AGA Announces New Pandanet-AGA City League

[nagano]

http://www.usgo.org/news/2012/08/aga-an ... ty-league/

Thoughts?

[speedchase]

Does anyone know what the prize Pool is?

[nagano]

Well, it's just been announced, so I would guess not. Who knows if that has even been decided yet. Also, there is the question of which cities will be represented, and what they will have to do to qualify.

[speedchase]

I was curious because It would be cool if this was the first step towards professionals being able to support themselves in America

[lemmata]

I am also curious about the prize money. Also, how much money is IGS donating to this project?

Is there any danger that IGS sponsorship may make the sponsors of the recent AGA pro test unhappy? Was that possibility considered?

I am interested in responses from people who have direct knowledge of these things rather than speculation or educated guesses.

Thanks!

[Javaness2]

Take a look at the European Team Championship

[Hsiang]

For the various questions asked here:

The prize pool is at least US$15,000 per year and will be paid to the A league teams only. This tournament is indeed a first step towards supporting our pros. Although the prize money is not large, hopefully it will be augmented by game fees to become more significant. As stated in the original announcement, the teams are encouraged to seek local sponsors who may pay playing fees to the team members. This is hopefully an effective way to spread out the sponsorship and also to build up regional interest.

Details for joining the league have been worked out by the AGA Tournament Director and she will announce them during the Congress.

For lemmata: the sponsors of the AGA pro test tournament are quite enthusiastic about the City League.

[tapir]

Thought 1: Laudable effort, but why are people so obsessed with elite events, prize money and the amount of sponsorship?

Thought 2: The German Go federation has a federal online league with 89 teams, which is decidedly less elite (it is for kyu players too, with several hundred players involved in total), less sponsorship, smaller prizes. And it keeps growing.

[speedchase]

Thought 1: Laudable effort, but why are people so obsessed with elite events, prize money and the amount of sponsorship?

I can't speak for others, but personally I think that having high level players that can compete with top easterners will help increase interest for the game.

[hailthorn011]

Thought 1: Laudable effort, but why are people so obsessed with elite events, prize money and the amount of sponsorship?

Thought 2: The German Go federation has a federal online league with 89 teams, which is decidedly less elite (it is for kyu players too, with several hundred players involved in total), less sponsorship, smaller prizes. And it keeps growing.

To your first thought, people are always going to be interested in high tension, competitive events between strong players like that. Look at any sport, esport, or mind sport and you'll find people flocking to watch top players play. Prizes are what lure these strong players to the competition, and strong players lure an audience. And an audience could potentially attract sponsorship. So it's a win on multiple fronts. At least that's my opinion, anyway. But feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

Also, this sounds really cool to me. Makes me want to form a team for my city. Maybe next year.

[tapir]

Thought 1: Laudable effort, but why are people so obsessed with elite events, prize money and the amount of sponsorship?

I can't speak for others, but personally I think that having high level players that can compete with top easterners will help increase interest for the game.

Why should it? You will never turn people into spectators for Go events, who never took up and learned Go at least to a certain degree and this is the main difference to all those other examples, that are either accessible to non-players or based on a game which is widely known already (I doubt people who have not played Starcraft would bother to watch Starcraft competitions or other esports). Expecting otherwise is fooling yourself. Don't get me wrong, high level competition is a good thing in itself, but the expectation that it will magically translate into a higher popularity for the game are completely unfounded. I mean there already is a 9 dan professional (Michael Redmond) from the U.S., but this didn't influence AGA membership figures as far as I know. So, why should Go suddenly become more popular when a player still residing in the U.S. makes it past the preliminary (which in itself would be quite a feat!) in a Korean event?

[Javaness2]

It will have exactly the same impact as the current league in Europe has - that's my opinion.

[Blake]

I agree. While I appreciate that our very strong amateur players should have venues for play, there is a serious deficiency in that there are very few tournaments where single digit kyu players can hope to compete. Why? Mid and high level dan players are actually a small percentage of the overall go-playing population.

[hyperpape]

Huh? Most tournaments in the US are chock full of SDK players and have prize sections for them. It's true that the attention and rewards go to high dan players.

In my opinion, it's not even clear that the set of players who would go to tournaments is the most important set for promoting go in the US. Go players are currently quite likely to be tournament goers, but I think that's a product of its marginal status. Far fewer chess players attend tournaments (in percentage terms) because casual competition is so much more common. Back when I played chess, I never attended a club, just played with friends when we had a board and some time to kill.

[speedchase]

Why should it? You will never turn people into spectators for Go events, who never took up and learned Go at least to a certain degree and this is the main difference to all those other examples, that are either accessible to non-players or based on a game which is widely known already (I doubt people who have not played Starcraft would bother to watch Starcraft competitions or other esports). Expecting otherwise is fooling yourself.

have you ever heard of Bobby Fisher?