As a member of the EGF Rules Commission, I announce the Tournament Rules of the European Go Championship:
http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/EuropeanCha ... Rules.html

Comments (personal opinion):

Almost all of the rules have already existed as a set of verbal rules before. The only new part is the tie-breaking on the first place of the European Open Champion title. During the EGC 2009, an unfortunate ad hoc decision let it be apparent that the EGF Committee wanted more tie-breaking than had been specified before. Therefore in autumn 2009 it decided to have the new list of tiebreakers. In winter, the EGF Rules Commission then put this into words and integrated it in the previously verbal rules. Until spring, the committee and commission then agreed on the text. The combination is now for the first time a full written ruleset for the European Go Championship published in general.

In the opinion of the committee and commission, the European Champion is the more important title. Why then has the committee not applied the same care to hair-splitting as it has for the European Open Champion? The plan is to let the AGM 2010 choose and adopt a modified tournament system for the European Champion title starting with 2011. So the European Champion tiebreaking might be considered a temporary solution until only including 2010, unless also the AGM 2010 does not adopt a revised system, of couse.

An ordered list of 11 tiebreakers for the European Open Champion title and first place might look like being ultra-correct. However, although the list has quite some consistency in the ordering of SOS-x tiebreakers on the surface, there are possible objections:

- Why not always break ties? If one invests that much effort in setting 11 tiebreakers, then why not ensure tiebreaking in 100% of all cases by means of a 12th tiebreaker "lottery" (or iterative DC as 11th
and lottery as 12th)?
- It is unclear whether SOS or SOS-1 or SOS-2 as the first tiebreaker in a 10 rounds McMahon would be the best choice. Using SOS before SOS-2 pretends SOS to be more accurate than SOS-2. Looking into previous result tables casts serious doubts about this though.
- It is an actively discussed question whether SOS or DirectComparion is the more meaningful first(!) tiebreaker for the purpose of splitting the title place.
- That not the entire players field gets all those tiebreakers is a practical necessity because of insufficient pairing programs, which do not offer all those tiebreakers yet. Also one might argue that for players below the top such detailed tiebreaking would be meaningless anyway. Regardless it would have been another possibility to apply all the tiebreakers to at least the top, say, 10 players, i.e., those players where the exact places are important for seeding to international tournaments and, if one wants to split it, prize money.
- Whether breaking ties is good at all is mainly just a political question. The EGF Committee thinks that yes.
- The Rules Commission suggested playoff lightning games at the top after round 10 instead of opponent-dependent tiebreakers but the EGF Committee thought that there would not be enough time after round 10; not even for 10 minutes games. Well, this is another political decision. Ca. at most 1 hour of playoff games would not have been that much.
- Several suggestions for revised European Champion systems avoid using tiebreakers for the title determination. IMO, this is the much better approach than making an arbitrary setting of tiebreakers and then watching their lottery-like application.
- At least we can say that the championship now does have explicit, openly available and clear tiebreaking rules.

Two comments:

The rule that the weekend tournament thinking time must be enough to count towards the EGF ratings is strange. 30 minutes sudden death already counts towards EGF ratings. I would expect a rule like this to say that it must be at least enough to qualify as class A.

The EGF Rules Commission should not be in the business of specifying mandatory side events. If the EGF wants a side event to have official status, that should be an AGM decision. The rules commission could then set rules about it (thinking time, tournament system, rules of play, etc).

How about making supergroup smaller? Why is it always 32?
I don't think that Robert has the right to decide it by himself

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I agree that this feels the neatest way to avoid awkward tie-break situations. The supergroup can easily be 16, and maybe even as low as 8, and the top players are more likely to resolved the top positions purely on results against each other as opposed to having tiebreak scores damaged by games against 4 dan players and below.

The rules have been collected and maintained by the Rules Commission for years but almost all of it has been (typical or consistent) practice and the EGF Committee has always been aware pretty well of what the Rules Commission was doing. Now the Committee has read and implicitly agreed to the rules (AFAIK more than once). This lets the rules be transformed to a fixed, written state. Similarly other EGF particular tournaments' rules (example: Toyota Tour) had been fixed in writing in the past.

I.e., the rules commission did not and does not act as a full legislative for full rulesets. Even much less so a single member of the commission alone. In particular, it is not the rules commission alone that has suggested certain side events to be a requirement. The most importantly, it has been pretty consistent tradition of the EGCs at least since 1993 (since when I started attending them).

The weekend tournament's basic time rule "Typically its basic time is 60 minutes." is written as a guideline; it does not need to be exactly 60'. In the past, AFAIK, it has been 60' or 75'. The weekend tournament is generally considered to be important enough to have at least 60'. Therefore the rule / guideline does not suggest anything like 30'. It is not an arbitrary, regional weekend tournament.

The EGCh system will get a significant reform for the top anyway. Discussing only a detail like the supergroup size is therefore premature. Maybe a system change means that there will not be any supergroup any longer, so it would be overkill to adjust its size now. Also other people think that it should be that big or even bigger.

Exactly who is in the Rules committee?

I know only one person, interested in big supergroup.
He is Robert Jasiek, who wants to get free teaching games from players 4 stones stronger than him. So, he is always in the supergroup.
Others prefer to play opponents near their level.

Have a good congress, Robert!

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I am sure, that making supergroup smaller solves all our problems with SOS/SODOS champions.
I will vote against any new systems (cannot vote, actually, but I prepared a tesuji). I will be Belorussian representative this time
Someone has to defend the interests of top Europeans. I will be the first one!

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Hahahaha, that's fabulous Alex, made me laugh out loud with that one

It's allowed.
And I got confirmation from Belorussian president (my good friend).
Now I have to find a good federation for my wife, so she can also vote against the new EGC system.

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There are some good points in these rules and some bad points. It would take too long to discuss it here. It will take a long time to discuss this ruleset in the AGM I think. Better to split the motion/ruleset into parts.

Javaness, you do not know who is in the rules commission? (Commission - not: committee.)

The ruleset will take no time during the AGM. It is not a motion but the currently valid ruleset. Only proposals of changes of the currently valid rules might take time.

breakfast, I do not know everybody interesting in big supergroups, and it does not matter. What matters is delegates. AFAIK, some of the weaker countries like big supergroups. With the 10 rounds, it is possible; it also leads to a relatively low frequency of strong-strong pairings. With your preference for 8 players in the supergroup, this becomes a joke: We would be having a league. This was one of the proposed and rejected systems I supported. So don't repeat forever the same nonsense about what you guess about my intention of "getting teaching games". That I, like most players, also enjoy having interesting games and learning from them has only little to do with what I consider a good tournament system for the championship.

Players 4 stones stronger than me? Maybe Cho Chikun. Does he play in the EGC? No. So why do you talk about me playing against players 4 stones stronger? Because you are unable to understand that KGS byoyomi lightning games say nothing about real world playing strength differences?

That I am in the supergroup in almost all years has these reasons: a) Too few really strong participants. b) Some luck. E.g., last year the bottom rating had, I think 2466 instead of the usual 2415-2425. Accidentally (you might also say: skill) I just had a rating peak at the right moment, too. c) I play more good tournaments to increase in rating, if necessary and avoid risky (handicap) tournaments.

Your sentence "Others prefer to play opponents near their level." sounds as if I didn't like to play opponents of near level. Nonsense. But you miss the point: By playing 5d only, I cannot win the title. Of course, I also want to win it. So in the championship I am also happy with playing usually stronger players. This is called fighting spirit:)

Discuss about systems instead of particular players!

Of course, making the supergroup tiny avoids SOS champions: We would get a league!

Why do you want to vote against any new system? What do you want? The current system with its, IYO, too big supergroup? Have you seen the new system proposals? I think they might not be available yet. So how can you know that you dislike them? Note in particular that there will be, unlike you suggest, more than one proposal.

The interests of top Europeans? Interesting. Do they all have the same opinion now?

Robert, given

I don't know who is the Commission at this time. Could you let me know please?

Currently the EGF Rules Commission consists of Matti Siivola (chairman, FI) and me.

Robert,
EGC is the last tournament we have in Europe with long history and traditions.
All others events (Fujitsu, Toyota&Denso,Ing cup, European Masters) were stopped.

EGC in current format is a very successful event. I play it every year, together with many other top Europeans.
I afraid that all possible changes can destroy EGC and make it less attractive for players

So, I vote for the simplest solution - reducing supergroup size.

I will not discuss new tournament systems for EGC - I don't want to see new experiments and changes every year.

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Because both are interested in playing in the supergroup themself, it's not honest to allow you and Matti to decide the supergroup size and members. Am I wrong?

Like we say in Russian " Лес охраняешь - дрова имеешь":
If you are guarding the forest - you have the wood

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breakfast, let me repeat for the 20th time: The EGF Rules Commission does not (let me repeat: NOT) set by itself an important rule like for the supergroup size. The one and only change to that rule since at least 1996 (before I do not know by heart) was by the AGM 2008. Before it was exactly 32 players. I made the proposal, which was accepted by acclamation, that changed that to ca. 32 players (and the number of Europeans to ca. instead of exactly 24 and the number of non-Europeans to ca. instead of exactly at most 8). From 1996 (or earlier) to 2008 no such changes were made; all proposals of changes of the rules were rejected by the AGM. As you see, it is not (let me repeat: NOT) the Rules Commission that changes such important rules by itself. Also the 2008 rule change was not (let me repeat: NOT) set by the Rules Commission on its own but granted by the AGM. (The 2008 change was an important improvement because earlier problems like partly randomly choosing 8 out of 9 top non-Europeans is not necessary any more. Now we may include all 9 players.)

The supergroup size has been tradition for many years and the AGM or EGF Committee has maintained it. The Rules Commission merely applies this state of the rules, except when making proposals (let me repeat: PROPOSALS) to the AGM. It is the AGM (let me repeat: IT IS NOT THE RULES COMMISSION) to adopt such important changes, if any. So stop criticising the (what normally is) executive (EGF Committee and Rules Commission) when you mean to criticise the (what normally is) legislative (AGM)!

You might criticise the current members of the rules commission though (quite like you might also criticise all delegates of the AGM incl. Russian delegates and your own failure to convince them and the EGF Committee for the same reason) that there have not come PROPOSALS / MOTIONS to reduce the supergroup size for the current system. But do not confuse the major executive with the major legislative.

Not honest? Wrong. Quite contrarily: The Tournament Supervisors on request of the Rules Commission (often members of it) have applied the valid rules of the supergroup size. When it was 32, we have set 32 (except for exceptional circumstances due to, IIRC, delayed strong players). When it was ca. 32, we have set ca. 32.

If you want to suggest that there is a conflict of interests between the strong players among the Tournament Supervisors and objective supergroup forming: Yes, there is. We have been aware of it and usually have let third persons double check when some of us supervisors was at the lower boundary of a supergoup. If you consider that insufficient, then please propose capable and rules-firm weak players who want to do the job of the Tournament Supervisors! It would save me of 8 - 20 hours of work every year.

Your proposal of supergroup size reduction should be worked out. Which size? With non-Europeans or not? European-non-European games or not? If with non-Europeans, how many? What would such a rules change have meant it the past or what, by empirical or theoretical studies, would it mean in the future? Why not abandon the young / strong local players condition, which has never provided really strong supergroup members anyway? Why, and this I find particularly interestimg, would the winner not depend on opponent-score tiebreakers when the supergroup size would be reduced?! Currently there are several problems: too few European-only games, too few strong-strong games (really?), too great tiebreaker impact. How does your suggested change solve ALL these problems?

Robert
On official EGF website I can find this decision:
http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/longterm.htm

"A super group should be formed of up to 32 players. Up to 8 of the 32 players may be chosen for particular reasons by the EGC Organisers (for instance for publicity, strong youth-players, visiting strong players). Otherwise the group is chosen by the Rules and Ratings Commission in consultation with the EGF Executive."

How do you understand this? They say "up to", not exactly 32. Do you have enough power to reduce the supergroup size without any additional EGF decisions? If so, how about we vote for this decision here?

I suggest 16 players supergroup: 8 best Europeans, 8 best Asians, according to EGF rating. We can also accept 2 strong Finnish players, if there are less than 8 strong Asians. We will see all important games played and the European champion will not be decided on board #50 in last round as we usually see.

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Nice to have you finally here Robert!

The discussion board would not be complete without the one who stirs up the most discussions

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I was just about to say the same thing: nothing like a long, convoluted rules thread to show that things are back to normal.

Though Robert said, rather clearly, on RGG, that he doesn't like forums. I see that doesn't prevent him from posting in them.

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