The Rules

Each 7-point match awards two separate points:

• 1 point for the match win — awarded to the player who reaches 7 points first.
• 1 point for the PR win — awarded to the player with the lower performance rating (PR) in that match, as evaluated by eXtreme Gammon 2.

A player can therefore earn 0, 1, or 2 points from a single match. Both points carry equal weight in the final standings.

BMAB Brighton is played as a single 7-round Swiss event — there is no separate knockout stage.

Rounds 1–3 — pre-drawn

• Pairings for the first three rounds are drawn in advance and published before play begins.

Rounds 4–7 — live draw

• Before each of Rounds 4–7, players are paired based on their current standings by match-win points only (see the callout in the Scoring section above for why PR isn't used at pairing time).
• Players are paired within their current score group wherever possible, and a repeat pairing is avoided unless the score groups leave no alternative.
• If there's an odd number of players in a score group, one player floats to the adjacent group for that round.

There is no bracket. After Round 7, the champion is whoever has the most total points (match wins + PR wins) across all seven rounds.

• If players are tied on total points after Round 7, the first tiebreaker is average PR across all rounds played — lower PR average is ranked higher.
• If PR average is also tied, the head-to-head result between the tied players decides, if they played each other during the event.
• If neither resolves it, the tie stands and is recorded as a shared placing.

• All matches are played on live boards.
• Match length: 7 points, throughout the tournament.
• Clock: 2:00 per point plus a 12-second delay — 14 minutes per player for a 7-point match.
• Matches must be live, clocked, and pre-designated — pairings are published before each round is played, consistent with BMAB's rules for a qualifying tournament.
• Dice on checker is valid — the roll counts as shown; no reroll is required.
• Every match is recorded and transcribed by the Backgammon Data team; one selected match per round is also streamed live.
• Start times and individual adjustments. All round start times are fixed per the published schedule and may be varied by the tournament director. Any decision of the director on timing is final.

All matches are recorded and transcribed by the Backgammon Data team, then submitted to BMAB for analysis. (Note: BMAB's general rules default to splitting transcription between the tournament director and participants — Brighton's team handles all of it instead, so players have nothing to transcribe.)

• Analysis uses eXtreme Gammon's "World Class Analysis" preset with the "Gigantic" search interval, a 15×8 bear-off database, and counts resignation errors toward PR.
• Each match is analysed once.
• Results are published as each match's analysis is completed — pairing for Rounds 4–7 doesn't wait on it (see the callout in Scoring, above).

Full detail on BMAB's process: bgmastersab.com/about.