Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a contract between you and Rook Ready ("we", "us") that govern your use of our website, applications, and APIs (the "Service"). By creating an account, accessing the Service, or paying for a subscription, you agree to these Terms.

If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization (a chess club, school, league), you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for everything that happens under your account. Notify us immediately at support@rookready.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

Each user must use their own account. Do not share logins or impersonate another person or organization.

3. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for anything illegal, harassing, or fraudulent.
• Send spam through the announcement or email features.
• Try to break, probe, scrape, or reverse-engineer the Service, or interfere with other customers' use of it.
• Upload malware, illegal content, or content you don't have rights to.
• Use the Service to collect personal information from members without their knowledge and consent. A club decides what goes on its own roster and should have its members' agreement before entering it. That is about a club's own members; where a member is a child, complying with children's privacy law is our duty as the operator of this service, not the club's, and we are not passing it to you (see our Privacy Policy).

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules.

4. Subscriptions and billing

Rook Ready offers a free tier (Pawn) and a paid tier (Rook). A paid subscription is billed through Stripe in advance, monthly or annually — you choose which at checkout and can switch later from Settings → Billing. You authorize us to charge the payment method on file each billing cycle until you cancel.

A club on the free tier can start a 14-day trial of Rook without giving us a card. The trial ends by itself; nothing is charged unless you then subscribe. One trial per person, across every club you create — so making a second club does not get you a second trial.

You can cancel any time from Settings → Billing. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you keep paid features until then and your data drops back to the free tier afterward — your members, events, and history stay put.

Tournament entry fees are a separate thing, and they are not our money. When a club takes entry fees through Rook Ready, it connects its own Stripe account and the payment goes to the club — the club is the merchant of record and the funds land in its balance, not ours. We take no cut of an entry fee. That means a refund is the club's to give: only a director of that club can issue one, it comes out of the club's money, and we cannot issue it for them. Cancelling a tournament does not refund anybody automatically; the director has to do it. If you need an entry fee back, ask the club that ran the event. If they will not respond, mail us and we will try to help, but the decision is theirs. Clubs can also take entry fees in cash at the door or through a payment link of their own, in which case Rook Ready never touches the payment at all.

We do not offer automatic refunds for partial periods. If something went wrong (a billing error, an accidental charge), email support@rookready.com and we'll make it right.

We may change subscription pricing in the future. Existing customers will be notified by email at least 30 days before any price change and will be grandfathered at their current rate where the law permits.

5. Your content

You retain ownership of the content you upload — member lists, event details, announcements, registration data, etc. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive license to host and process that content as needed to operate the Service.

You are responsible for the legality of the content you upload, including for getting consent from any individuals whose personal information you store in Rook Ready — with the same carve-out as section 3, that children's privacy law is our duty and not yours (see our Privacy Policy).

6. Our content and intellectual property

The Service, including the software, design, copy, and brand, is owned by Rook Ready and protected by copyright and trademark law. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service while your account is active.

7. Termination

You can stop using the Service or delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that have been inactive for an extended period; we will give you reasonable notice except in cases of fraud, security risk, or other urgent breach.

Deleting your account starts a 30-day window in which you can undo it, using the link in the confirmation email. After that window your name, email address, phone number and date of birth are erased, and your roster entry in each club is renamed to "Removed Member". Some things deliberately survive, because they are a club's record of its own events rather than yours — attendance, registrations, tournament results, the answers you gave on a registration form, and the rating ID on a rated game. Our account deletion page lists exactly what goes and what stays.

There is no self-service export button today. If you want a copy of what we hold about you, in a portable format, email support@rookready.com and we will put one together — we respond within 30 days. Ask before you delete the account, not after.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular purpose. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Rook Ready will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or business interruption, arising out of or related to your use of the Service. Our total liability to you for any claim is capped at the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or US$100, whichever is greater.

10. Changes to these Terms

We will revise these Terms as the product and the law evolve. Material changes will be announced by email or in-app notice at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Service after that date means you accept the revised Terms.

11. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The state and federal courts located in Texas will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising under these Terms, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

If you live in a jurisdiction whose law gives you mandatory consumer rights, those rights apply on top of these Terms.

12. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email support@rookready.com. We typically reply the same day.