Rule Set for the European Youth Go Team Championship
1. Overview
(1) The European Youth Go Team Championship (EYGTC) is organized by the
European Go Federation (EGF).
(2) National teams of European countries, who are members of the EGF, can participate.
(3) The EYGTC is a tournament played on the internet.
(4) The winner of the tournament gets the title “European Youth Team Champion” for one year.
(5) The yearly season starts in September and ends in December or January.

2. Organisation
(1) National teams – must be built at the beginning of a season. Details see §4.
(2) Team captain – each team has to nominate an adult as team-captain and a proxy for the captain.
(3) Tournament manager – organizes the tournament.
(4) Appeals commission – a team of three experienced players form the appeals commission.
(5) Project lead – two persons (one must be member of the EGF-executive-board) operate as EYGTC project managers.

3. Playing on the internet – general aspects
(1) The EGF decides at the beginning of the season on the go server being used.
(2) Fair play is the base of the whole competition. While playing, it is, for example, forbidden to use tools like programs with stored games and literature.
(3) In case of differences during or after a game, first of all the captains should try to solve the problem. If no solution is found, the tournament manager should be consulted who will decide. Against this decision it is possible for a team captain to escalate the case by involving the appeals commission. The decision of the appeals commission is final.
(4) Both captains are responsible that their players choose the right rule-set, colours, thinking time, komi and byoyomi.
(5) If mistakes in colours or time-settings are found within the first six moves the game should be stopped and restarted with correct parameters. After move seven the (wrong) settings are valid for the game. Wrong komi can be adjusted at the end of the game.
(6) The player with the black stones invites the player with the white stones at the beginning of the game.

4. Teams
(1) Teams are either: 
- national teams with their name being the name of the country they represent
- or a team of two or more countries with an informative geographic team name.
(2) A team must be formed at the beginning of the season with at least 6 players and an upper limit of 15 players
(3) Teams are open for amateur players, female and male.
(4) All players must be citizens of the country they represent or being resident in this country for at least two years.
(5) Players can start for only one country, but might change their country team for the next season.
(6) The team is fixed for the whole season after defining it (see (2)). No players can be added and none can be removed.
(7) The players of a team must be ordered (from 1 to 12) according to the rating list of the European Go Database available at the beginning of the season. The strongest player gets number one. The exact date of the list to be used is published by the project leaders. For each player the year of birth has to be listed as well.
(8) The order keeps unchanged for the whole season (see §1 (5)) regardless of any changes in the European rating lists

5. Team Captain
(1) The national Go organisation nominates the team captain. In the case of multinational teams, the respective go organisations agree on one team captain.
(2) The team captain represents the team in all cases. The captain needs not to be a member of the team, but must be citizen of (one of) the country/ies he represents.
(3) The team captain keeps contact with the responsible tournament manager and (if required) with the project leaders, and vice versa.
(4) The team captain informs the project leaders by September 15th, at the latest, if the team wants to start in the coming season.
(5) The team captain informs the project leaders by October 15th, at the latest, about the team players for the coming season

6. The Tournament
(1) The teams play a tournament by Swiss system. 
(2) If 8 or fewer teams participate, 4 rounds are played, otherwise, 5 rounds.
(3) The pairing is done and published by the tournament organizer.
(4) The team captains should be aware of §5 (4) and (5).

7. Tournament Manager
(1) The tournament manager is nominated by the project leaders.
(2) The tournament manager is in charge of announcing the matches on the web in close cooperation with the team captains.
(3) After the matches of a round the tournament manager publishes the results and implements them in the tables.
(4) The tournament manager acts as judge in case of difficulties (see §3 (3)).

8. Schedule
(1) The schedule for the whole season is published by the project leaders, latest on November 1st.
(2) The schedule for the rounds usually lasts from November to January.

10. Arranging the match
(1) Both team captains get in contact latest 10 days before the planned date, published at the beginning of the season, to confirm the default date and start-time, or fix another date.
(2) If a captain is prevented from looking for the team by the deadline (as defined in (1)) then a proxy must be nominated.
(3) The results of (1) and maybe (2) must be sent to the tournament manager as soon as possible, latest 3 days before the start of the match. This e-mail is required, in any case, even if no changes from the announced default schedule are agreed. (4) The tournament manager publishes time and date in an appropriate way to address interested observers who want to follow the games.
(5) The date of the match can be moved up to 7 days earlier (from scheduled Saturday back to earliest the previous Saturday), so the games for a particular planned date can take place on 8 different days at most. The last date and time to start any game in the match is on the original planned day (Saturday) at 17:00 GMT. Games played after this date are not valid and will be counted as not played for both parties (see §15).
(6) Whenever the team captains cannot find a date accepted from both sides, the original planned date published at the beginning of the season (default date) must be taken.
(7) With the email about the agreed time and date (as in (3)) the team captains have to tell each other and their league manager the names (with User IDs) of the players they plan for the match ordered by boards. Last minute changes in the team on the scheduled date are still possible (see §11 (1)).
(8) To solve the problem of the different time-zones in Europe the following rules for starting a match according to the published schedule of the season are valid:
a) within the same time-zone, default time to start is 14:00;
b) one hour difference, default time to start is 14:00 / 15:00;
c) two hours difference, default time to start is 14:00 / 16:00;
d) three hours difference, default time to start is 13:00 / 16:00.

11. The Team Event
(1) The match starts with contact of the team captains confirming the names of the players. The captains have the right to change their announced team composition, but should consider (10).
(2) The match is played on five boards with Japanese rules.
(3) All games should start at the announced or separately agreed time and day. If a game cannot be started within 30 minutes of the planned schedule the team who is responsible for the delay loses the game on this board. See also §15.
(4) All games are played without handicap and online.
(5) The thinking time is 60 minutes per player with Japanese byoyomi of 3x30 sec.
(6) White gets 6.5 Komi.
(7) The “home-team” (first team in the announced match) gets black on boards one, three and five, white on boards two and four.
(8) The team who has won more boards gets two match points (MP); the losing team gets no match points. If both teams have won the same number of boards, both teams get one MP. If neither team shows up at the agreed schedule, no MPs are given.
(9) Each team gets for a won game one board point (BP) and for a lost game zero board points. This is also valid if a game is won without playing (see (3) for example). If both teams leave the same board free, no BPs are given, for additional penalties see §15.
(10) The players for the five boards must be nominated according to the following age categories:
- Board 1 must be 19 or younger during the whole year in which the tournament starts.
- Board 2 and 3 must be 16 years or younger during the whole year in which the tournament starts.
- Board 4 and 5 must be 12 years or younger during the whole year in which the tournament starts.
Within each age category the players must be chosen in the same order as in the ordered list of players fixed at the start of the season (stronger players play on higher boards than weaker players of the team). 
A violation of this rule results in losing the game on the respective board(s).
(11) It is possible to play a match with less than 5 players. Besides losing the non- played games, empty boards force additional penalties, see §15.
(12) After the match, the team-leader of the winning team has to report the result as soon as possible (latest after 24 hours) to the tournament manager, including the names of the players of both teams. In case of a draw the leader of the home team is in charge to report the result.

12. Table
(1) The tournament manager generates the table after each round.
(2) The order is as follows:
a) Won Match points (MP),
b) won Board points (BP),
c) sum of MP of opponents,
d) sum of BP of opponents.
(3) Penalties might reduce MPs and/or BPs (see §15).
(4) If at the end of the season two or more teams have exactly the same numbers according to (2a) – (2d), taking into account potential penalties, these teams share the first place and the title of "European Youth Team Champion".

15. Penalties
(1) Penalties normally reduce the match points and board points in the table.
(2) If a board is left empty (or no show within the 30 minutes after defined start) this results in a yellow card and the board is lost.
(3) Not announcing the planned date of the match and/or the team composition in time forces a yellow card. 
(4) Each two yellow cards result in one BP-penalty.
(5) BP-penalties are cumulated. 4 BP-penalties force an additional match point (MP) penalty.
(6) If a team does not start at all two times in a season, the team is set on the last place of the table, losing all games. No more games for the team in the current season are possible.
(7) Any cheating results in losing the complete match on all five boards.
(8) In case of a second cheating within two consecutive seasons, the team is set on the last place of the table, losing all games. No more games for the team in the current season are possible.

16. Date / Validity
This rule set is coming into force on July 23rd, 2014