By that definition I would be European, despite having only visited Europe for a few weeks over my life.

Well, it's a definition. Different organizations use different ones. The Netherlands allows you to be Dutch Champion after two years of residency, and there are two strong players competing at the Championship regularly despite not having a passport. Those same players, if they win, are not eligible to go to the WAGC, because the WAGC requires a passport.

If you come to the European Go Congress and win it, you'll be European Champion

pwaldron, welcome to the EGC! May you win it!:)

I think that 24 Europeans works rather well together with fold pairing by SOS (or slightly better: cross pairing by an external criterion during rounds 1 and 2, then fold pairing). What does not work well is, of course, the usage of tiebreakers for the final players ordering. Remvove that usage, share the title (or play playoffs after round 9 or 10), and all is about as fine as it can get under the current system! (Except for an arbitrary number of possibly too strong non-European opponents, which might mean a particular European gets too few wins.)

I do not know though whether 24 is optimal.

Are you sure the randomness in the process is a problem?

I believe the peak of a player lasts more than one year, and EGC is an annual event. So, taken a few successive years, each top player would receive his/her fair share of European Championship -titles.

Then the question is not to remove randomness from the process, but to make sure there is no bias in it.

Another option:

Why not call the best European citizen of the Pandanet Go European Cup the European (closed) Champion?

That tournament series has enough games so that randomness should be in control...

The winner of the EGC could then be the European (open) Champion, be Korean or not.

That is a series, and for a top player, the most important thing for winning it is to attend as many as possible, not to win as many as possible. Having placed second in each tournament of this series, having consistently got beaten by each other strong player, would be sufficient to get the title if those other players play only few tournaments, even if they win each they play in. This is a nice system for that cup, but a champion should have demonstrated superior skill, not just superior attendance.

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

You are right, of course.

On the other hand, typically in most forms of sports, the titles are given to those that do attend. So this preference is more about attitude.

Also, in an earlier post someone strong told that strong European players do not attend to European tournaments. Would this be an added boon for them to actually attend?

I suggest do not change tournament system and only change some pairings for first 5 round:

1st round 32 best european citizenships according to rating will be paired 1-32, 2-16...
2nd round 16 ...
3rd round 8
4th round 4
5th round 2 players will be play in final

After 5 days - first week - will be known Best Europen player.

This combination of KO and MacMahon has minimal impact on whole EGC and 5 KO round system is enough for determine who is European Champion (there are profesional tournaments in Asia where is not more games too, and EGCs is only AMATEUR tournament).

P.S. Games in K.O. tournaments could be played with more time per game ?!

kex, due to the Law of Great Numbers a fair share cannot be guaranteed.

The more (many) rounds the closer SOS values become. So SOS-randomness becomes more likely. For other aspects, see elsewhere.

LGolem, after only 5 rounds you do not know the best player but the one to have been lucky to win the 5 games.

Many titles in the world are determined through single elimination tournaments. It's not worth throwing out the idea saying it's due to luck.

No one doubts that Federer and Nadal are the best tennis players in the world. They play exclusively in single elimination tournaments.

Round robins are nice because you get to play more games. But they are not necessary to determine champions.

If we have a dense players field of almost equal strengths (like in tennis grand slam series), then KO may be said to be almost luck-free and the players know the idea "Thou shall not lose!". In EGCs, however, players have a pretty wide variety of playing strengths. This is so even if you take only a small number of players because we do not have enough players at the top to get a dense field. It is always thin. In such an environment, opposition strengths can vary greatly and this becomes the luck.

1. This is GO. There is no luck. A lot of more important events are played as KO tournaments. For increase importance of games, players could play with longer time. (BTW They can began their tournament 2-3 days before start of EGC and impact on EGC will be minimal).

2. What is reason for 'perfect' system for determine European champion ? There is not so much money for prizes. If top europeans wants really play between themselves, is better to establish some close tournament (for example KO with more games in every round) for them. But is not reason spoilt EGC.

On the board it is go without luck. In the pairings it is also luck how strong or weak the opponents are.

The reason for a close to perfect system is to create quality in the games and tournament results.

It is in theory possible to play the EC not during the congress but everybody of the strong players / the delegates want it to be at the congress.

This is a peculiar argument. The variation in strength between the #1 player in the world and the #100 player in the world is considerable. The single elimination tournament is seeded to try and ensure that the best players meet in the final rounds, but some upsets are possible.

I admit that there are some limitations which make this a less than perfect option for European go events, such as limited information about strengths of some foriegn players, making good seeding hard, and the lack of tournaments to allow this seeding to settle.

i see here different opinions

According to RobertJasiek there are to much players about the same strenght (in the meaning having a chance to win the game)

while in another tread Breakfast says that there are to many weak players (having no chance to win the tournamen) in the top group.

I do prefer just a swiss tournament for deciding the european champion and it can be hidden in the main tournament.

and to compenasate for breakfast comments maybe accelerated pairing is best.

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Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

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