An Arena tournament has a set time limit. Players must earn as many points as possible within this allotted time. There are no rounds in an Arena tournament. Players are continuously paired after each game until the allotted time has elapsed. The player with the most points wins.
Players are paired based on their ranking in the Arena. Thus, each player faces an opponent with a score as close as possible to their own. Players alternate as much as possible between playing white and black. Random choice if this is not possible. If a game is in progress at the end of the event, it is played to the end and its result will count in the standings.
Scoring system:
- Loss: +0 point
- Draw: +0.5 point
- Win: +1 point
Special case:
- If a player is disqualified for cheating after the tournament has concluded, they will be removed from the leaderboard. Consequently, every player ranked below them will move up one position. The scores of all players will remain unchanged.
In the event of a tie, the following systems are applied in the following order:
- Buchholz cut 1 - Your Buchholz score is calculated by adding up the tournament scores of each player you played against, excluding the one with the lowest score (this is the "cut 1"). The final number is your Buchholz tiebreak score.
- Buchholz - Similar to the above, except that the lowest score is not excluded and is included in the calculation.
- Sonneborn-Berger - This score is calculated by adding up the tournament score of each opponent you have beaten, and half of the tournament score of each opponent with whom you have drawn.
- Number of wins.
- Number of wins with the black pieces.
- Direct encounter - If any players are still tied at this point, and all tied players have played against each other in the tournament, then the player with the most points out of those games is the winner. If the tied players have not all played each other, or there is a tie for points within those games, then it is still a tie.
- AROC 1 - This stands for Average Rating of Opponents Cut 1. This means the rating of all your opponents (excluding the lowest rated opponent) is averaged, and the player with the highest average opponent rating is the winner. Opponent rating is based on rating at the start of each round.
Please note that technical problems, like connection issues, will not be grounds for contesting the course content or the outcome of a game.