If we just have them download the software, it can be hacked. If we ship hardware with the software pre-loaded, it works better, but still maybe can be hacked.
When you add up all the costs of reliable and absolutely trustworthy client side timing, it may be cheaper just to give the players plane tickets.

Aeroflot is cheap.

And putting them all together in one place eliminates the issue of who is more alert during a certain part of the day.

There are arbiters on-site, aren't there? They can download software and install it for the players to use.
I'm actually half-way into implementing non-server network play in q5go. It probably won't be suitable for this kind of event for a while, but in principle dedicated software would be the best solution IMO.

Hmmm. I don't remember netlag watching Russian porn.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

Looking for perfection is the only way to motivate yourself.
— Ronnie O'Sullivan

"Elvis, can't we please go home?"
— One of the Jordanaires

Jetlag.

Take care

_________________
玄 之 玄

Priorities and Quality of Service networking.

Take care

_________________
玄 之 玄

Pick some place in between so that jet lag is roughly equal. ( It should be a little closer to the cluster of US players than to the Europeans. As a general rule of thumb, it is easier to recover from traveling westward than eastward. We seem to be more capable of staying up late than of getting up early. Seasoned travelers report, on the average, that it takes eastbound travelers about 1.5 times as long for westbound travelers to recover )

Iceland looks about right. It is reputed to be very pleasant in the summer.


Or we can just give them all a week's vacation in the eastern US or western Europe before they start playing.

I just mention my situation, since I don't think the "optimal time for playing" is universal.

Anyway, if they are professionals, I'd think they can manage to play a prescheduled game at 8/9pm, and make the necessary preparations without whining about it. Pros in Asia travel between countries and have to be on planes on a regular basis - they're not (usually) complaining about a supposed disadvantage.

To be clear, I don't think the European pros are whining about this at all - it's more of some folks on this forum, so I guess I can't use the same standard.

_________________
it's be happy, not achieve happiness

It was a joke.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

Looking for perfection is the only way to motivate yourself.
— Ronnie O'Sullivan

"Elvis, can't we please go home?"
— One of the Jordanaires

I know. It works opposite, for me, somehow. Then again, by and large, what I notice most is getting back home, tired.



Week in Açores or Madeira... Timed right, Artem could have had a paid honeymoon. Or, summer tranch in Iceland, winter in a Portuguese island. I volunteer for record keeping, but I'd need paid travel / accomodation...

Take care

_________________
玄 之 玄

Western pros don't have the same social support & understanding. Say, for example, reaching they jobs on monday with cloudy eyes. "You were playing !!!??"

Take care

_________________
玄 之 玄

Indeed. So was mine. Sorry it didn't come through.

Take care.

_________________
玄 之 玄

It is more of a genuine question than a whine. Perhaps all the EGF pros were happy to play late at night, which would explain very well the chosen schedule. Normally though, you might expect a bit of alternation to accommodate both sides. As Aram says, most competitive mind sport events have rounds which start in the morning or in the afternoon.

Anyway, the tournament is over. If it happens again, I suppose a few things will be changed.

_________________
North Lecale

Here's the game.

I wonder if this tournament does not have a negative impact and if it would not be better to stop it, in the interest of the development of Go in Europe.
Let me explain:

In Europe, a radically different choice has been made to insist on sportsmanship.

It is in the rules of our Federation, and this allows us to handle cases where the rules are insufficient or the lack of resources of the organization is felt.

A real example:
- Player A forgets if it is his turn to take the last ko or if he has to play a threat.
- Player A asks his opponent B, who does not answer
-Player A resumes the ko, B calls the referee for a forbidden move.
Thanks to the rule of sportsmanship, the referee decides to cancel the forbidden move and continue the game.
We see that this is not at all the logic of the transatlantic tournament, where the player A should have paid more attention to the last move / ask a referee before playing, etc.
For me this change of logic poses several problems:

The first and the least important, but that we can already see is that this implies a very good organization, which is not compatible with the lack of current means: We already see that in this topic: people complain now about the time schedule, which was not the case before(and its logic, if the most important is not what happens on the board,but to decide a winner no matter what, you have to put more attention to this). I'm not even sure that this level of requirement is achievable by an online tournament.

The second point is that these professional players represent us and influence us. So to see them in a tournament where they can not rely on sportsmanship, it's a long-term risk to influence the behavior of go players in Europe, a behavior's change that I do not see as positive, and which could therefore harm the development of Go in Europe

On the topic of sportsmanship, in one of Ryan Li's recent videos where he comments as he plays online his opponent made an obvious misclick. Rather than playing the best move in the position to punish the misclick he played what he would have in the expected line thus allowing the position to revert to what it would have been without the misclick. So let's not assume there is such a strict dichotomy in transatlantic sportsmanship. And if the example above refers to what I think B was Russian.

I'm not judging sportsmanship among NA players, but principles who applied in this tournament.
So dichotomy for me is in the official tournament rules of each federation, not behavior of players.
(and Ryan Li is a part of the minority who did not follow the majority of the NA Team).
So i don't see the link between your answer and what i said.

Considering the lack of transparency (ie, the Surma issue), and communication (the tournament's homepage might as well not be there, if rule changes are posted on Facebook; scheduled players and won games were posted well out of time, etc --it's not as if Artem married by surprise, is it?--), I got the deep and distinct impression that amateurs were not a priority.

Maybe, if I squint and look at it funny, I can see it as a well intentioned marketing hook, trying to entice NEW players by showing them what's up with go (be famous! Get rich!) in the West. But as a whole... It really feels like the organizers had an ivory tower moment.

I do hope I'm way wrong, but, really, I currently have no interest at all in joining EGF [*], and I would think that was NOT the intended outcome.

Take care.

[*] I do have other issues with that, but this tournament is sort of a poster child

_________________
玄 之 玄

You can rummage through https://www.usgo.org/board-minutes to find hints of how the event was organised. I think that amateurs, and by that I assume you mean us, the viewing public, were treated quite nicely. After all, we got some good punditry on the games. About other aspects, fair enough, we've said all there is to say there already.

_________________
North Lecale

Personally I enjoyed watching this tournament and I hope it will continue. I am glad that Europe won, not only because I live in Europe but also because if AGA had won, then its victory would have been contested because of the Surma incident.

Now the rules are clear, they may be strict but I don't think they will have any influence on real-life tournaments, since the particular rules concern issues that only arise in online tournaments (lags, misclicks).

Precisely. If I rummage, I can find hints. That's not the way to conduct good PR. And I specifically mentioned the Surma incident, for which there was even less. Sure, people here (and, I assume, other places), kept dropping bits of info (they'll meet there, decide what, apparently there is...), but AGA, EGF and tournament's homepages were completely silent. The youtube channel is still on game 3! It's 2 months late!! So, yes, I do affirm amateur players are not much on the radar; I'm not assuming it's intentional, but...

Take care.

_________________
玄 之 玄