Regulations for Tournaments 2023

[<<] [>>] by Samir Patel
23rd February 2023 (CqE Official News)

The Tournament Regulations have been updated for the 2023 season and apply to all Calendar Fixtures.

The changes of substance made since the 2022 edition are as follows:

• C1(a)(1) and C1(b)(7) have been re-written to reflect the new CA Tournament Levy. The change is intended to implement the following changes: No Levy payable for one day events; No levy for Under-25 Premium Members; Levy to become a flat rate fee of £6 per calendar fixture; The additional rate for non-premium members to be increased from £5 to £6. This change is intended to encourage the creation of 1-day events, simplify administration and allow clubs to innovate with tournament format (as an example to consider all-inclusive events).
• C3(a)(3) The adjustment of grades for allocation purposes of players who have played few or no games in the previous 12 months or longer has been removed for AC events. For GC events it has been reduced from 50 to 30 points per calendar year, with the maximum reduction reduced from 400 to 240 points.
• C3(a)(6) Players who do not secure a place in a full tournament are now automatically placed on a reserve list. The Tournament Entry System will inform reserves, who can then choose to withdraw their entry for a full refund or stay on the reserve list (and be refunded when the event takes place if not promoted into it).
• F1(a)(3)(A) The adjustment of grades for seeding purposes of players who have played few or no games in the previous 12 months has been removed. Seeding, where relevant, should now be identified based on the most up-to-date ranking grades available at the time of the draw.
• P2(c) new regulation to prohibit smoking and vaping while on the court during a game. The previous regulation P2(c) is renumbered P2(d).
• Variation L2 of the Refereeing Regulations has been re-written to replace the concept of a Sequence Umpire by a duty on players to intervene in GC games they are watching if they observe that wrong ball play is about to or has occurred.
• Variation L4 of the Refereeing Regulations has been amended to add a power to use video proactively when adjudicating faults in GC games. The video taken is to be available solely to the referee taking or requesting it, until after the game, and may not be used as evidence in any appeal.
• Variation L5 amends Rule 21.5 of the 6th Edition WCF GC Rules (Doubles Advantage Play) so that it works satisfactorily for pairs with non-integer average handicaps exceeding 12.

Many other changes have been made for clarity or to remove typographic or formatting errors, but without any change of intent. These include:

• Regulation R - a clarification of wording in the definition of Qualified Referees. The new wording better recognises the role of Assistant Referees, and also those with equivalent qualifications from other national bodies.
• Removal of references to the (printed) Fixtures Book, and greater consistency in referring to Calendar Fixtures.
• Additional hyperlinks to other parts of this website to aid navigation.