Syndicate Rules

1. Registration, payment & attendance

• League entry closes before the season begins. No player or team may join mid-season.
• League fees must be paid in full within two weeks of the season start. Completed games remain official if a participant is later removed for nonpayment.
• Check-in is the official declaration of attendance. A participant not checked in before games are generated is absent, not forfeited.
• Late entry is not guaranteed and cannot create makeup games or artificial results.

2. Standings, eligibility & seeding

• Standings are ordered by wins, then more games played, point differential, points for, and finally draw lots.
• Standings placement and Championship eligibility are separate. Ineligible participants remain in historical standings but cannot enter the Championship field or receive prize money.
• Final regular-season standings determine Championship seeding. Eligible competitors are reseeded consecutively after ineligible entries are removed.

3. Championship format

• The default league Championship is seeded double elimination with a true bracket reset. The undefeated finalist must lose twice to be eliminated.
• First, second, and third are determined by the bracket. Later placements follow the round of elimination and may be tied.
• A positional warm-up may pair adjacent seeds before the bracket. It does not affect standings, seeding, eligibility, official results, or prize eligibility.

4. Rules of play & equipment

• Syndicate follows ACL rules of play except where published Syndicate rules provide otherwise.
• ACL stamping is not required. Bags must meet applicable regulation size and weight requirements, and each player or team must use a matching set of four.
• Syndicate-provided boards and courts are approved once play begins unless an objective safety, damage, dimension, obstruction, or equipment issue is raised.
• A player may request up to two down-and-backs before an assigned match when this does not delay competition.

5. Scoring, disputes & forfeits

• Both sides must verify the final score before submission. A submitted result is official unless a verifiable scoring or data-entry error is corrected.
• Gameplay disputes must be raised when they occur. If competitors cannot agree, play stops and administration makes the final ruling.
• A forfeit may be issued for no-show, refusal to play, or unacceptable behavior. A checked-in participant is a no-show after the pre-match timer, five additional minutes, and two device notices.

6. Substitutes

• Regular-season doubles or team leagues may use an otherwise eligible substitute. In singles, the substitute must have an established PPR equal to or below the replaced player.
• Team results stay with the season team. Individual statistics belong to the player who actually competed.
• Championship substitutes are prohibited by default and require an exceptional league vote plus final administrative approval. A substitute cannot cure existing ineligibility.

7. Conduct & administration

• Competition, celebration, and good-natured trash talk are permitted. Threats, harassment, aggression, deliberate interference, property abuse, cheating, collusion, score manipulation, and material disruption are not.
• Consequences may include warning, match forfeit, removal, disqualification, or another appropriate ruling.
• Cory may compete as administrator. When Cory is directly involved in a dispute, another available administrator should rule whenever reasonably possible.

8. Statistics, privacy & corrections

• Public records may include display names, competition statistics, results, rankings, championships, and awards. Contact information, identity mappings, external account IDs, and internal notes remain private.
• Championship throwing performance is retained separately. Championship match wins and losses do not enter regular-season records; final placement is the official result.
• Verified factual and data errors may be corrected. Legitimate competitive outcomes are not retroactively changed merely because a different result is preferred.

9. Cancellations & rule changes

• A league-wide cancellation is not an absence and creates no games or statistics. If rescheduled, the makeup date becomes an official regular-season night.
• Material competition rules normally remain fixed during an active season. Necessary changes may be made for safety, venue or legal requirements, technology limitations, obvious defects, or exceptional operational circumstances.

1. Registration and six games

• League night has six games, and all six count toward Poker. There is no separate Poker matchup schedule. Teammates and opponents do not need to participate in Poker. Each participant reports their own win or loss for Game 1 through Game 6.
• House checks each result against Scoreholio and approves it before issuing cards. House may submit a completed game on a player's behalf with a logged reason after checking the result. A House submission is approved immediately. A submitted result alone does not issue cards. House may reject an incorrect submission with a reason for the player to correct and resubmit.
• Events require at least two participants and support up to 52. Registration closes manually before House approves the final participating player's Game 1 result. After closure, House may add late arrivals within the event's original capacity, with a logged reason. All six league games still count; registration adds no replacement or unplayed games.

2. Cards after each approved game

• Loss: Draw one card and keep it automatically.
• Win: Draw two cards, choose one to keep, and discard the other immediately. The choice locks when confirmed.
• Each completed draw adds exactly one kept card. After six games and all required choices, the player has six playable cards.
• Kept cards remain face up and publicly visible. Drawn options, kept cards, and discards are recorded in the public results history.
• House approves a player's games in order. A pending winning choice must be completed before that player's next approval. Players may submit later results while earlier results await approval.
• Gameplay uses a finite shuffled stock of standard decks, fixed at event creation: one deck for every four available player places, rounded up. Multiple decks permit duplicate rank-and-suit cards. Drawn cards and discards do not return to the stock. A separate 52-card House deck supplies Wild indicators.

3. House Wild reveal

• After Game 6 is approved and the final keep/discard decision is locked, House reveals that player's Wild indicator. The indicator is not part of the six-card hand.
• The indicator's rank becomes that player's Wild rank for High only. Matching cards in the six-card hand may represent any rank or suit to make the strongest High hand. Wilds do not apply to Low; Low always uses cards exactly as printed.

4. High Hand

• Use the strongest five-card hand available from the six playable cards, including the player's revealed Wild rank.

Strongest to weakest

1. Five of a Kind
2. Royal Flush
3. Straight Flush
4. Four of a Kind
5. Full House
6. Flush
7. Straight
8. Three of a Kind
9. Two Pair
10. Pair
11. High Card

• Within a category, normal poker rank and kicker comparisons apply. If poker values are identical, a natural hand beats one requiring substitutions, then fewer substitutions win. A matching Wild-rank card used exactly as printed is natural; an unused Wild-rank card does not count as a substitution. An exact remaining tie shares the award. Suits do not break ties.
• Five of a Kind can be natural because gameplay uses multiple decks.

5. Low Hand

• Use the weakest five-card poker hand available from the six printed cards. Normal poker rankings and rank/kicker comparisons are reversed: the lower category wins, then the lower comparison values within that category.
• Aces are high except in an A-2-3-4-5 straight. Straights and flushes count against Low. This is not ace-to-five lowball. Exact Low ties share the award; suits do not break ties.

6. Running standings and final eligibility

• Provisional High and Low standings begin with the first kept card. Before five cards, the system compares the available high cards, pairs, and other matching-rank groups; fewer than five cards cannot form a straight or flush. Once five or six cards are held, it evaluates the available five-card hands. Wilds begin applying only after House reveals the indicator.
• Pending card choices are excluded until a card is kept. Provisional leaders may change as players receive more cards. Final eligibility requires all six approved games, six kept cards, and a revealed House Wild. Withdrawn players and players paused for review are excluded from standings and awards.

7. Prize pool and ties

• House sets the whole-dollar prize contribution per participant, excluding any venue fees. A contribution of $0 makes an event free with no cash prize pool. The provisional pool grows as participants register.
• After registration closes, House confirms the final pool. Withdrawals do not automatically remove contributions; any refund adjustment must be explained when confirming the pool. The confirmed pool is locked unless House adds a late participant. That adds their contribution, preserves existing adjustments, and requires House to confirm the revised pool.
• High receives 80% and Low receives 20%. A player may win both. Tied Low awards are divided and rounded down to whole dollars; the remaining Low dollars move to High. High is divided equally among tied High winners in whole dollars. Any indivisible High remainder is displayed as unallocated for House resolution. House must announce how that remainder will be handled before accepting paid entries.

8. Corrections, disputes and player access

• Exposed cards are never redrawn after a result correction. House corrects the win/loss record and pauses the affected player for review. House records a reason when resolving the review. The original draws remain in the action history.
• An abandoned winning choice requires a logged House selection with a reason. House records reasons for withdrawals, pauses, resolutions, and access resets. A withdrawn player cannot win.
• Players sign in with their Syndicate Account to register for events, submit results and choose cards. Keep your password private. Use Forgot password on the sign-in page to recover access without changing your cards. QR codes and PINs are no longer used for sign-in.
• Internet access is required. Wait for confirmation of submissions and card choices. After a connection interruption, reconnect to recover the saved state and check it before retrying. Do not invent replacement draws while offline.

9. Finishing the event

• House closes registration, confirms the pool, resolves active-player reviews and choices, and reveals all eligible Wild indicators before finalizing. Leaving early is a self-withdrawal: the player is no longer eligible for either prize. Tell House before leaving so the withdrawal is recorded in the event. Finalization locks further event changes. House can download the public action audit for event review.