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.
• Start times and individual adjustments. All match start times are set and may be varied by the tournament director. A player may, in advance, request a minor adjustment to the start time of one of their matches where they have a genuine clash with a significant prior commitment. The director may grant such a request at his sole discretion, and only where the adjustment does not disadvantage the player's opponent or disrupt the schedule. Any decision of the director under this rule is final.

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.