On May 1, the EGF has slightly changed the European Championship Rules:

http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/ecrules.htm
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/EuropeanCha ... Rules.html

Apart from a few language corrections and minor changes, these changes are noteworthy:

- KO quarter-final losers remain in the KO section to decide places 5 to 8.
- Europeans and non-Europeans can become the European Open Champion. The European Champion can, but is not guaranteed to, get both titles.

"The knockout quarter-final losers, play a further two rounds to determine places 5 to 8 of the European Championship."
"The European Open Champion is the European or non-European player with the best criteria in the order mentioned below. The European Champion can become also the European Open Champion."

For the uninitiated, what is noteworthy about this? Was it previously unclear who got places 5-8 of the European Championship? Was the criteria for winning the European Open Championship not specified elsewhere? And speaking of language corrections, the comma in the first sentence is unnecessary, and "best criteria" doesn't make sense (criteria are the standards by which the results are judged). You could write: The European Open Champion is the European or non-European player with the best results as determined (by the criteria) below.

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"When you are learning, it is not so important whether you are right or wrong." - Bill Spight

Previously, the quarter-final losers re-entered the McMahon; this was considered good for top non-Europeans, who would get stronger opponents in rounds 8 to 10. The new ruling emphasises more top European-European games; this is an advantage for the top Europeans, who like to get more chances to play against other top Europeans in the sparse tournament calendars these years.

Previously (last previous ruling), the criterion for the European Open Championship was that only non-Europeans could get this title and only if they were in the top McMahon group. I do not care much which of the two rulings applies, if only it is specified clearly.

These changes and language corrections were made on behalf of the EGF Committee. I am aware that the language is still not perfect, but at least it is better than before.

Deciding places 5-8 through the KO is a terrible idea, the system is simply not suitable for it. KO is suitable to decide one place, maybe two. It was already bad that it was used to decide place 3-4, but this is just ridiculous. At the very least, the top 8 should then play Swiss, so that players who score 2/3 do not end up below players who score 1/3.

Does anyone really care about places 5-8? Is it just bragging rights or is there something serious attached (money, trips)?

As far as I can tell, the only reason for this change is because the strong European players don't like getting their asses handed to them by de visiting Korean 7 dans.

Basically, this change is an abuse of the recently introduced KO system to do something entirely unrelated for which it was never intended.

Why?

(OART, KO is better than Swiss because it avoids tiebreakers.)

(JFTR, I did not support this change.)

KO is designed to find 1 place well, the winner of the tournament. It is not guaranteed to be able to distinguish between any other pair of players.

The winner of the tournament has defeated all other players either directly (by winning a game against them), or by proxy (by winning a game against a player who defeated them). Therefore, this placement is clear.

Any player who was defeated (in any KO round) by the tournament winner, but other than that won all games, is a reasonable candidate for place two. There are up to three players to whom this might apply. The KO system provides absolutely no distinguishing characteristic for deciding between these players. Therefore, it is not guaranteed that place two can be decided.

Any player who was defeated (in any KO round) by any of the above candidates for place two or by the tournament winner, but other than that won all their games (if any) after that, is a reasonable candidate for place three.

This argument repeats, and gets stronger, for all further places.

How is it, that we are told that rules changes must be approved by the AGM, and then it transpires that they don't have to be?

See EGF GENERAL TOURNAMENT RULES, §1.5.1. In practice, only limited use is made from this:

1) in case of minor rules changes

2) in case of urgent rulesets, e.g., when a new tournament suddenly needs its rules

Of course, it is debatable what is a "minor" change.

Surely minor should be defined?

Herman, thank you for your reasoning, which in itself is sound. OTOH,

1) other available systems (re-entering McMahon or Swiss for top 8) are not significantly better for the purpose of distinguishing places 2 to 8,

2) the reason that top Europeans want to play more among themselves carries some weight (not for the quality of the ordering of places 2 to 8 but for the attractivity for the Europeans).

It is given implicitly:

1) motions at the AGM

2) election of a new committee

If motions don't change and the same committee is re-elected, then the rules change was "minor" in the AGM delegates' judgement.

Swiss is better pretty much by definition. A player who scores 2 wins and 1 loss is guaranteed to end up above a player with 1 win and 2 losses. The KO system, on the other hand, guarantees that place 4 (1 win, 2 losses) ends above place 5 (2 wins, 1 loss). I do not think I have ever seen anyone argue that "number of won games" is ever a bad sorting criterium in a tournament.

As to point 2, I disagree. I do not think that the players preference in opponents should ever be a pairing parameter in the top group of a major tournament. All major pairing programs specifically remove similar criteria like "same country" or "same club" for consideration at the top of the tournament.

The purpose of the EGC main tournament top group is, in my opinion, twofold: 1. Find the European Champion 2. Find the Open Champion. By removing strong players from the main tournament, you work against purpose 2, because you make it easier for Asian players to be Open Champion by removing the toughest opposition.

You mention an aspect for which Swiss is better than KO. You do not mention another aspect for which Swiss is usually worse than KO: final placement tiebreakers. If, however, you can agree on sharing Swiss final places instead of using tiebreakers and if Swiss contains an implicit KO for place 1, then we can agree on such a usage of Swiss being better than KO for a determination of places 2 to 8 as meaningful as possible within the given number of (here: 3) rounds.



Until at least September, I lack time to discuss this.



I prefer to make a weaker claim: there is a partial conflict in aims.

This is puzzling. I'd have thought that maintaining the integrity of the Open was more important than ensuring 4(?) extra europe-europe games? I don't think 4 games is going to compensate for no Ing Cup (etc).

If you do a good job of setting pairings, then swiss and KO give the same winner, the only real difference is that swiss has people who have lost continue to play, and assigns rankings based on those games as well.

Different people have different opinions on that aspect.

I am, however, not sure about the Committee's motivation; maybe they simply want exact places 5 to 8 and have the impression that playing them out in the KO is more meaningul than the McMahon's tiebreaker lottery?

Setting good pairings is not necessarily sufficient; one might also need a number of participants that is a power of 2. Otherwise one needs enough rounds and some extra criterion such as "the only first player during the tournament to win R games wins the tournament".

But in KO if there isn't a power of two, there is a similar arbitrariness regarding who gets byes.