Not due to my statements.



- Everybody who wants to play in it.
- Those top players wishing to win it.



You are misinformed. The main tournament is both the EC and the Open-EC.



No. The EC winner is the leading European in the main tournament, which, see above.



The possible negative effects have been considered, too.

Ok, but there is still no comparison presented.



Everyone includes a large number of non-top players - what are their views?



But the main tournament is the open, isn't it? So it is a non-closed tournament with two "winners"? In which case, my point applies to the Open as a whole. If not, what am I missing?



But the main tournament is the open, isn't it?



What negative effects have been considered?

For most of them and THEIR games in the main tournament, NOTHING changes. Some have said that they like that. I have not heard contrary opinion, except that some even say they would not care at all and except that some others say they would prefer different thinkings times (longer of shorter), different playing material (no Ing bowls or clocks) or different or more consistent rules of play.

Concerning the non-top players' opinion on the top players' system, see AGM decisions and discussions at various places.



No, it is not correct that is IS the open. It is correct that it CONTAINS ALSO the open.



It is an open tournament but being open does not equal being the Open EC. (Open subject to registration in time and compliance with the rules.)



You try to sell the combination of two tournaments as only one of them.



Those you have expressed earlier.

It still sounds to me like the current system works and doesn't need to be changed. If the top European players are so keen to play against each other, then I assume they're free to arrange games amongst themselves outside of the main tournament.

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In terms of making a good determination of who is European Champion, I don't think it can be applauded. There are very few national championships which follow such a model - perhaps only Switzerland.

They want tournament games - not only casual free games. And they want the title to depend on a greater percentage of European-only games.

I now understand the objection to the current system. I guess we don't have a similar problem in the U.S. because we don't have an annual "American Champion" (as far as I'm aware). If you were to ask me, "Who was the U.S. Go Champion in 2008?" I'd probably give you a blank stare, then look up which American had the best result in the U.S. Open that year, or look up who we sent to the WAGC.

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Of course, US is a country and Europe is a continent

If we want a European Champion, I think it should have its own, totally separate, closed event. I think Javaness' proposal was excellent.

Sure, but a country can have a champion as easily as a continent. More easily perhaps, since there's no need to persuade the other nations on the continent to agree on who the champion is.

Would each European country select a player or two to represent the country in the European Championship Tournament? Or could, for example, France send one player and Finland send nine players?

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I agree, I don't think any of the countries have any problem having a national champion, and most European countries do this. I think the idea of sending {X} national representatives to a European championship would make a lot of sense - It would also be similar in format to the WAGC, which makes some sense too.

It would first of all make a lof of DIFFERENT sense. Instead of having a top players competition, the tournament would become a mixture of top and weak players. Many top players would be excluded because they are concentrated in part of the countries. Therefore I consider it a very bad idea, except if such a tournament would be an additional tournament besides a top players European Championship.

There are almost no "top" European players, and those that are are mostly concentrated in Russia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic: Alex Dinerchtein, Catalin Taranu, Svetlana Shikshina, Ilya Shikshin, Artem Kachanovsky, Ondrej Silt, Pal Balogh, Christian Pop, Dragos Bajaneru, Csaba Mero, Cornel Burzo. There isn't a single German over 2600 Robert, so by your argument it would be barely worth sending a German representative. You consider yourself a top player, but are a further 200 points below that cut off - Comparatively actually rather weak with regards to being competitive.

The idea of having countries sending one or maybe 2 representatives at least makes it a "European" event. Of course it's going to be contested by only a few players at the top, but that's European Go for you. Have an invitation only event for the top 8 European rated players if you like, but I'm sure it will help Go in other countries to have their top 1k player attend a big tournament in Europe.

This is subject to definition. I have used it in the sense "was or could have been in one of the previous supergroups".



While you use a rating boundary for it and thereby exclude two players who got 2nd place (I think even more than once), sometimes closely on the second tiebreaker.



By my argument confused with your different definition of "top" only.



Unlike you, I do not consider only myself.



As much as if that tournament would not be the EC.

Perhaps we should have a look at speed skating

It's an individual sport, it has organized a European Championship since 1893, it has a number of countries that are traditionally dominant and that generally have faster skaters. Not so different from go, I'd say

One idea that could copied from speed skating is the idea to allow some countries more participants in the EC, based on some qualifying criteria. In speed skating, a country can have up to 4 representatives. Their criteria are based on a qualifying event. You're allowed:

• 2 representatives if your country had at least one skater finish in the top 20.
• 3 representatives if your country had at least two skaters finish in the top 16.
• 4 representatives if your country had at least three skaters finish in the top 12.

Countries choose their representatives themselves, but the ISU additionally requires that those representatives have shown sufficient performance (times they must have beaten) in the last year. The hosting country is always allowed field at least two representatives.

Such a system could also be applied to a European Championship, if it were to be separated from the EGC Main tournament.

With the criteria above, there is a good chance that strong countries would be able to send 3-4 representatives, while weaker countries would always be able to send at least one (unless you also copy the additional "performance" requirement, which could be something like "Achieved at least rating X in the past year").

You could also allow the local organizers to specify an additional reserve player who is allowed to play if the number of participants is odd.

The largest downside, IMO, is that this will result in a pretty large group of participants (could be around 50, I'd guess), so perhaps it would be suitable for accelerated pairings.

EDIT:

The ISU criteria for their World Sprint Championship are:

• Members without Skaters among the 28 best: 1 competitor;
• Members with at least 1 Skater among the 28 best: 2 competitors;
• Members with at least 2 Skaters among the 22 best: 3 competitors;
• Members with at least 3 Skaters among the 16 best: 4 competitors.

I think that is an option.

However, I have yet to be convinced that "accelerated pairings" are not fundamentally unsound.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

The North American Masters Tournament is designed to produce the strongest resident (with some requirements attached I disagree with) and the US Open produces the strongest player who comes.

Would you say then that the winner of the NAMT is that year's U.S. "Champion?"

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No, I consider one to be North American Masters Tournament winner and one is US Open Winner. I was just discussing how resident status for North American masters (at least for US entries) is determined in this thread.

I'm not going to get in the "European Championship" debate.