It is not exclusively an IGF event (I am not even sure whether the IGF is involved at all). Rather, specific event organisers, IMSA and EGF play a role. Presumaby also SportsAccord.

If you read the published reports, you can see who is involved.

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North Lecale

Since apparently you have already read them, what about telling us?

" European Go Federation was commissioned to organize the event, with IGF financing the operations." from 'minutes of an IGF meeting'

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North Lecale

Of the EGF organisation process, I saw at least some draft of rules considerations. From that, it seems possible that "McMahon" is closer to Swiss than to usual McMahon and is applied only in case of at least 17 participants / teams / pairs in a tournament. I do not know yet if this good (because more championship style) idea has survived.

If the event is advertised as McM, I'd like to see that when I turn up

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North Lecale

Website appears: http://www.wmsg2012.org/

The McMahons seem to be turning Swiss...

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North Lecale

It looks like this event is really difficult to organize and I hope it will be whatever is on it's road.

I hope furthermore that this time western press and tv will have some interest in it.
First WMSG was a huge success and event for many of us and a huge failure for advertising and report. Nobody apart from us ever heard about it.

Well, a few people heard about it:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... ts-edition

But it was hardly complimentary

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

National Federations have to try their hand at advertising.
"xxx team travels to Lille... blah blah" If you rely only on the IGF or EGF to get press coverage, nothing will happen.

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North Lecale

WMSG in 2008 were covered by Asian press and tv.
Not by other countries.
China did a huge sponsorship too.

Let's see what happens this year.

Some numbers from http://wmsg2012.org/

79 players in the men's individual
39 players in the women's individual
28 teams of three players in the team event
21 pairs in the pair go event
44 players in the under 21 competition

A total of 30 countries are represented, though sadly neither China nor Korea are sending a team, so I guess the main contenders will be Taiwan and Japan then.

Well, Taiwan definitely dominated the Men's Individual, taking all four semi-final places.

The Women's semi-final is more varied, with contenders from Taiwan, Japan, Canada and the UK.

Let me try to reverse engineer part of the used tournament system of the Men's Individual from its final result table:

- Players are required to play all rounds of the first stage. Seeded players are required to play all rounds.
- The first stage is a 5 rounds McMahon bands system. The second stage is a KO for four players with a game for place 3.
- The bands are 7d-5d (initial MMS 3, 41 players), 4d-3d (MMS 2, 17 players), 2d (MMS 1, 11 players), 1d-16k (MMS 0, 9 players). (Total 78 players. Note: 41 players in the top group is a possible number for 5 rounds to distinguish between places 4 and 5 by means of tiebreakers.)
- The final placement criteria are MMS - Wins - SOS - SOSOS. (Notes: As the tied places indicate, there is no apparent further tiebreaker after SOSOS; but how would a tie on place 4 have been broken?! This system gives initial MMS 2 players, i.e. 3d or 4d, the chance to qualify to the KO by winning all 5 games against on expected average tournament-weaker opponents than the qualifying initial MMS 3 players. Very interesting idea. However, unfortunately, initial MMS 0 or 1 players have no principle chance to qualify. The randomiser SOS - SOSOS determined places 4 and 5 indeed.)

It is very unfortunate that the tournament system has to be reverse engineered and has not been published for everybody before the tournament start.

Which pairing strategies were used?

Reverse engineered part of the tournament system of the Women's Individual: like Men's with these changes:

- Bands 6d-4d (initial MMS 2, 15 players), 3d-1d (MMS 1, 7 players), 1k-13k (MMS 0, 16 players). (Total 38 players.)

Luckily, tiebreaking was not necessary for seeding. Exactly four players ended with MMS 6 (4 wins).

Which pairing strategies were used?

Actually, in the Men's individual, some 4d also started in the top group (e.g. 43. Lucas Neyrink, 38. Jesse Savo). I believe this is the case for those 4d that are the strongest participant from their country.

Pairing strategy is probably the usual as implemented by Gerlach's MacMahon, I see little reason to deviate from that.

The first two players are determined clearly. The following three players happen to be those happy enough to lose against one of the first two players. The relative order within the following three players is randomised by tiebreakers. So players 3 to 9 performed very similarly and players 5 to 9 simply had the worse pairing luck. Nevertheless, it is indeed impressive that four of five Taiwanese 7d have 4 or 5 wins.



Jin Yu beat me in the EGC. In that game, I had some chances, but her reading is clearly better, without being overwhelming. So I would estimate her playing strength as about European 5.5d. If this is taken as at least some indication of the Women tournament's top playing strength, there appears to be a significantly lower world amateur top women level compared to the world amateur top men level. If you have further information on the women's strength, please share it! OTOH, I cannot know how many possibly stronger players simply did not participate because of the later announcements or travel expenses.

That would mean fold pairing, which would be very good in rounds 3+. Rounds 1 and 2 might deserve more careful study.

Unless the program was instructed to use rank/rating, which I guess is somewhat unlikely with so many participants from entirely different backgrounds, this would mean that the first two rounds are random, as there is no sorting possible yet. This seems to be the case, given e.g. pairings in round one like 11 vs 44 (5d-5d) and 2 vs 37 (7d-6d). Although there is something to be said for pairing based on rank/rating, there is also something to be said for treating all players in the top group exactly the same.

Sorting in rounds 1 and 2 is not possible using only tournament-internal information. A few world championships used earlier country success as sorting criterion. I prefer equal treatment because that best meets the event character of determining the currently best from all countries. For that reason, McMahon style is a dubious choice.