Well, for one, a separate EC at some other time might mean that many top players would stay away from the EGC. Because people only have so much free time, and travel can be expensive. Maybe you don't care, but a lot of people do like to see the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin at the EGC, and do like to watch their games live.

Combining the EC with Youth and Female categories might force many players to make an undesirable choice. E.g. does Svetlana Shikshina play EC or EFC?

I think that the top players could afford to attend more than 2 events a year - particularly as the EGF spends a good deal of its budget on subsidies for the top players. So for example, if we had a meaningful, sponsored, well organised, closed championship, we could get rid of the SAWMG qualifier.

If women/children are strong enough, they shouldn't need to play in the patronising events anyway

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North Lecale

No. To be more precise if their would be n groups with four Europeans, the n weakest players will be divided in those groups, one in each.

It will be worked further, if the system gets supported.

The problem is inertia. Next four European Go Congresses have been decided. The hosting countries expect that the European Championship will be resolved in the tournament during the Congress. If the European Championship is taken away from the Congress the organisers would feel having been cheated. The change should be planned four years ahead.

The European Go Congress lasts two weeks. It is possible to have an Open and a Closed Championship, if one is flexible with making the schedule.

Herman, it would be quite easy to rephrase this so as to praise those who support separate championships and to disparage those who do not. However, to my eye that would run the risk of violating item 1. of the forum rules (especially if we named names), wouldn't it?

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Well, the point of my post was certainly not to attack anyone personally. The point of my post was also not actually really to support or oppose whether the EC should be at congress, but rather that neither side has any particularly good or logical reason for their point of view other than: That's the way we want it.

This has been discussed to death in recent years. There has already been a proposal at an AGM (2007, IIRC) to separate the EC from the congress, but that was not popular.

So, given the fact that the majority of players currently seem to want an EC at the congress, I think there is very little point in revisiting that question now. Instead, lets have a constructive discussion on how to do it.

Not to distract you guys from your wise and interesting discussions, but a small point here:
I would assume that 'the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin' are probably playing in more than 1 tournament a year. So, with separate EGS and EC (or whatever) being the two most prestigious (and most prize-y) toruneys out there - they would most likely attend both. Maybe some other, more minor tournament will suffer, but hey - can't have everything, no?

Anyways - did anybody asked the Euro-elite what *they* really want? I think it should be mostly up to them to say what seems better for them.
And by the way... many other sports have separate open and closed championships. Not sure why there is such resistance to that in Go.
Just my 2c.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Well yes, except the EGC lasts two weeks, which is quite an investment of time. Unless the prize-money is relatively high, which would be less likely if it is not the EC, many strong players might prefer to spend that time otherwise.

And yes, these players have been asked. There has even been a "strong players committee" to look at things, but AFAIK they had a hard time finding participants and didn't reach consensus.

If you have sponsorship, I believe that you can make a closed European Championship that everyone will love, and all the top players will be happy to play in it. It would be nice to see various strong players, say >2550, sit down, draft some some proposals, and submit them to the table. You'd imagine that the strong players' committee was supposed to come up with that sort of thing, but for various reasons it never did. Until it does, I think we'll just have a series of motions which either get shot down, or get adopted then shot down later.

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North Lecale

Might?...
I say - lets try it.
EGS is thought of as the yearly Go-festival of Europe. It might also be that everybody who is somebody in European Go (and even everybody who wants to be somebody) will find a way to show up. For play, but also for teach, for buy, for sell, for advertise, for network, and whatnot. Its just a guess, but assuming people will not show up is also a guess. Unless we try we might never know for sure.

Anyways - an easy solution is to make placements in the Open to be taken into account when inviting for the Closed.
Its all solvable, unless there are other issues. For example: no possible financing for EC and EGC separately. But then - no need to discuss, its not gonna happen, period. Moot point.



The voices I seem to remember from this forum were: strong players for separate events (with the main ideas being EC being 'more meaningful' this way and the Euro-elite will be able to count on more prize-money without having to compete with strong asians) vs. weak players in fear asians will not show up or whatever. But I am not really plugged tightly to the European Go community, so maybe there were other issues raised in other discussions.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!