Competition rules

1. Overview

The sporting hierarchy is Organisation → Rating Class → Team → Division.

The central scheduling principle is: league rounds determine who plays whom; availability determines when they play. Except during designated cup weeks, the five games forming a team fixture do not need to be played simultaneously.

• Worldwide participation.
• No nationality, federation-membership, amateur-status or professional-status restriction.
• All competition games are played on Lichess.
• Normal league and cup games use rated 15+10 Rapid.

2. Organisations

Any individual or group may establish an IMRL organisation. It does not need to represent an existing chess club, federation, place, school, university, company or online community.

• Each organisation requires a verified Organisation Administrator.
• Each organisation must enter at least one competitive team.
• There is no maximum number of teams, provided each team independently meets eligibility requirements.
• Every team has a Team Captain. One person may be both Organisation Administrator and Team Captain, and may captain multiple teams.

3. Teams and rating classes

Each team squad contains five primary players and up to two designated reserves. Maximum squad size is seven. A player may be registered to only one competitive team at a time.

The Team Classification Rating is the average frozen IMRL Rating of the five highest-rated registered players, including reserves. Class and division belong to a team’s season entry rather than permanently to the team.

4. IMRL Rating

Each player receives one frozen IMRL Rating for classification, board order, roster eligibility, reserve-loan controls and statistics.

1. Approved national federation standard/classical rating where an IMRL conversion exists.
2. FIDE Standard.
3. Lichess Rapid.
4. Chess.com Rapid.
5. IMRL administrative assessment.

• FIDE Standard: IMRL = FIDE Standard.
• Lichess Rapid: IMRL = Lichess Rapid − 240.
• Chess.com Rapid: IMRL = 0.000394 × R² − 0.687 × R + 1733.
• Converted ratings are rounded to the nearest five points.

Lichess Rapid eligibility requires an account at least 90 days old, at least 30 rated Rapid games, a non-provisional rating and Rating Deviation below 75. The anti-sandbagging rating is the higher of the frozen rating and 90-day median Rapid rating. Chess.com uses the same 90-day/30-game/established-rating principle without the Lichess RD requirement.

Ratings freeze 14 days before Week 1. Initial squads lock seven days before Week 1.

5. Divisions and movement

Each class may contain multiple numbered divisions. The standard target is 12 teams per division, with the lowest division absorbing participation variation.

• New teams enter the lowest division of their qualifying rating class.
• Top two teams are promoted and bottom two teams relegated between numbered divisions within the same class.
• Before each new season, rating-class reclassification takes priority over ordinary promotion and relegation.
• A team moving up a class enters the lowest division of the higher class.
• A team moving down enters the highest appropriate available division in the lower class.
• Vacancies are resolved first by reducing relegation where appropriate, then by additional promotion, then by admitting a new team.

6. Season and team fixtures

An IMRL season lasts 21 weeks. Standard 12-team divisions play an 11-round single round-robin. All league team fixtures and initial board fixtures are generated before Week 1.

• Weeks 1–10: pre-transfer period.
• Week 11: Transfer Window / Free Week.
• Weeks 12–21: post-transfer period.
• Rounds 1–5 are the pre-transfer segment; Rounds 6–11 are the post-transfer segment, regardless of the actual date played.
• The normal league playing window closes at the end of Week 20. Week 21 is reserved for the Cup Final, league adjudication and season close.

Early Cup rounds are conditional on the number of entries. Free weeks do not stop players completing eligible league fixtures. The standard Cup calendar supports up to 128 teams; a larger field requires a season-specific preliminary qualifying stage before Week 3.

Every Team Fixture contains exactly five independent Board Fixtures. Board 1, 3 and 5 give White to the home team; Boards 2 and 4 give White to the away team.

7. Availability and scheduling

Players maintain availability through the IMRL portal. Dates and times are stored in UTC and displayed in the viewer’s configured local timezone.

• Active players normally maintain at least two availability windows within the next 14 days.
• Availability should be reviewed by Sunday 20:00 UTC each week.
• Minimum league window: 75 minutes. Minimum cup window: 90 minutes.
• Away periods suspend the two-window requirement but not the duty to fulfil fixtures. Continuous away periods over four weeks trigger review.
• When availability overlaps, either player may propose a precise time; acceptance creates an official scheduled fixture.
• Changes more than 24 hours before start may be requested without penalty. Inside 24 hours, opponent agreement or genuine exceptional circumstances are required.
• No-show grace period: 15 minutes.

8. League scoring and tie-breaks

Individual game scoring: Win 1, Draw ½, Loss 0. Team fixture scoring: Win 3 league points, Draw 1, Loss 0. A fixture can finish 2.5–2.5.

Standings are ordered by league points, individual game points, head-to-head, team fixture wins, individual wins, then a playoff where necessary for a materially important position.

9. Reserves and internal loans

• Each team may designate up to two reserves.
• A reserve may play at most one game per nominal round for their registered team.
• A reserve inherits the board of the primary player replaced; the fixture is not reordered.
• A designated reserve may temporarily represent another team in the same organisation as an internal reserve loan.
• Each reserve may make one internal-loan appearance in Rounds 1–5 and one in Rounds 6–11; Cup appearances count towards the relevant half-season allowance.

A loan is permitted only when the receiving active-five average stays below its class ceiling: Silver below 1900, Bronze below 1650, Green below 1400; Gold has no ceiling.

10. Transfers, withdrawals and replacements

• Each player may normally complete one transfer per season.
• Movement between teams in the same organisation counts as a transfer.
• A normal transfer requires player request, receiving-team approval, releasing-captain approval and IMRL validation.
• Transfers agreed in Week 11 become effective from Week 12.
• Transferred players cannot retrospectively fulfil pre-transfer obligations of their new team.
• A reserve may be promoted to primary during the transfer window without using a transfer allowance because the player remains on the same team.
• Withdrawal ends the player’s IMRL season and prevents registration for another team until the next season.
• Exceptional replacements and additional transfers may be approved under the defined exceptional-circumstances rules.

11. Fulfilment and team viability

Fulfilment measures obligations, not simply games personally played. Legitimate reserve coverage, internal loans and protection for opponent non-engagement count. Missing a checkpoint triggers evidence-based review, not automatic forfeiture.

A team enters viability review when three or more of its five primary players miss a checkpoint without protected reasons. At the end of Week 20, unresolved league games move to adjudication as a forfeit win for either player or double forfeit 0–0.

12. IMRL Cup

The Cup is open to all registered teams, single elimination, unseeded and randomly drawn. First-round byes are random when needed.

• Five normal rated 15+10 boards.
• Each drawn normal board individually proceeds to Armageddon; decisive boards are complete.
• Mandatory five-minute break before Armageddon.
• Same players, colours reversed.
• Armageddon is casual 5+0; 60 seconds are added to White before the first move to create 6:00 versus 5:00.
• Black has draw odds.
• A player becomes cup-tied after representing a team in the Cup, including through an internal reserve loan.

13. Fair play and technical results

Lichess fair-play decisions are binding. IMRL does not run an independent engine-cheating detection system. Once a Lichess game starts, the recorded Lichess result normally stands; ordinary player-side connection problems do not justify replay.

Where Lichess identifies a specific affected IMRL game, it may be converted to a forfeit loss. If an account is closed for fair-play reasons without specific games being identified, results from that player’s perspective are adjusted: win → draw; draw → loss; loss → unchanged.

A fair-play account closure suspends the player for the remainder of the season. Future return requires a new eligible Lichess account and IMRL approval.

14. Discipline and appeals

IMRL uses six levels: Warning, Formal Warning, Fixture Sanction/Temporary Suspension, Season Suspension, Fixed-Term Ban and Permanent Exclusion.

Appeals must be lodged within 72 hours and identify specific grounds. New evidence may be provided. Where practical, a different administrator reviews the case. The reviewer may uphold, reduce, increase or overturn the original sanction. The appeal outcome is final within IMRL.

15. Under-18s, safeguarding and privacy

• Under-18 players require parent or legal-guardian consent before activation.
• Public identity defaults to Lichess username; date of birth is never public.
• Scheduling and disputes should remain in official IMRL systems to minimise unnecessary adult/minor private communication.
• A detailed safeguarding policy and reporting route must exist before public registration opens.
• Private operational records normally expire 24 months after the relevant season, subject to legal, safeguarding or ongoing disciplinary needs.
• Public sporting history may be retained indefinitely; lawful deletion requests may preserve competition integrity through pseudonymisation.

16. Governance

After adoption of the inaugural rules, each registered organisation receives one vote regardless of the number of teams entered.

• Quorum: at least 50% of registered organisations participate.
• Ordinary changes: simple majority of votes cast.
• Major structural changes: two-thirds majority of votes cast.
• A tied vote leaves the existing rule unchanged.
• If quorum is not met, the existing rule remains in force.
• Administrators may make temporary emergency decisions needed to operate a live competition, but permanent substantive changes require the governance process.