tapir wrote:Nobody forced sponsors to sponsor a female only tournaments, it was their choice. If a bunch of misguided "fans" tries to convince them to shut down these tournaments surely this will help women playing go. It seems no argument is ridiculous enough as long as it is against the dangerous and dreadful positive discrimination. There is no segregation because female players do not have fewer opportunities to play male players. There are no male only tournaments after all, although some invitationals only feature male players. Female professionals DO compete in the other tournaments to the full extent but you probably need to look deep into the preliminaries to find them all. If you want more competition for all you should argue for the reintroduction of promotion tournaments in Japan and Korea - not the abolishment of female only tournaments.
Again, you are assuming that nothing would replace the current women's tournaments. That is, you are seeing the immediate consequences, but not the indirect ones. This is one of the most common logical fallacies. Also, some tournaments, like the GG Auction Cup, pair the female players against older guys past their prime. The reason for this is clear: because it is believed that they are a more even match for female players. (Note that this is a direct admission that, on average, they are playing "sub-par" as you put it, though I would not describe it that way.) But being intentionally matched against weaker men doesn't really help them either. Why do you think that Susan Polgar refused to play in women's tournaments? She clearly saw no need for them, and felt it was more productive to face higher level opponents.
Being on par doesn't involve being at the very top. Compare say western go and korean go, I don't believe westerners are necessarily by nature or by nurture weaker players, but if you have a player population of some ten thousands compared to one of millions you have to expect (before all other considerations) that for the very western top10 you will have a 1000 players in Korea many of whom would never turn professional or were even close to professional strength.
True, but we're hardly talking about the very top here. Not one woman has cracked the top 50! Not even close.
Finally, how is being 75th among 300-400 (how many exactly?) Korean professionals not being on par with the male professionals. Or when Mok Jinseok just lost a league game against Cho Hyeyeon, how dare you claim they are playing sub-par? If you look only at the top of unequal sized player populations no doubt the top players of the larger population are stronger, but this is simply statistics and not yet a statement about capabilities. I don't see how an unified qualifier would not produce women players of equal strength (some female players did indeed qualify through the general professional exam and not the reserved one). But they would be even fewer than now, and their likelihood to reach the very top positions wouldn't necessarily increase - again this is mostly statistics. How ridiculous such arguments are if you don't consider the population size first can be illustrated by the reverse argument: likely there are more weak players in Korea than in the West (in fact there are more weak players in Korea than the western go community in total) so we have to conclude that... - wait - where is the logical flaw?
Cho Hye-Yeon has also won a game against Lee Sedol, and she is not a weak player, despite her assertion to the contrary. But we should look at the overall situation, not exceptional situations. The fact that is is considered impressive when she defeats a top player is because, so far, it is not an everyday occurrence. I wish the situation were more equal, but right now, it's clearly not. The Chinese women's league has finally invested in stronger male coaches (which were previously viewed as "wasted" on female players), and they have begun to improve remarkably, and are likely to overtake Korea before long.
If you really want to see more and stronger female professionals try to make more women take up the game and play at an amateur level and this is exactly what this thread was about, but which apparently leads to so much male anxiety.
Really? You're the one that's making this about gender.
P.S. I just read the convincing entry above how "welfare state leads to poverty just as health insurance leads to early death". It clearly illustrates how powerless logic is, when it is in fact about politics.
What are you talking about? Joaz's post? He said nothing of the sort. At any rate, I see no profit in continuing this any further.
Let us make a petition that we don't want reserved spots for western players in international tournaments anymore because this not only constitutes unacceptable (though positive) discrimination, but in the long run hurts the development of western Go! Those who are strong enough can go to CJK, become professional and play the open qualifiers, after all.
Anyone signing?
Well, it's not a direct 1:1 comparison, because Western players are not already competing in professional tournaments on a regular basis. That said, there is no need for reserved spots. If they want to encourage Western Go, having people represent their countries in international tournaments is a fairer way of doing so. Also, if Western players really want to become strong, playing an occasional game in a pro tournament is not enough, you have to go to a school, study, and play a lot.
