I wish I could get clarification on what I said earlier about the circuit. Apart from an offhanded reference to tennis earlier, it seems like my points were entirely ignored, and I'm not certain why. Here's the executive summary.

We effectively have (or had, if I'm working with old information) year-long qualifiers (certain tournaments, the Cotsen and Maryland Open among them, I believe.)

I think we should make them known and popularize them. By doing so we help induce turnout for them. And by doing that, the requirements for X rated games and year-long membership would be de facto required instead of de jure.

In other words, there is a completely logical reason to play lots of rated games (get more qualifier points) and a completely logical reason to ensure active membership (be able to play qualifiers) so the hardline stance on number of games and length of membership is not really required.

But the ability to move away from the hardline stance requires that people know about the circuit tourneys, which I don't think happens right now. Advertise them!

It might work. I'm not sure if we will attract go players that aren't interested in the AGA this way, but I guess that is a separate effort.

_________________
be immersed

I assume you are mainly responding to this part.

If we advertise them in the sort of Korean community that Shapenaji was talking about, I don't see why it wouldn't draw some attention.

"So yes," the explanation goes, "this is one of many qualifying matches going toward selecting international representatives, but membership in our organization is only $30/year, and you are able to attend as many qualifying tournaments as you care to. The eligible player (Resident or Citizen) with the most points at the time of selection who has not been the U.S. representative at an international tournament previously this year* will be selected to represent the U.S. for international play. This particular tournament costs $20 to attend, but with the new member discount, the total for your year-long membership and the tournament fee will be only $40. Cash? Wonderful. Name and rank?"

* (I think that's the current system, anyway - please correct me if I'm wrong)

But also, I don't know many people *even in the AGA* who know about the circuit itself - I myself can only name two tournaments that are part of it. Maybe the New Jersey Open as well? Probably the U.S. Open?

It seems to me that if this were publicized instead of being marked TOP SECRET and placed in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet in an out-of-order bathroom with the door marked "Beware of Leopard" then I think it would certainly have a beneficial effect on tournament attendance.

I believe that the points system is currently mostly used for the WAGC. There has been some discussion of reviving it for more tournaments, but that still has the problem of discriminating against those in the greater part of the country, who are not able to to fly to attend those tournaments that are official qualifiers.

Many of these problems can be solved in the long run by seeking out those who play but are uninvolved, finding out their concerns, addressing them, and creating more opportunities for these players to become involved in sanctioned tournaments and events of all kinds. I do not believe that this is a problem that can be solved in the immediate term.

"I refuse to prove that I exist" says the AGA, "For proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing"

_________________
Tactics yes, Tact no...

Actually, I notice that the latest E-Journal's top article is an official announcement for online qualifiers for the Fujitsu and BC Card Cups.

Yay, publicity! Definitely a step in the right direction.

I still like my idea of using the circuit as qualifiers for all the international games, since apparently that's not the current system.

To alleviate Lisa's concern, the circuit could be expanded by including more tournaments in the midwest, which yes, still favors rich players who are able to afford airfare/carfare/trainfare to attend more tourneys... but it also encourages more face-to-face tournament games by strong players... it's a hard problem to solve both, as you would like an incentive for the strong players to play more tournaments, rather than just hoping they do so.

But either way, the next step could be to publicize these qualifying matches somehow outside of the E-Journal. Somebody was talking about doing spots on public TV one time; live view and analysis of the Fujitsu qualifier finals might be a good start.

Public TV wouldn't be a very good way to reach a broad audience (sadly). Posting some videos on youtube would be easier & more effective.

Wouldn't be live though - maybe just newspaper announcements giving a brief description of the game, the players, and relevant history/global situation (strong players in CJK, somewhat weaker players in "the West" but starting to catch up.) Finally a URL for KGS and a date/time to log in to watch the action?

The Ing Masters page has some information on the circuit. There used to be more information somewhere on the aga webpage (might still be for all I know).

While publicizing the circuit might be nice, I'm not sure if it really changes that much--if you think finding tournaments and serious competition is too hard, it still will be. This just puts a happy face on things by making the requirement look less arbitrary. On the other hand, if you favored the old policy, it's not clear whether the circuit is an improvement.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

That page has no info on the circuit, nor indeed anything at all to do with it. But you have supported my hypothesis that nobody has any idea what the circuit is, or even that it exists.

The circuit is a number of official AGA tournaments at which the Open section players are awarded special qualifying points used to decide who will be the rep at the WAGC (I thought other international tournaments too, but Lisa Smith was kind enough to refute that.) One is the Cotsen Open, and I'm 90% sure that the Maryland Open is one of them as well. Other than that I have no idea.

The WAGC page tells a different story (http://usgo.org/tournaments/WAGC/). Is it out of date?

But you're right that I mistook the Ing Masters qualification for the more general circuit.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

You're right - it does tell a different story. According to that page, the U.S. Open is the only tournament that awards qualification points.

I have no idea any more! I know it *used* to work the way I described... and Lisa at least thought it still did. I found a document describing how qualifying points are awarded for tournaments within the circuit (http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/Admin/ - at the bottom, "Tournament category and points system for WMSG and Ing Masters qualifiers") but still no list of what tourneys ARE circuit tourneys.

It may be that the circuit itself is old info, and it has been replaced by individual qualifiers for each tournament.

I don't mind that, but I think using the circuit would kill two birds with one stone (get more strong players to tournaments, keep more strong players active) - which would accomplish the objectives set by the rules in question in the first place.

I heard that youtube was starting to support live streaming, but I'm not sure live coverage is as important as just making info available to the broadest audience. Ideally any videos would have CKJ subtitles or audio.

Are you sure about that, I mean a 2 minute search of the AGA website brings back this official looking page which mentions nothing about a circuit

http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/WAGC/

Sorry I did not get this correction posted yesterday:

I learned from people who have been involved longer than I have that my understanding was a bit off.

1) The WAGC points system is particular to that tournament, and concerns only the US Open.

2) There did used to be a Circuit, including the NJ Open, the MD Open, and the Cotsen, among others (do note that only a few geographic areas were covered under this system), the leaders of which were qualified to compete in the Fujitsu with the professionals. This was when there was outside funding on the order of $20,000 to run these tournaments, which allowed for travel stipends and the like. The Fujitsu no longer funds the qualifier, and so there is no money to use this system.

3) The AGA does not pay travel expenses as often as I was led to believe. When I reviewed this year's budget, and was corrected, I discovered that this is the case. This may be changing, as it has started to change, due to economic constraints on the part of sponsors, as the AGA will now be paying for travel to the WAGC. The WMSG was a whole other ball of wax, however.

Sorry for misleading people ... I have looked through the documents that I have, and cannot find where the information I had is written. It is interesting that there can be so many misconceptions about this topic.

-Lisa Scott

Thanks a lot, Lisa!

I didn't realize that my info was no longer valid - when I heard about the circuit WAS a long time ago, but even at that time it seemed like well-hidden information, so I thought it was pretty natural that it was never mentioned (it never was even when it was around, as far as I remember.)

So in that case I guess I'm proposing bringing it back, and expanding it to support more tournaments.

At least, it seems to me that it would accomplish the objectives of the two rules being debated. (get strong players to tournaments, encourage them to keep their memberships active)

Are there significant problems that I'm not seeing?

If we're talking about promoting it to a broader audience, do people prefer to watch recordings of the World Cup on Youtube (if it were allowed) or do they prefer to watch the event live, as it is being played?

I think watching the "real action" generates more excitement - look at the kibbitz on the games broadcast from the Congress and you'll probably agree that it is certainly exciting for at least some people.

Personally, I think that there is some merit in a point system, but that we need to help chapters and regions to develop a stronger tournament schedule first, and that this would be a later step in a greater plan. This is certainly open to argument, but I think that we should not institute something that will create more disparity than is absolutely necessary.

More tournaments can only be a good thing, especially if it *gasp* requires the AGA to communicate with its chapters!! More tournaments would also help membership, as at the moment that seems to be why most members are members.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com