The Checkers Tournament!

Here are some details about the tournament:

1.   The tournament will be run with a 240 second clock, that is, each client will have a maximum of four minutes to play the game.

2.   The server will detect ties and stop games, sending a message “Result:Draw” after 100 moves where a) no pawn is advanced, and b) no piece is taken.

3.   The tournament will be round-robin, with games scheduled every 10 minutes.  If you are not ready for a game at the scheduled time (+ 1 minute), you forfeit that game.  If neither team is ready at the scheduled time (+ 1 minute), they both forfeit—a loss for both, not a tie.  For each game, the start-order (relative to the server) will be specified, to try and equalize the amount of time a team plays black and white.

4.   After the round-robin, the two teams with the highest scores will play best-of-three, (up to two more games, including their earlier game).

5.   Scoring will be 1 point for a win, .5 points for a tie.  If your opponent forfeits, that is considered a win for you unless you also forfeit, in which case it is a loss for you as well.

6.   If there are not two players with the top two scores (i.e. there is a tie between numbers 2 and 3), we will use the Neustadtl score as a tiebreaker.  If that fails to break the tie we will do something else.

The tournament server is still being checked over, but the latest version resides on port 3490 for your testing pleasure.