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 standings.

After all 12 preliminary matches are played:

• Top 6 by total points — the six players with the highest combined match points qualify directly.
• Top 2 by PR average — among the remaining players, the two with the lowest PR average across the preliminary rounds qualify as wildcards.
• In case of a point tie for direct qualification, the player with the better PR average is ranked higher.
• The eight qualifiers are then seeded by their preliminary PR average (lowest = 1 seed) and placed into the bracket: 1 vs 8, 4 vs 5, 3 vs 6, 2 vs 7.
• If two players are tied on PR average for a qualifying spot and the difference is less than 0.01 PR points, a sudden-death playoff decides the place. Sudden death is played as 1-point matches; the first player to win both the match point and the PR point wins. If the score is tied after three sudden-death matches, the better PR average across those matches decides.

The knockout stage uses the same 1-point-per-match-win + 1-point-per-PR-win scoring as the preliminary phase, but with a first-to-target format per round.

Quarter-Finals & Semi-Finals

• Each match-up is played as up to four 7-point matches.
• The first player to reach 5 points (match wins + PR wins) advances. The remaining matches in that match-up are not played.
• If the score is tied 4–4 after four matches, the winner is decided by the average PR across those four matches only — lower PR wins.
• If the PR averages are within 0.01 of each other, a sudden-death playoff is used (see Qualification section above for sudden-death format).

Final

• The Final is played as up to five 7-point matches.
• The first player to reach 6 points (match wins + PR wins) is the UBC Contender Stockholm champion and earns the European seat at the UBC Contender Semifinals in Monte Carlo.
• If both players finish on the same total points, the tiebreaker in the Final is match wins — not PR average.
• If match wins are also tied, the better PR average across the Final matches decides.
• The Final is scheduled at a time mutually agreed between the two finalists and the tournament director.

• All matches are played on live boards.
• Match length: 7 points, throughout the tournament.
• Clock: 12 seconds per move, with a 14-minute time bank.
• Specific situational rules — for example, "dice on checker" — are decided at the venue by the tournament director before play begins.
• All matches are recorded for analysis by Backgammon Data Limited.

All matches are analysed with the following standard UBC settings. Resign errors count toward a player's PR.

To prevent a champion being crowned through marginal analysis settings, the following deeper-analysis rule applies whenever a knockout match-up or qualification spot is decided by PR average within a very small margin:

• If a point tie is resolved by a PR average within 0.07 PR points, the matches are re-analysed using the "Huge" search interval setting in eXtreme Gammon 2.
• If the PR averages are still within 0.07 PR points after the Huge re-analysis, the matches are analysed again using the "Gigantic" search interval to produce the final result.

This ensures the closest contests are decided by the most rigorous evaluation available.