Dear club member,

You want to participate in The Golden Ladder, here you will find absolutely everything you need to know about it.

✅ The first thing you need to do is to make sure you can accept challenges and make challenges that others can accept, set the following Daily Chess settings: Settings 🢂 Daily Games 🢂 Allow Challenges 🢂 Everyone

You also need Incoming and Outgoing challenges to allow Any rating, as shown:

✅ Second, write a post on the Golden Ladder: Challenges & Discussions page that you want to join, and if you want U1600 or Open Ladder (or both), or Chess 960.

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/golden-ladder-challenges-2018-11-03

✅ Check your position on the Golden Ladder standings.

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/golden-ladder-5

✅ Once you have been added to the Ladder, you can send and receive challenges. The player must be a maximum of 5 rows above your nickname. If all 5 players above you are unavailable, you may also challenge the first available player above you.

You can also challenge any players below you, at the risk of moving down to their place in case you lose.

✅ Games can be of any type except takebacks.

Rated / Unrated
Standard / 960
In the Open and U1600 ladder games can be any type but only if both players agree, otherwise standard chess should be used.
In the Chess 960 ladder, all games must be Chess 960
Has to be a 3 day game (unless both players agree)

✅ The challenger must post on the Golden ladder challenges page who they have challenged, and for which ladder. When an opponent has agreed to play, you need to provide a link to the game in the post under Golden Ladder: challenges and discussion.

✅ When the match is started one of the players must post the link to the game in the Golden ladder challenges page. If you go to this link https://www.chess.com/daily you should see a list of your own current daily games. You can mouse over the appropriate game and use the right-mouse button to 'copy link'. Then you can paste the link in the challenges forum.

✅ If the challenged player does not accept within 3 days, the game will automatically go to the challenger. The challenger has to post that information to claim the win.

If you reject the challenge, you lose the game.

On the Open and U1600 ladders, you may reject a Chess 960 challenge and immediately send a replacement challenge for standard chess

☝No consecutive ladder matches with the same person.

Problems with challenges should be discussed in the challenges forum.

✅ Game on. What's the bottom line?

When playing anyone 5 spaces above you:

If you win, you swap places
If you lose you stay where you are
If you draw, you stay where you are

If you challenged the first person available (all 5 people above were unavailable)

If you win, you move up 5 spaces and the loser moves down 5
If you lose, no one moves
If you draw, no one moves

✅ If someone continuously doesn't respond to challenges, they will be removed. Members who do not play a ladder game or make a challenge for 30 days will be considered to have left the ladder and may be removed after notice. The ladder is intended to be dynamic and active.

✅ In the Golden Ladder standings table, you can see 3 kinds of Status:

X 🢂 next to a name means they are playing a game already and so cannot be challenged till that is finished.
C 🢂 next to a name means they have been challenged but have not yet accepted it. Don’t challenge them till the “C” is removed.
V 🢂 next to a name means they have gone on "ladder vacation" for a limited time. To qualify for this, you've got to have a valid reason and should be requested by 'PM' to @ImperfectAge or @MajesticRukh. People with a V cannot be challenged.

ImperfectAge

Super Admins