This discusses (dis)advantages of officially submitted EC system proposals. So far I discuss those here:

http://ktt.hjelt.helsinki.fi/msiivola/g ... osals.html

I hope to find time to discuss also Jana Hricova's proposals later. Please inform us if there are more, official EC system proposal motions to the AGM!


EC System Proposals: Advantages(+), Disadvantages(-), Neutral(o)


Proposal 1

(8 rounds modified Swiss, then undefined finals, shorter thinking time)

+ The Swiss tournament can be played on the two Wednesdays and the
central weekend.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ Almost all EC players can play also almost all Open-EC games.
+ Strong non-Europeans can play against many strong Europeans.
+ Strong Europeans have the option to arrive at the congress on Tuesday afternoon.

o The system is of intermediate complexity.
o While enough players start in round 1 to be sure not to exclude the strongest player, this is unclearer during the seeding to the finals.

- The seeding to the finals depends heavily on tiebreakers.
- The champion might have won fewer games than some of his
competitors.
- Pairs in the finals might have to be repeated.
- The thinking time is shorter. This reduces the game quality.
- Two games per day are played. This reduces the game quality.
- If some strong Europeans use the option of arriving after the Open-EC's round 1, then the final results ordering of the Open-EC by means of tiebreakers becomes much more doubtful.


Proposal 2

(modified Swiss 9+ rounds)

+ The Swiss system is well understood.
+ The system is simple.
+ The champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The champion has more wins than his competitors.
+ After at least 9 rounds, the championship stops just when there is a single leader.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ Enough players start in round 1 to be sure not to exclude the strongest player.
+ Most players, who drop out due to too few wins, become available as opponents for non-Europeans in the main tournament.

o There is much scope for using good pairing strategies.
o In case of 10+ rounds and during the rounds 10+, there are two options: a) No repeated pairs but usual Swiss pairing. b) As far as possible, the top players are paired against each other even if that should create repeated pairs.

- In case of 11+ rounds (necessary when 3+ players have the most wins after round 9), shorter thinking times (e.g., 2 hours + 10 seconds byoyomi) need to be used in some or all rounds from round 10.


Proposal 3

(16 groups of 4 players, then 8 rounds modified Swiss, then undefined finals, shorter thinking time)

+ Non-Europeans meet strongest Europeans during the first three rounds.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.

- The system is complicated.
- The seeding to the finals depends heavily on tiebreakers.
- The champion might have won fewer games than some of his
competitors.
- Pairs in the finals might have to be repeated.
- In some or all games, the thinking time is shorter. This reduces the game quality.
- On some days, two games per day are played. This reduces the game quality.


Proposal 4

(10 player round-robin, then tiebreaking playoffs with shorter
thinking time)

+ The round-robin system has a high pairing quality.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.

o The system is of intermediate complexity.
o Except for the 10 top Europeans, non-Europeans in the Open-EC can meet other strong Europeans.

- The seeding to the championship has a very low quality. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- Only few players play in the EC.
- In the tiebreaking playoffs, different players might have to win different numbers of games to become the champion. (Alternative "no playoffs": If the title shall not be shared, then the winner depends on tiebreakers.)


Proposal 5

(McMahon Open-EC during the morning, Swiss EC during the afternoon / evening, very short thinking times)

+ The Swiss system is well understood.
+ The system is simple.
+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ All EC players can play also all Open-EC games.
+ Non-Europeans can play against also the strongest Europeans.

- The thinking times of the Open-EC are reduced dramatically. This reduces the game quality and removes the European-wide tournament with the greatest game quality.
- The thinking times of the EC are short. This reduces the game quality.
- The EC players play two games per day. This reduces the game
quality.
- The EC players cannot participate in most side events.
- The seeding to the championship of 10 players by rating has a very low quality. [...see under Proposal 4]
- Many really weak players could be nominated for the EC.


Proposal 5 One Week variant

(McMahon Open-EC during the morning, EC during the afternoon /
evening, EC is 5 rounds Swiss, then 3 rounds KO, mostly very short thinking times)

+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ Except for the KO, all EC players can play also all Open-EC games.
+ Non-Europeans can play against also the strongest Europeans.

o The system is of intermediate complexity.

- The seeding to the KO depends heavily on tiebreakers.
- The champion might have won fewer games than some of his
competitors.
- Pairs in the finals might have to be repeated.
- The thinking times of the Open-EC are reduced dramatically. This reduces the game quality and removes the European-wide tournament with the greatest game quality.
- Mostly the thinking times of the EC are short. This reduces the game quality.
- Mostly the EC players play two games per day. This reduces the game quality.
- The EC players cannot participate in most side events.

Put my (newest) variant in the system discussion

_________________
Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

The by far greatest disadvantage of your non-official proposal is the small number of 7 EC rounds.

The problem is it could be higher (say 8 or even 9) but it makes the disadvantage
"- Strong Europeans will only play a limited number of games (3) against non- Europeans. "
worse it is just that the number of rounds that they can play against strong non europeans is 10 minus the number of rounds against europeans. (the complement , non europeans against europeans, also becomes a bit more difficult to realise but is such not a big problem)

Also having more games for the european title, the bigger the disturbing influence of the european tournament on the Open title.

IF all games in the european title tournament are played before the last round (round 10) in the Open tournament there could be some tiebreaking games during the last round but that would transform the rest of the last round almost in a best of europe against best-of-rest-of-the world Round, and would make the pairing for earlier rounds even more complex.

An other (by me rejected) idea was of just having build in an embedded double elimination tournament for the european title, but i think that gives even more chances on disputes.
"Why do some matches between european title candidates count for the title while others don't?"
In my proposel there is the principle that the 3 games that don't count for the european title are agains non european title candidates. (so this dispute cannot arise)


Concluding
I do support a variation where the number of european against european title candidate is higher, but I do want that the tournament is a full swiss tournament. (so all european title candidates play the same amount of games against other europeans title candidates )

_________________
Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library

So what do you think about proposal 2? Besides its EC and the Open-EC, optional afternoon games (or a third tournament) between Europeans and non-Europeans can be set.

Here is a discussion of two more officially proposed systems:

http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/proposals2010ru.pdf
http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/proposals2010ec1.pdf


Proposal Russia / Dinerstein

(current system but with supergroup of 16 Europeans by rating and 8 Asians by rating)

+ There are enough games between Europeans and non-Europeans.
+ The champion and his closest competitors play the same number of games.
+ The tournament fits well into the congress schedule.

o "Asians" should be read as "non-Europeans".
o Unlike claimed by the proponents, if there were a supergroup practically without 4d and 5d, then 4d and 5d would not start in the same MM group but very likely they would be put into two MM group.
o Unlike claimed by the proponents, 4d-5d do not have no chances, but do have small chances in years with lots of strong players and do have significant chances in years with only few strong players (see 2001 Dublin).

- Tiebreakers for the final results ordering play a great role for determination of the winner.
- While the number of 16 Europeans is rather small and although the significantly decreased number lets ratings as the seeding criterion have a much greater impact, the seeding by rating is not improved in quality at all. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- Only few players play in the EC. The strongest player might be missed.
- The EC winner strongly depends on every player's number of strong non-European opponents.
- Unlike claimed by the proponents, it is not guaranteed that all important games between the main candidates are played. For that, the ratio non-Europeans versus Europeans is too high. Maybe many important games for the Open-EC are played - certainly not all important games for the EC.
- The champion is not determined by European-only games. This
contradicts AGM decision and many strong players' desire to play more European-only games, especially since other big European tournaments have stopped.
- Seeding non-Europeans by rating only is inflexible. First time participants do not have an EGF-rating yet but it can sometimes still be clear that they are very strong.
- Using exactly 16 and exactly 8 is inflexible. E.g., of 9 present strong non-Europeans, 1 would have to be excluded.
- Always requiring 8 non-Europeans is counter-productive in years where (almost) none are present. Then weak non-Europeans would be in the supergroup.


Proposal Stiassny

(4*6 round-robin, then seeding possibly by tiebreakers, then 2*4 round-robin, then seeding possibly by tiebreakers, then 2 rounds KO)

+ The champion is determined by European-only games.
+ The systems fits well into the congress schedule.

o The system is of intermediate complexity.
o The proponent claims the system to be interesting for sponsors and spectators. The same can be said of every system though, if only PR, presentation, media access and spectator access are right.
o The proponent claims the system to create an order of the top places. Sure, but this can be said about many systems.
o The proponent claims the system to be easy for organizers but actually it is of intermediate organization difficulty: Handling a round-robin or KO is easy but the seedings are particularly complicated in this system.
o The proponent claims the defined switch of players dropping out and then entering the Open-EC to be an advantage but actually this technical detail can be defined for all systems with players moving from EC to Open-EC.
o The proponent claims that since the final game was of particular importance that would be an advantage. However, the same can be said of the last round game(s) of every system.
o The proponent claims it to be an advantage that the system was transparent. Apart from the rather hidden because too complicated tiebreakers, every system must be defined and is thus transparent. What is sold as an advantage is a non-argument.
o The proponent claims the system to be easily explained to press and media. There are much simpler system proposals and this system uses too complex tiebreakers for easy explanation.
o The proponent claims that the option of an easy reduction to 9 rounds was an advantage but this is not specific to this system and there is no need to shorten a system that already fits well into the congress schedule with 10 rounds.
o The proponent claims that honouring previous EC standings was an advantage but many system proposals have the option to consider (also) previous EC standings and performance one year ago is not necessarily the most accurate criterion.
o Open for future developments is not an advantage either but rather every systems could be altered later.

- The champion might have won fewer games than some of his
competitors.
- Wildcards replace qualification by playing strength by qualification by politics.
- For the seeding to the next stages, tiebreakers play a very great role.
- For the seeding from stage 1 to stage 2 (seeding of 8 players before the 5 last rounds), also rating as a tiebreaker is used. Since after the seeding there will be only 8 players and since rating shall be the tiebreaker already after MutualGameScore as the first tiebreaker, the impact of the rating tiebreaker is great. For such a relevant application, ratings do not have enough quality of precision. E.g., if peak rating during the last 12 months is used, then players with 0 rated games during that period are compared with players with 100 rated games. Therefore the strongest European might not be seeded.
- For the seeding from stage 1 to stage 2, the third tiebreaker shall be lottery. This is inappropriate for such a too relevant application.
- For the seeding from stage 1 to stage 2, application of tiebreakers is undefined if more than 3 players are tied. After a round-robin of 6 players, multiple ties are pretty common; this is clear from many congress side tournaments. Therefore further tiebreaker application is necessary and will be frequent overall. This raises the impact of the
doubtful tiebreakers rating and lottery yet more.
- For the seeding from stage 1 to stage 2, using iterative direct comparison as the first tiebreaker would be more reasonable than MutualGameScore, rating and lottery as the tiebreakers but the problem of by far too frequent tiebreaker application remains.
- The player strengths in the groups of stage 1 can be imbalanced.
- Pairs in the finals might have to be repeated.
- Only during the second week, two thirds drop out to be available as opponents also for non-Europeans.
- Citizenship of an EGF member country violates the title name's European. What is called "European Championship" becomes only an EGF championship. This decreases the honour associated with the title unnecessarily.
- Unlike claimed by the proponent, the system is not interesting for top players because tiebreakers have a much too great impact. That opponent-dependent tiebreakers are replaced by other tiebreakers does not change this.

More pluses for my system:

+ There are enough games between top Europeans and top Europeans
+ Asian players are happy and they will visit future Congresses
+ We keep old traditions (almost no changes with the old system)

_________________
Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

Robert, please mention any European, who is not in best 16 by EC rating, but has real chances
to become European champion, if all best 16 take part.
Here is the list of best 16:


10313237 Dinerstein Alexandr RU 16Kz 3p 2742 84 5
10586785 Taranu Catalin RO Bucu 5p 2739 55 6
10298013 Guo Juan NL Hilv 5p 2733 108 7
12013342 Shikshin Ilja RU 16Kz 7d 2706 122 9
10301236 Shikshina Svetlana RU 16Kz 3p 2695 54 10
10333389 Pop Cristian RO Bucu 7d 2676 143 12
10301247 Koszegi Diana HU BuPe 1p 2665 119 13
10337382 Zeijst Rob_van NL Toky 7d 2660 31 15
12662870 Kachanovskyj Artem UA Rivn 6d 2642 63 18
10337481 Silt Ondrej CZ KaVa 6d 2637 247 19
10225875 Mero Csaba HU BuPe 6d 2625 155 21
10486817 Mateescu Robert RO Bucu 6d 2617 20 22
10498246 Balogh Pal HU Debr 6d 2613 131 24
10249195 Heiser Laurent LU Lux 6d 2607 20 26
12486639 Zatonskikh Anton RU 27Kh 6d 2605 18 27
10998163 Florescu Ion RO Pits 6d 2601 55 28

Let me know the name of this superstar!

_________________
Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

Maybe you, Robert?
You can win the title, if all 16 take part?
Can you?

_________________
Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

Concerning your extra pluses:

# What you consider enough top-European-only games other top Europeans have called insufficient. With your system if we assume 8 present really strong non-Europeans, top Europeans (top 8 of the 16) will play against ca. 2 to 5 non-Europeans, i.e. have 5 to 8 European-only games, of which about 2.5 to 4 are against top Europeans. About half of these will in restrospect be important games, i.e., be against the top 4 Europeans in the final result list. You think that is sufficient - other top players (and the previous AGM) have said that they want 10 European-only games. So what you call a plus from your opinion's perspective is not an advantage from the average opinion.

# Happy Asians. We need to differentiate here. Regular visiting 5d or weaker are happy anyway, many of them come each year. So you really seem to mean not Asians in general but specifically 6.5d or stronger Asians. (What about non-Asian non-Europeans?! They also have such strong players. Why do you always speak of Asians only?) We have seen some opinions of Koreans. Have you also asked them if they would be happy if they played the top Europeans during afternoon games? Or can they be made happy only if they play in the most important tournament-bundle against the very top Europeans? When you put Some More Happy Asians as a plus, then you should also put Some More Unhappy Europeans as a minus because those Europeans do not get their desired 10 rounds of European-only EC games.

# Is tradition per se positive or negative? I think tradition can be good if the contents is good or tradition can be bad if the contents is bad.

Your list of top 16 rated Europeans implies something: You presume that a) all of them want to play, b) all of them do have time to come and c) quite some of them get travel support so that they can afford to come. This is something not apparent from the Russian proposal text. So it looks more like only your wishful thinking. In reality we all know that never all Europeans dan players come to congresses (or any other tournament). So in practice the actual European players field is much thinner also at the top.

The makes your question for the superstar 5d much more relative (especially in years like 2001 Dublin). As I have explained before, every motivated 5d (or 4d in rank-deflated countries or 4d in years with only few 6d+) has a small but non-zero chance. Multiply that by the number of such players in the supergroup and you get a chance of a few percents in normal years and quite some percents in weakly attended years. Recall the year 2001: The European Champion was a 5d!!! And since you continue to ignore facts, I repeat: He was 5d.

You want to prevent such unexpected superstars - I want to allow them!

It is also wrong to require them to become 6d first. E.g., Kulkov played weaker as 6d in 2002 than he had played as 5d in 2001. All you achieve by excluding such players as 5d is to increase the chances of the regular top players by means of a filter rule. Nice for you but not for the variety of European Go.

Breakfast, just that you claim a desired effect doesn't effect it.

Regarding your claim that players not in the top 16 had no chance, just think of the European Masters 2008.

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

2001 was the only Go Congress I missed, so my classmate Andrey Kulkov was first
If we check the tournament table of EGC-2001 we can see that lot of top players ignored it.
I also heard that they had very small prizes in Dublin (was it the smallest Go Congress in history?)

I don't think that we will see this situation in near future.


There are lot of tournaments in Europe, where you can increase your rating. I don't see any problem. If you want to fight for EC title - increase your rating first and reach 2600!

_________________
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Personally I don't play any side events and I am very happy to play Koreans in Main tournament. But I am not happy to lose my time by playing European 2-4 dans. Yes, I played some 2-dans before on EC, because you, Robert, made the supergroup too big.

The decision of "non affected by Asians" was accepted near 1 AM on the last AGM meeting. I was already sleeping at my bed
Taranu was the only top European allowed to vote for this decision (as Romanian representative). Did you ask any other top Europeans?

_________________
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Playing tournament games against Korean ex-inseis is the only way of improving my Go!
Not only my Go, but also for top Europeans who want to improve.
We have nothing to learn from European 2-dans! And you force us to meet them during EC

_________________
Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
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Look at the last 5 congresses by ratings (EGD makes that possible) tell me where the biggest rating surprise came in these 10 round events... what was the highest position of a player outside the top 16?

The point is that the tournament pairings are bad

Even if one is very strong, it is not so easy to improve one's rating a lot quickly. To improve one's rating quickly into the top rated region, one needs to beat quite some top players. Suppose somebody like Kulkov improves fast and wants to increase his rating quickly during 6 months. Maybe he would need to attend 5 to 10 top tournaments. Maybe there are just enough tournaments but to really play in them he has to travel a lot throughout Europe. Can he afford the travel cost and time? More likely, he cannot. He would then have missed the rating region in the current year and in the next year it might be too late for him, see Kulkov.

I agree with you that supergroup players should not meet 2d etc. One does not need to make the supergroup smaller for that purpose - there are also other means like pairing restrictions to rank differences. Currently the system is McMahon (with supergroup) and "let the pairing program make the pairings". The consequence are the typical McMahon pairings regardless of rank differences but using the McMahon scores. For the sake of the argument, let us assume for the moment that we make only the supergroup smaller. We would still get top European against weak 4d pairs. You would still not be happy. So, when using McMahon, forced pairings due to some guidelines or buffer MM groups (in a well visited tournament with lots of strong players: lower 4d half, upper 4d half, lower 5d half, supergroup) might do the trick. Such means are more than TD work though - they amount to a system change from "all equal" to "upper top players are more equal in their rights to the title than lower top players". You like to complain about me specifically that exactly I would create such pairings - but actually it is the nature of the McMahon system in use; all tournament supervisors and TDs would have to pair McMahon style. This is not only my setting but everybody's application of the rule that the EGC is a McMahon tournament. Your mistake is to blame me all the time when what you want to blame is the system. With your system proposal, you continue to overlook significant parts of the nature of that system.

Playing against Koreans is the only way for you to improve? I see you studying from pro games etc. a lot. Does this not improve you any longer? Or is my impression wrong and you have stopped reading literature? Other players can improve from playing equally strong players, can't you? Maybe. This is different from player to player. Can you improve from afternoon games against Koreans or can you improve only from morning, EC, games against Koreans?

Dusan Mitic. He can become the champion. But, I agree with you Alexandre, your way would probably be the best. Dusan is an insei in Korea, but I do not belive that any player out of this list would have chance for becoming the champion, only insei - they improve a lot, but do not get to play on EGF tournaments.

And Robert, do you think Alex could improve by reading your book? I am not so sure...

_________________

Breakfast, in the last 4 Go congresses, you have played:

• professionals: 2
• 7 dan: 15
• 6 dan: 9
• 5 dan: 8
• 4 dan: 4
• 3 dan: 2

That you even mention 2 dans is a strawman argument.

That 3 dans with two wins get to play with super group players who lost the first two rounds is natural when the bar is set at 4 dan. The problem here is not the size of the supergroup but the height of the MacMahon bar.

(Just to make the terminology clear: the MacMahon bar is the minimum rank to get into the top group, the super group is another group which has a starting MacMahon score one point higher than the top group.)

I am sure that it is possible to get the AGM to just allow a higher MacMahon bar.

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

LovroKlc, you agree with Alexander's system, so please tell us what it actually is! Is it the top 16 Europeans of the rating list or is it the top 16 rated Europeans of those present at the congress? Does he want to prohibit almost all Asian professionals in the supergroup because they do not have an EGF rating yet? Does he just want to complain about great rank differences or does he want prescribed forced pairings and / or enough buffer MM groups? Why does he want to determine the top 16 by comparing ratings of players regardless of whether they have played very few or very many games to justify their current rating and why is that any good? Does he want to have weak Asians in the supergroup just to fill the number 8? Or does he want to have a yet smaller supergroup if almost no top Asians are present? In that case, how are the pairing programs, TDs and tournament supervisors supposed to do their job since the pairing behaviour of 16 supergroup players in a 10 rounds tournament is not know so far? With so many open but central questions of what his system is actually supposed to be and how its pairings might work, how can you justify to already agree to it?