WESPA Championships (WESPAC) 2019 Qualification Criteria

Scrabble Association, Singapore
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WESPA Championships (WESPAC) 2019 Qualification Criteria

Singapore is granted 8 slots in the upcoming WESPAC.

The following are the criteria which will be used to select the Singapore players for the WESPA Championships 2019. Barring any amendments announced beforehand, these criteria will take effect from the start of the Qualifying Period (QP), with the Committee's decision being final in cases of dispute.

The QP starts from the 2018 National Championships or 1st July 2018, whichever is earlier, and concludes with the 2019 National Championships or 31st August 2019, whichever is earlier.

The QP is divided into four sub-periods as follows:

Start of QP to 30 September 2018
1 October 2018 to 31 December 2018
1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019
1 April 2019 to End of QP

Eligibility

All selectees must be Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents from the commencement of the QP until WESPAC 2019. They must also be paid-up SA members throughout this period. Any SA membership that expires within this period must be renewed before the expiry date. They must not have elected to represent another country when eligible to be selected for Singapore.

Each eligible selectee must play at least 72 rated games during the QP, or 50% of all available^[1] rated games in all local tournaments if there are fewer than 144 rated games during the QP. They must also play at least one major, defined as a tournament where the top division lasts at least 16 rounds.

Games from non-SA-rated overseas tournaments may be included by players who reside outside Singapore during a particular sub-period^[2], and who have a history of at least 100 SA-rated games.

The player must submit advance notice of the overseas tournaments to SA (email: ratingstoucanet.com), and submit the result within one week from the end of the tournament and before the end of the QP. The requests will be considered on an individual basis.

In addition, the following criteria shall apply:

The player must play in the top division.
There must be at least 12 players in the tournament, including all divisions.
The division must be rated by WESPA or a WESPA-recognized Scrabble body.
The Committee, whose consent may be withheld for any reason whatsoever, must agree to include the tournament for eligibility.

Games won by reason of opponent's absence (winning byes) count towards the minimum required rated games and determination of QR. Losing byes do not.

[1] for elimination-style tournaments (like SSSg), the minimum guaranteed games are considered as "available"
[2] SA reserves the right to request proof of overseas residence such as a letter from employer stating overseas company address and period of overseas posting.

Qualifying via WESPAC performance

Eligible players finishing in the top 10 in WESPAC will be invited for the next WESPAC.

No SA members qualified via this route from results in WESPAC 2017. For WESPAC 2021 qualification, WESPAC 2019 result will apply subject to SA's WESPAC 2021 qualification criteria eligibility.

Qualifying as National Champion

One invitation will be given to the 2018 National Scrabble Champion; and one invitation to the 2019 National Scrabble Champion. Both invitations must meet all eligibility criteria listed above.

Qualifying from Qualification Ranking (QR)

Eligible players not already invited as the 2018 or 2019 National Champion or WESPAC top 10 finisher will be invited in order of QR.

To determine QR, eligible players will be ranked by two metrics, in descending order of priority:

NOP: Number of Periods with 16 or more eligible games (i.e. SA-rated games and admissible overseas games)
QRP: Qualifying Rating Points

QRP computation is defined as follows:

P1, P2, P3, P4 are the peak ratings achieved during sub-periods i, ii, iii and iv respectively. The peak rating for a sub-period is the highest of the ratings achieved at the end of tournaments within the sub-period. All SA-rated tournaments are included for computation. For multi-phase tournaments like SSSg, each individually-rated phase is considered as a rated tournament.
QRP = (P1 + P2 + P3 + 2 × P4)/5, which is a weighted average of peak ratings in the four sub-periods.
Px (x denotes the sub-period number) is 0 if the player played no SA-rated games in a sub-period (except overseas-based cases as per number 4 below).
When an overseas-based player submits an admissible overseas tournament to fulfil eligibility criteria and he plays no SA-rated games in a sub-period, the player will be awarded value for the Px for the sub-period instead of 0. The calculation will be

Px = Px' - (60 × number of sub-periods using non-SA-rated overseas tournament so far)

where Px' is last recorded peak rating from SA-rated games, or last recorded SA rating so far if no such peak rating has been recorded yet.
If the player plays a mixture of SA-rated tournaments and admissible overseas tournaments in a sub-period, both count towards eligibility but Px is calculated based only on SA-rated tournament.

The maximum NOP is 4, i.e. for players who play 16 games or more in all sub-periods. Since players will first be ranked by NOP then by QRP, all players with NOP = 4 will be ranked with higher QR than those with NOP = 3 regardless of their QRP, and so on for lower NOP.

If more than one player have the same QR, the tie-breaker is the greater number of rated games in the QP.

Acceptance of selection

Selectees must accept their invitation by one month after the end of the QP or 14 Sep 2019, whichever is earlier; failing which, the place will be offered to the next eligible player with the next highest QR.

Selectees who decline the slot offered them by the deadline may choose to indicate provisional interest to be reinstated. If so, they may be considered to be offered a slot again, if and only if all other eligible players have declined the slot.

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