WORLD SCHOOLS TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP REGULATIONS

Approved by FIDE Council on 03/05/2023

Applied from 1^st July, 2023

1.       General

1.1     The World Schools Team Championship is the flagship FIDE competition among the teams of general educational institutions (hereinafter referred to as “WSTC”) shall be governed by the General Regulations for FIDE Competitions, except where these Regulations override them.

1.2     WSTC is organised under the aegis of the Events Commission (hereinafter referred to as “EVE”).

1.3     Teams of chess academies, chess clubs, chess departments of junior physical training clubs, specialised sports schools, Olympic reserve schools, or those that combine players from more than one general educational institution are not allowed to participate.

1.4     WSTC consists of 2 (two) stages:

1.4.1      Stage 1 (National Championship) – competitions among general educational institutions in each country organised under the supervision of a FIDE member federation and according to its rules, complying with the principles in Article 2.2.

1.4.2      Stage 2 (World Final) – a competition of the best teams from Stage 1.

1.5     In stage 2, the competition shall be organised in two categories:

1.5.1      Players who shall not have reached the age of 12 before January 1st of the year in which the competition is held

1.5.2      Players who shall not have reached the age of 18 before January 1st of the year in which the competition is held

1.6     Each team shall consist of four main players, one reserve, and one non-playing captain. In Stage 2, all members of the team must have a FIDE ID.

2.       Stage 1 – National Championship

2.1     Member Federations shall be responsible for all areas of organising their own National Championship, such as:

2.1.1      Appointing officials (e.g. arbiters and organisers)

2.1.2      Writing comprehensive regulations for the Championship (including the tournament system, time control, criteria for determining winners, prize winners, fair play measures and appeal procedures)

2.2     The following general principles for National Championships are recommended, but not mandatory:

2.2.1      The tournaments are organised in accordance with the terms of Articles 1.5 and 1.6.

2.2.2      Where possible, the team shall consist of boys and girls.

2.2.3      More than one team representing one school should be permitted to play.

2.2.4      The tournament should be organised in local and regional stages, before reaching the National Championship.

2.2.5      The time control for the National Championship should be 45 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. Local and regional stages may use a shorter time control.

2.2.6      Where it is practical, appropriate stages of the tournament should be FIDE-rated.

2.3     National Federations may allocate a maximum of three qualifying places to the two categories in total. For the avoidance of doubt, this does not mean a total of six qualifying places; i.e. three qualifying places for each tournament.

2.4     National Federations are responsible for informing EVE of the following:

2.4.1      The National Championship Regulations (see Article 2.1.2)

2.4.2      The results of the National Championship in electronic form, e.g. a link to the results service, news on the Federation website, news in local or national media

2.4.3      The number of players, teams and the number of educational institutions that took part in whole of Stage 1 in their Federation.

2.4.4      The entry forms for the teams that qualify for Stage 2 (see Annex 2); with an additional copy sent to the local organiser. The deadline for this, and the payment for accommodation (see Article 3.14) is 1 month before the arrival day. The player list can be changed until two weeks before the arrival day.

2.4.5      They have conducted eligibility checks (see Article 1.3) that the children are educated at the school that is entering the tournament. A team that is found to have an ineligible player will be subject to the following sanctions:

• The team and its individual players will be disqualified from the competition and forfeit all prizes they have won (see Article 3.12).
• The school will be banned from participation in the next edition of the competition. This ban may be extended by FIDE Council.
• The National Federation will be banned from entering teams into the next edition of the competition. This ban may be extended by FIDE Council.
• FIDE Council may report any of the parties involved to the FIDE Ethics & Disciplinary Commission for further investigation, which may lead to further sanctions.

3.       Stage 2 – World Final

3.1     The tournament will be an 8-round Swiss, played with two games per day over 4 days.

3.2     The captain will provide their four main players and reserve in a fixed board order not later than the end of technical meeting. This order will be fixed for the duration of the tournament. There is no requirement to assign board numbers in rating order.

3.3     The team composition for each round shall be submitted not later than 30 minutes before each round. A team captain who fails to submit their team composition in a round will be deemed to have chosen the four main players in their team.

3.4     The first-named team in a pairing shall have the white pieces on the odd-numbered boards, the black pieces on the even-numbered boards.

3.5     The time control will be 45 minutes, plus 10 seconds increment per move starting from move one.

3.6     The default time is 10 minutes.

3.7     The following FIDE regulations apply in full (see Annex 1):

3.7.1      Captains and Heads of Delegation

3.7.2      Appeals Committee Procedural Rules; the appeal fee will be 200 Euros.

3.8     Articles 3-11 of the Olympiad Pairing Rules (see Annex 1) will apply, except that:

3.8.1      Odd Number of Participating Teams (Article 2); this does not apply, and is replaced with, “If there is an odd number of participating teams in a section, the organising federation has the right to enter another team into that section. If this team is paired and plays round 1, it shall remain in the tournament to the conclusion even if teams joining or withdrawing during the tournament results in there being an odd number of teams.”

3.8.2      Ranking of Teams for Pairing Purposes (Article 3); for the purpose of this Article, players without a FIDE rapid rating will instead use their FIDE standard rating. Players with neither of these ratings shall be considered as having a rating of 1000.

3.8.3      Unpaired Teams (Article 10); Article 10.2 shall be “Any paired team that has less than three players for two rounds, consecutive or otherwise, will not be paired for the rest of the tournament.”

3.8.4      Miscellaneous (Article 11); references to the “Global Strategy Commission” shall be to the “Events Commission”.

3.9     “Standard Level” Anti-Cheating Protection Measures will apply (see Annex 1).

3.10   The team rankings will be determined by:

3.10.1    Matchpoints (2 for a match win, 1 for a match draw, 0 for a match loss)

3.10.2    Olympiad Sonneborn-Berger Tie-Break (Chennai)

3.10.3    Gamepoints

3.10.4    Sum of Adjusted Opponents Matchpoints (Chennai)

3.11   The individual rankings for each board will be determined by:

3.11.1    Gamepoint Percentage (forfeit wins and forfeit losses count)

3.11.2    Number of Games Played (forfeit wins count, forfeit losses do not count)

3.11.3    Number of Games Won (forfeit wins count)

3.11.4    Buchholz (rounds where a player is not named to play are ignored; forfeit wins and forfeit losses count as if they were played games)

3.11.5    Higher team ranking (see Article 3.10)

3.12   The following prizes will be presented:

3.12.1    Participation certificates to all players, reserves and captains

3.12.2    All players, the reserve and captain of the first, second and third-placed teams determined by Article 3.10 will receive cups, and gold, silver and bronze medals respectively, and other memorable gifts

3.12.3    The first, second and third-placed players on each board determined by Article 3.11 will receive cups, and gold, silver and bronze medals respectively. Players must play a minimum of 6 games to be eligible for a board prize. The definition of a played game in 3.11.2 applies.

3.13   FIDE will be responsible for the global broadcast and promotion of the competition.

3.14   The local organisers will be responsible for providing:

3.14.1    Full board accommodation to each team in a hotel (4* or higher), with two twin rooms and one single room for the children, and one single room for the captain. Teams not nominated as part of Article 3.16 will be charged for the cost of their accommodation by the Organiser. This will be for a maximum of 5 nights; the arrival day, the four playing days and the departure day. Teams are permitted to request additional rooms, and if it is possible, these additional rooms will be paid by the entrant to the Organiser.

3.14.2    Travel expenses, full board accommodation and stipends of tournament officials. The officials will be one Chief Arbiter, two Deputy Chief Arbiters, two Pairing Officers, two Fair Play Officers and an appropriate number of Match Arbiters.

3.14.3    Transfers to and from the airport, free of charge, for all participants.

3.14.4    The venue

3.14.5    Opening and Closing Ceremonies

3.14.6    Refreshments in the playing venue

3.14.7    Volunteers

3.14.8    Local transportation

3.14.9    Local promotion

3.14.10  Any other areas included in the contract with FIDE

3.15   The participating teams shall be responsible for their own travel expenses, insurance, and other matters not covered in Articles 3.14.1 – 3.14.9. The National Federation is allowed to assume this responsibility from the participating teams.

3.16   The first 50 National Federations to enter are entitled to nominate one of their teams to have “invited team” status, which will entitle that team to:

3.16.1    Free accommodation – two twin rooms and one single room for the children, and one single room for the captain.

3.16.2    A travel grant – Schools situated in member Federations affiliated to Asia and Europe are entitled to a travel grant up to $5,000. Schools situated in member Federations affiliated to Africa and the Americas are entitled to a travel grant up to $10,000. This will cover the cost of:

• Economy class flights from the member Federation to the host city.
• Any domestic internal travel expenses from the city in which the school is situated to the airport (e.g. standard class rail fare, internal flights). The organisers reserve the right not to award this grant if the expenses are not approved by them in advance.

Note: EVE will keep in reserve enough “invited team” places during this allocation process such that one team per FIDE continent can benefit from the status.

Annex 1 – FIDE Regulations

Relevant FIDE Regulations can be found here:

FIDE Laws of Chess:
https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012023

Olympiad Pairing Rules:
https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/OlympiadPairingRules2022

Captains and Heads of Delegation:

https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/CaptainsHeadsDelegation

Appeals Committee Procedural Rules:

https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/AppealsCommitteeProceduralRules

Anti-Cheating Protection Measures:

https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/ACCProtectionMeasures.pdf