General provisions

1. The National Mathematical Games Championship (2006/2007) is a competition aimed essentially at primary and secondary school students and structured and carried out by an Organizing Committee in collaboration with APM, Associação Ludus, Ciência Viva, SPM, University of Évora, and Évora City Council.

2. It is contested in four categories corresponding to the three cycles of basic education (first, second and third categories) and secondary education (fourth category), and open regime.

3. In all categories there will be only one national final.

Organization

4. The competition consists of 6 games: Traffic Light, Amazonas, Hex, Ouri, Go, Points and Squares. The descriptions and rules of these games are available on the page http://ludicum.org/ .

5. The distribution of games among the teaching levels will be as follows:

1. first category (first cycle): Traffic light, Points and Squares, Ouri;
2. second category (second cycle): Traffic light, Ouri, Hex;
3. third category (third cycle): Amazonas, Ouri, Hex;
4. fourth category (secondary): Amazonas, Hex, Go.

6. Schools must register by 15 December 2006.

7. Each school may register one student per game and per level of education (category). The Organizing Committee may impose a limit on the number of registrations (competitors and/or schools).

National Final

8. The National Final will take place in Évora, on March 9, 2007.

9. The Organizing Committee is responsible for the classification of the competitions, ensuring that scores are awarded equitably and in accordance with the regulations.

10. Prizes will be awarded to the winners, which will be announced in due course. All participants in the final will receive participation certificates. The full prize table will be announced by the Organizing Committee.

11. The announcement of the winners and the awarding of prizes will take place in a session specially organized for this purpose.

Test Regulations

Aspects of arbitration

12. Two basic types of irregularities can occur during a game:

1. not respecting the rules of the game (for example, making illegal moves);
2. irregularities of conduct (e.g. shouting during the game).

13. Referees have a duty to intervene whenever they observe irregularities during games.

14. If the irregularity does not appear to be intentional, the referees' conduct should be to try to restore the game situation to how it was before the said irregularity and to adopt a pedagogical attitude towards the situation.

15. If the irregularity appears to be intentional, the referees should adopt a more punitive approach, which could range from a simple warning to the decision to end the game with the offender losing.

16. If a referee is called to intervene in the face of a hypothetical irregularity that he did not observe, he must act in accordance with his perception of the statements and behavior of players and witnesses.

17. It is expressly forbidden for people outside of a given game (other than the referees) to interfere in said game, unless questioned by the referees on any issue. It is vital that the referees intervene to ensure that this rule is respected.

18. Once a player has completed a move, he or she cannot go back. Note that this rule is not the same as the famous chess rule “piece touched, piece played”.

19. Games are played without a clock. Therefore, it is up to the referees to intervene to ensure that the game is played at an acceptable pace in order to prevent certain games from going on forever. Accordingly, if it is observed that a player is not playing on purpose or is thinking too long, the referee has the power to ask him to play.

Aspects of the test and pairings

20. The championships in the different categories will have a preliminary qualifying phase and a final phase.

21. The number of participants who qualify in the preliminary stages will be decided at the time by the Organizing Committee based on the number of participants.

22. The number of games played in each phase will be decided at the time by the Organizing Committee based on the number of participants.

23. Both phases will be organised based on the Swiss pairing system.

24. Tiebreakers that decide qualifications or places with the right to a prize will be done in the following manner:

1. Progressive System
2. Buchholz System
3. Prize draw

a. PROGRESSIVE SYSTEM

The calculation is done by adding the score of the player in question, in each round.

For example: Let's imagine that a player has the following sequence in a four-round course:

Victory, Defeat, Victory and Defeat

Your progressive score will be 1, 1, 2 and 2, and your progressive tiebreaker coefficient will be the sum which is equal to 6.

Another example: if a player has the sequence in a four-round course

Defeat, Victory, Victory and Defeat,

Your progressive score will be 0, 1, 2 and 2, and your progressive tiebreaker coefficient will be the sum which is equal to 5.

b. BUCHHOLZ SYSTEM

The Buchholz system is a tiebreaker system in which the scores of opponents faced throughout the tournament are added together.

For example: Let's imagine that a player has the following sequence of opponents over a four-round course:

João (who ended up with 3 points),
Jorge (who ended up with 2 points),
José (who ended up with 0 points),
Jacinto (who ended up with 1 point)

Your Buchhloz will be the sum that is equal to 6.

Summary of the Swiss pairing system:

The basic idea of this system is to pair players who have identical scores throughout the championship rounds.

It is a bit complicated to describe the system in all its points here; you can consult http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp [updated address (2012-08-12): http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/]

Organizations usually use their own software to perform pairings. In short, the Swiss system works by ranking players with the same points by their rating and pairing the highest-rated player in the group with the highest-rated player in the second half of the group. The second-highest-rated player is then paired with the second-highest-rated player in the bottom half, etc. If there are an odd number of players with the same points, the lowest-rated player is paired with the highest-rated player in the group of players immediately below. No two players may play in the same tournament twice. Efforts are made to have players switch colors during the tournament.

NOTE: In this championship, players do not follow any standardized rating. Therefore, the initial list will be ordered by the order in which the players arrive.

Final provisions

25. The sponsoring organizations will disclose, on the website and/or by other means they deem appropriate, all relevant aspects of the competition, including, without exception, a report from the Organizing Committee and the names of the winners.

26. Any issue resulting from omission or doubts regarding the interpretation of these regulations will be resolved by the Organizing Committee.