The grand winks cuppers tournament 2023

Final

Of team QWXCL, appropriately enough, only Sam Clayton turned up. Sam Dernie played as a substitute, allowing the match to take place — with half points transferred. Carnovsky Cats therefore won Cuppers (the only way QWXCL could win was for all the games to be 7*-0* and then win the pot-off), but more than half their points in the final were donated by the opposition! QWXCL are to be commended for getting exactly the same score against CC, pre-transfer, as they did in qualifying.

Qualifying

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Teams

The following teams have registered for Cuppers:

Team sign-up

Please note that the deadline for signing up has now passed.

There is a sign-up fee of £10 per team. This fee covers tournament entry and provides all members of the team with a nominal membership to CUTwC for the entirety of Lent term (this allows members to turn up to CUTwC sessions throughout the term including Cuppers but does not entitle these members to vote on any Club issues unless they are also full members of CUTwC).

In order to form a team, all members of the team must be part of some common group, traditionally Cambridge colleges or departments. This group can be linked by something other than college/department, however it must be a reasonable link and what is considered reasonable is at the discretion of the tournament organisers. Collaborations are permitted (e.g. St John’s and Trinity Colleges could form an unlikely partnership) but this should be acknowledged in the team’s name where possible.

In order to enter the team the team captain must email the tournament organisers (Bertie Politi and Megan Vaughan) with:

• Their team name
• The team captain’s name, college/department and contact details
• The name and college/department of at least one other member of the team (but preferably all three other members).

This must be done by the entry deadline, which is 11:59pm on Thursday 26^th January 2023.

Participants cannot change teams midway through the tournaments; however, substitutes for absent players are permitted at the tournament organisers’ discretion. The tournament organiser must be informed of the name and college/department of all team members prior to their first involvement in a Cuppers match.

By entering the tournament, you acknowledge that you will have to pay the £10 entry fee for your team. This can be paid by either:

• Cheque payable to Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club posted to Dr Stew Sage, Selwyn College, Cambridge, CB3 9DQ
• Bank transfer to “Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club” using your team captain’s CRSid as the reference; please contact the tournament organiser for account details
• Cash, payable to the Junior Treasurer during a Club meeting.

In the event that the tournament is cancelled due to COVID-related issues, then each team is entitled to a £5 refund.

Equipment

Each team member will be provided with a personalised squidger for participation, and mats and winks will be provided at Wednesday CUTwC meetings. If you need to rearrange matches then it is your responsibility to ensure that you have a mat and a set of winks to use; these can be bought from the club or borrowed from other players.

If you have any specific requests for your team’s squidgers, please contact the tournament organiser by Wednesday 1^st of February — this relates to colour, team name, logo design if not a college crest, etc. The Club squidger smith may be able to accommodate requests where possible, but all squidgers made for the team must be identical.

The rules regarding the game and the tournament

A “Cuppers’ Committee” consisting of Bertie Politi and Meghan Vaughan has been nominated to oversee the tournament. Either of these may be considered “the tournament organiser” for the purposes of the below rulings, but any significant decisions will be discussed by both.

The games themselves will be played using the standard ETwA rule set. A link to the simplified version of the rules (covering most aspects of play and being vaguely understandable for beginners!) as well as a link to the full rules are included below.

http://www.etwa.org/rules/simplerules.pdf

http://www.etwa.org/rules/rules2016.pdf

The rules and format of the tournament are to be as follows:

• The format will be an all-play-all, in which all five teams will play each other team once, followed by a Grand Final for the top two placed teams; the first stage will therefore consist of four matches per team.
• Matches must be completed by the start of the CUTwC meeting on Wednesday 8^th of March, and ideally before this time. If possible, the final will take place during the meeting on Wednesday 8^th of March 2023, otherwise it will have to be organised for a time between then and the end of the Lent Term. Note: Qualifying matches were still being played on March 8^th; at the time of writing (March 15^th) there is yet to be an official announcement about an updated deadline, but the expectation is for the final to be played in the Easter Term. The final of Cuppers will be on the 31^st of May.
• Matches will be organised by team captains, and announced via a Google Document accessible to all team captains. Once you have agreed when you will play your matches, please enter this into the Google Document so that other teams and the tournament organiser are aware. Ideally, please CC the Cuppers Committee into all match organisation correspondences.
• Matches must be agreed upon in advance. Ideally, matches should be agreed upon at least 24 hours before the match start time.
• If a team cancels within 24 hours of the match start time, then the cancelling team will forfeit the match. It is much better to turn up missing one (or even two) players than to forfeit (see rules below).
• It is recommended that matches be played every week at CUTwC meetings; however, matches may be rearranged to an alternative date/time so long as both parties are in agreement (this includes the splitting of matches across multiple days/locations).
• It is strongly recommended that all teams aim to play all of their matches as soon as possible to avoid being unable to play matches due to positive COVID tests etc. — there are deliberately more weeks than you have matches to play in order to add some flexibility.
• Rearranging matches:
  • It is assumed that all matches will be played at Wednesday CUTwC meetings unless specified otherwise.
  • Rearranged matches do not require an umpire; however in the event of an in-game ruling being required, a third party may be enlisted to settle a dispute — any other disputes should be brought to the attention of the tournament organiser. The tournament organiser may need to be contacted to facilitate the borrowing of a mat/set of winks.
  • Every event should be made to rearrange matches if required by one team.
  • In the event of a walkover being claimed due to a match remaining unplayed, then the captain of the claiming team must submit satisfactory evidence to the tournament organiser that every effort was made to reschedule the match. Without evidence then the score of the match will be considered 0-0.
  • The points awarded for a successfully-claimed walkover are by default 20-0 (on the basis that five points from each of the four games in a match would be reasonable). However, this may be subject to adjustment following a decision by the Cuppers’ Committee in order to be fair to all teams in the tournament.
• Matches consist of four games (2 × 2 simultaneous games with both pairs from each team of four playing both opposing pairs), each game taking approximately half an hour.
• Pair A and B may consist of different player combinations between matches (out of the four players in your team), but not within a single match.
• Missing players:
  • If one member of a pair cannot attend a match for any reason then the match can be played with only one member of a pair present.
  • In this event, the player playing singles will have half of their final points from each game transferred over to the opposing team.
  • If both pairs are missing a player, then all scores from the game are halved after being calculated to give the final game score.
  • The above rules are to ensure that it is always better to play a game singles than forfeit, but that it is always even better to have both members of a pair present.
• The score of each match is added together to create the final match score. E.g. a match with game scores 5-2, 3-4, 6-1, 6-1 would result in a final match score of 20-8.
• Should a match not be played by the deadline for any reason (except when a walkover is claimed successfully) then the score of that match shall be 0-0.
• Match scores should be emails to the tournament organiser as soon as they are available in full.
• In determining the order of the group, teams will be ranked firstly on points accumulated, then on match wins, and lastly on head-to-head.
• The Grand Final match will be the same as the group stage matches, but if the match would otherwise end in a draw, the teams will compete for a bonus point via a Peterhouse Pot-style game in which one player from each team is nominated to take part.

Any rule disputes should be brought to the attention of the tournament organiser immediately. The Cuppers’ Committee’s decision regarding any rule dispute is final.

The Cuppers’ Committee reserves the right to alter or add rules to the tournament in order to prevent rule abuse.

For further information, please email the tournament organiser or see the CUTwC web site, https://cutwc.org.