plan to represent must be clearly on display during the stream, for those hours to accrue.
Apologies that we couldn't give you all even more of a heads up on this exciting new development, but it's all happened so recently.
With this new rule change, which mimics similar concepts used by esports, we expect a very bright future with our new partners at Twitch.
We will be making updates to the rules in the coming days to reflect these changes, but please reach out if you have any questions.
I hope that this results in a lot of exciting new opportunities for you to use players you may not have otherwise been able to use.
Thanks,
Greg Shahade
11/6/2017: Schedule for 2018 Season
Hello PRO Chess League Teams,
We have created the schedule for the 2018 Season.
Here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qR6OrzL1XdZXsol98b2qR5EobDAmOkoaCoUsP2YjCGc/edit#gid=1066942727
If that link doesn't take you directly to the schedule, just click on the "2018 Schedule Tab" at the bottom.
Our typical matches are held on Wednesdays, but we have a few on Thursdays or Tuesdays in order to sync with the scheduled free days at major events (Tata Steel, Candidates etc).
The schedule works as follows:
1. There are 7 regular matches during the season. Those matches are played against the other 7 teams in your division
2. There are two "special matches" that are held on the weekend. These are held because we believe it is important for there to be competition outside of your own division.
This makes for a grand total of 9 possible wins in the regular season.
Regarding the two special matches, the second one in particular may result in inconvenient start and end times for a few teams. We have scheduled these matches on the weekends to help assure this won't be too big of an issue. As a global league, there is unfortunately no good way for us to make the timing perfect for all of the time zones we have. But at the same time it is important to us from a marketing and excitement standpoint for teams from around the world to face off against each other at least once. Meanwhile we did not feel it was appropriate to use the same setup as last year, in which some teams got to face much weaker opponents than other teams, which could drastically affect the fairness of the competition. We have managed to ensure that no team starts before 7 AM and no team begins after 11 PM local time; it's not perfect but it was the best we could do. Thanks for your understanding for having to play this one week at an hour that may not be most comfortable.
How will these "special matches" work?
The first time this happens, on February 4th, there will be two matches. They will involve all 8 teams in the Central Division facing off against all 8 teams in the Eastern Division, while all 8 teams in the Atlantic division will face off against all 8 teams in the Pacific Division.
You will play each team from the other division in one single 4 game match, at a 10 2 time control, in which your Board 1 faces the opposing team's Board 1, your Board 2 faces the other team's Board 2 and so on. Therefore your team's Board 1 will face all other Board 1's from the 8 teams in the other division.
In order to make sure the event doesn't last too long, we have reduced the time control, and we expect it to last a little bit under four hours.
The scoring will work as follows:
All individual game points will be added together. If you win against another team by the score of 3-1, your team will get three points for that match. If you win all eight matches by a score of 3-1, your score for the entire event would be 24 points. At the end of the eight complete rounds we will add up each team's score and:
The top 6 scoring teams will get a win in the standings
The bottom 6 scoring teams will get a loss in the standings
The 7th-10th place finishers will get a draw in the standings
Meanwhile all of your game points will be added to your tiebreak score in the league standings.
The second time this special match happens, on February 24th, it will be the same format as the one above, except four teams have been chosen from each division for each of the two matches. The eight teams from the Central and Eastern will face off against the eight teams from the Atlantic and Pacific in both of that day's matches.
We think that this kind of massive in season event is going to be tremendously exciting for the fans and players.
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
Hello PRO Chess League Teams,
We have created the schedule for the 2018 Season.
Here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qR6OrzL1XdZXsol98b2qR5EobDAmOkoaCoUsP2YjCGc/edit#gid=1066942727
If that link doesn't take you directly to the schedule, just click on the "2018 Schedule Tab" at the bottom.
Our typical matches are held on Wednesdays, but we have a few on Thursdays or Tuesdays in order to sync with the scheduled free days at major events (Tata Steel, Candidates etc).
The schedule works as follows:
1. There are 7 regular matches during the season. Those matches are played against the other 7 teams in your division
2. There are two "special matches" that are held on the weekend. These are held because we believe it is important for there to be competition outside of your own division.
This makes for a grand total of 9 possible wins in the regular season.
Regarding the two special matches, the second one in particular may result in inconvenient start and end times for a few teams. We have scheduled these matches on the weekends to help assure this won't be too big of an issue. As a global league, there is unfortunately no good way for us to make the timing perfect for all of the time zones we have. But at the same time it is important to us from a marketing and excitement standpoint for teams from around the world to face off against each other at least once. Meanwhile we did not feel it was appropriate to use the same setup as last year, in which some teams got to face much weaker opponents than other teams, which could drastically affect the fairness of the competition. We have managed to ensure that no team starts before 7 AM and no team begins after 11 PM local time; it's not perfect but it was the best we could do. Thanks for your understanding for having to play this one week at an hour that may not be most comfortable.
How will these "special matches" work?
The first time this happens, on February 4th, there will be two matches. They will involve all 8 teams in the Central Division facing off against all 8 teams in the Eastern Division, while all 8 teams in the Atlantic division will face off against all 8 teams in the Pacific Division.
You will play each team from the other division in one single 4 game match, at a 10 2 time control, in which your Board 1 faces the opposing team's Board 1, your Board 2 faces the other team's Board 2 and so on. Therefore your team's Board 1 will face all other Board 1's from the 8 teams in the other division.
In order to make sure the event doesn't last too long, we have reduced the time control, and we expect it to last a little bit under four hours.
The scoring will work as follows:
All individual game points will be added together. If you win against another team by the score of 3-1, your team will get three points for that match. If you win all eight matches by a score of 3-1, your score for the entire event would be 24 points. At the end of the eight complete rounds we will add up each team's score and:
The top 6 scoring teams will get a win in the standings
The bottom 6 scoring teams will get a loss in the standings
The 7th-10th place finishers will get a draw in the standings
Meanwhile all of your game points will be added to your tiebreak score in the league standings.
The second time this special match happens, on February 24th, it will be the same format as the one above, except four teams have been chosen from each division for each of the two matches. The eight teams from the Central and Eastern will face off against the eight teams from the Atlantic and Pacific in both of that day's matches.
We think that this kind of massive in season event is going to be tremendously exciting for the fans and players.
Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
11/4/2017: More Flexible Local Rules and Competitive Balance
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to talk to you about a different subject: How we can help you field the most competitive team possible
Last year we had 48 teams, and some of them were not very competitive on a weekly basis. Cutting the league to 32 teams should help that a great deal but we want to eliminate the problem completely. We believe that any team above 2400 can at least expect to give trouble to any opponent and we want to help all of our teams reach that level every week.
Most of our teams will have no problem reaching the 2400ish mark, and many will be around 2500 every week, but for those that expect that they may have some issues, we are happy to help.
First of all, it's important to realize the enormously strong level of competition in this league. If your team doesn't field a competitive lineup against most teams, you stand very little chance to win.
What can we do to help?
1. We have expanded the requirements for local eligibility and made them more flexible than last season. You can read more about them in our rules, but they are approximately twice as flexible as last year. Once again our rules page is here: http://www.prochessleague.com/Rules
If your team is having difficulty determining who is or isn't eligible to play as a local for your team, I am happy to talk it over with you and figure out some options.
2. We already have plenty of free agents who are interested in playing. While many teams won't have a specific need or use for a 2400 rated free agent, these players could be extremely helpful to other teams that are in no danger of exceeding the 2500 rating limit. I am happy to help connect you to a free agent player who could be a valuable member of your team. The list of players is here: (Link redacted for privacy reasons, if you forgot the link please contact League Commissioner)
You can feel free contact them yourself, but I am also happy to help make the connection.
What we don't want is for teams to field noncompetitive lineups. What is a non competitive lineup exactly? It really depends on the situation. For instance if you have a strong group of young IMs and FMs who are just barely above 2400, they may turn out to be much more competitive than their ratings would indicate and could give anyone a run for their money.
However if you occasionally use a competitive lineup in the 2450+ range, but then in other weeks use a lineup of 2400,2400,2400, all of whom are local, and then place a 2000 player on the final board, we consider that you are not doing your best to be competitive and are hurting the competitive balance of the league. It is unfair to those teams who had to face a legitimately high rated team when they played against you in a previous week, and yet their competition instead faces a much lower rated team.
Fortunately we have a list of 2300+ players who are interested to play as Free Agents, and we are glad to do our best to instead connect your team with one of those players.
If we see a lineup that can be easily improved and that is far under the 2500 rating cap (in the 2300-2350 range), we reserve the right to step in and tell you that we are going to try to improve your lineup. We will shortly create specific rules in our rules document that deal with this situation, but as teams are inputting their rosters I wanted to make this clear. This is a professional league and we expect the teams and matches to be high level. Players rated under 2100 should only be used when they are necessary to get around the rating limit. They shouldn't be used in place of a GM or IM who would be rated 300-400 points higher. Based on what I've seen so far from every team in the league, you all have the capability to field exciting and competitive teams and we are here to help you do so every single week.
Thanks and if you want me to find a free agent for your team around a certain rating level, or to find someone who would qualify as local and greatly help your team, please let me know and I'm happy to start that process. There are hundreds of strong players throughout the world who wish to take part in the league and it is even likely I can try to find one who is not listed on the Free Agent Page,
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
Hello PRO Chess League Managers,
I wanted to talk to you about a different subject: How we can help you field the most competitive team possible
Last year we had 48 teams, and some of them were not very competitive on a weekly basis. Cutting the league to 32 teams should help that a great deal but we want to eliminate the problem completely. We believe that any team above 2400 can at least expect to give trouble to any opponent and we want to help all of our teams reach that level every week.
Most of our teams will have no problem reaching the 2400ish mark, and many will be around 2500 every week, but for those that expect that they may have some issues, we are happy to help.
First of all, it's important to realize the enormously strong level of competition in this league. If your team doesn't field a competitive lineup against most teams, you stand very little chance to win.
What can we do to help?
1. We have expanded the requirements for local eligibility and made them more flexible than last season. You can read more about them in our rules, but they are approximately twice as flexible as last year. Once again our rules page is here: http://www.prochessleague.com/Rules
If your team is having difficulty determining who is or isn't eligible to play as a local for your team, I am happy to talk it over with you and figure out some options.
2. We already have plenty of free agents who are interested in playing. While many teams won't have a specific need or use for a 2400 rated free agent, these players could be extremely helpful to other teams that are in no danger of exceeding the 2500 rating limit. I am happy to help connect you to a free agent player who could be a valuable member of your team. The list of players is here: (Link redacted for privacy reasons, if you forgot the link please contact League Commissioner)
You can feel free contact them yourself, but I am also happy to help make the connection.
What we don't want is for teams to field noncompetitive lineups. What is a non competitive lineup exactly? It really depends on the situation. For instance if you have a strong group of young IMs and FMs who are just barely above 2400, they may turn out to be much more competitive than their ratings would indicate and could give anyone a run for their money.
However if you occasionally use a competitive lineup in the 2450+ range, but then in other weeks use a lineup of 2400,2400,2400, all of whom are local, and then place a 2000 player on the final board, we consider that you are not doing your best to be competitive and are hurting the competitive balance of the league. It is unfair to those teams who had to face a legitimately high rated team when they played against you in a previous week, and yet their competition instead faces a much lower rated team.
Fortunately we have a list of 2300+ players who are interested to play as Free Agents, and we are glad to do our best to instead connect your team with one of those players.
If we see a lineup that can be easily improved and that is far under the 2500 rating cap (in the 2300-2350 range), we reserve the right to step in and tell you that we are going to try to improve your lineup. We will shortly create specific rules in our rules document that deal with this situation, but as teams are inputting their rosters I wanted to make this clear. This is a professional league and we expect the teams and matches to be high level. Players rated under 2100 should only be used when they are necessary to get around the rating limit. They shouldn't be used in place of a GM or IM who would be rated 300-400 points higher. Based on what I've seen so far from every team in the league, you all have the capability to field exciting and competitive teams and we are here to help you do so every single week.
Thanks and if you want me to find a free agent for your team around a certain rating level, or to find someone who would qualify as local and greatly help your team, please let me know and I'm happy to start that process. There are hundreds of strong players throughout the world who wish to take part in the league and it is even likely I can try to find one who is not listed on the Free Agent Page,
- Greg Shahade
PRO Chess League Commissioner
