THE COMPETITION

The purpose of this tournament is to fill Qualifier Places in the main World Championship. There have been two withdrawals from the main event since the Cut-Off Date of 2 September, which means there are currently six Qualifier Places. This number may increase; because the final number of Qualifier Places is not known for certain until after the end of the Qualifying Tournament, it is important to arrive at a complete order of finish with no ties, well past the top four places. A knockout is not really suitable for this, which is why this event is based almost entirely on block play.

This makes it particularly important for all players to finish all their scheduled games. Players must be prepared to play up to six games in a day; possibly seven in some instances involving playoffs.

INITIAL BLOCK STAGE

The tournament begins with 4 blocks of 10 players each. The draw for this stage will follow the guidelines in the WCF Sports Regulations (hereafter "SR") Appendix 4, the same as for the main championship. (Note that USA players make up more than half of the field, so the country distribution requirement will not apply to USA. However, individual USA players may be involved in inter-block exchanges as needed to adjust the distribution of players from other countries.) 6 rounds will be played on Sunday and the remaining 3 rounds on Monday morning into early afternoon.

The Block Stage draw will be published on Tuesday 8 October, using the latest ranking data available. However, the draw is subject to revision if any players withdraw before play begins, at the discretion of the Manager.

ALLOCATION TO FINAL BLOCK STAGE

The players in each block will be placed in descending order of games won, with all players continuing to one of the blocks in the final stage. The top 4 from each block advance to the Qualifying Block. The players in positions 5-7 qualify to the Shield Block, and the players in positions 8-10 move to the Plate Block.

Any ties affecting the allocation of the final block stage will be resolved with a modified version of the playoff method (“Resolution Group”) from SR Appendix 6. These modifications will apply only to Resolution Groups of 3 players, to increase the likelihood that all playoffs can finish in one or two rounds. The modifications are as follows: for a group of 3 contesting 1 place (e.g, a tie for places 4-6), there is one Most Advantageous Position (“MAP”) with a bye to R2; the others contest R1. The R1 winner and the MAP contest R2; the winner qualifies to the higher block. For a group of 3 contesting 2 places (e.g., a tie for places 3-5), there are two MAPs who contest R1. The R1 winner qualifies to the higher block. The R1 loser and the other player contest R2, and the R2 winner also qualifies to the higher block.

Any needed playoffs from the initial block stage will be played as early as possible on Monday afternoon. The Qualifying Block will begin play that afternoon; the Shield and Plate blocks will begin Tuesday morning. Players in the Shield and Plate blocks may take the rest of Monday afternoon off, or may play extra “Zed” games (which will count for World Ranking, but will not be used for determining final placings).

FINAL BLOCK STAGE

Players who have already played each other in the initial block stage will not play each other again in the final stage. However, those earlier scores will carry forward to the final stage, so that each block has a complete set of results. (Any playoff scores do not carry forward, however.) So in the Qualifying Block, each player will play 12 new games and will have 3 scores carried forward from the initial block. Likewise for the Shield and Plate blocks, where each player will play 9 new games and have 2 scores carried forward.

At the end of this stage the players will again be placed in descending order of games won, with the Qualifying Block determining the top 16 positions overall, the Shield Block determining positions 17-28, and the Plate Block determining positions 29-40. Preferably any ties will be broken with playoffs, again using the modified Resolution Group method. However, and especially for positions in the Shield and Plate blocks, if time is short some ties may be left unresolved.