EWGC last round pairing

[breakfast]

Vanessa Wong played Laura - she went 2 groups down. Is that allowed by EGF rules?
Seems that this pairing was made on purpose of Rus-Rus pair.
I feel that the right pairing was:
Vanessa-Elvina
Rita-Bexfield Alison
Manja -Natalya
In case of Elvina's victory, it was possible that both Russian players get the trip to China (for SportAccord)
Best 3 players from this tournament will get the right to represent Europe

https://sites.google.com/site/ewgc2012brno/news/results
Num Pl Name Rank Co Club NbW R 1 R 2 R 3 R 4 R 5 NBW SOS SOSOS
1 1 Wong Vanessa 5D UK HKng 4 7+/w0 3+/b0 4+/w0 2+/w0 6?/b0 4 13 65
2 2 Pocsai Rita 5D HU Szen 3 8+/w0 6+/b0 5+/w0 1-/b0 3?/b0 3 14 60
3 3 Marz Manja 3D DE J 3 12+/w0 1-/w0 7+/b0 6+/b0 2?/w0 3 13 60
4 4 Kovaleva Natalia 4D RU 74Ch 3 9+/w0 10+/b0 1-/b0 11+/w0 5?/w0 3 13 52
5 5 Kalsberg Elvina 3D RU 78SP 3 14+/b0 11+/w0 2-/b0 9+/w0 4?/b0 3 11 54
6 6 Avram Laura 2D RO Bist 2 13+/b0 2-/w0 8+/b0 3-/w0 1?/w0 2 13 58
7 7 Kuin Marika 1D NL Amvn 2 1-/b0 12+/w0 3-/w0 13+/b0 11?/b0 2 12 51
8 8 Seres Julia 1D HU Pago 2 2-/b0 13+/w0 6-/w0 12+/b0 10?/b0 2 10 52
9 9 Gauthier Lena 2K DE B 2 4-/b0 15+/w0 10+/w0 5-/b0 13?/w0 2 10 48
10 10 Conradi Judith 2D DE B 2 15+/b0 4-/w0 9-/b0 14+/w0 8?/w0 2 9 48
11 11 Bexfield Alison 2D UK NoCb 2 0+ 5-/b0 14+/w0 4-/b0 7?/w0 2 9 44
12 12 Lassakova Lucia 3K SK Brat 2 3-/b0 7-/b0 15+/w0 8-/w0 0+ 2 8 42
13 13 Kadlecova Alzbeta 4K CZ APra 1 6-/w0 8-/b0 0+ 7-/w0 9?/b0 1 8 45
14 14 Hricova Jana 2K CZ APmG 1 5-/w0 0+ 11-/b0 10-/b0 15?/b0 1 8 36
15 15 Waczulikova Barbora 5K SK Brat 1 10-/w0 9-/b0 12-/b0 0+ 14?/w0 1 7 35

[Javaness2]

I only looked for a few minutes, but the pairing seems incorrect to me.

Maybe there is some hidden rule I am missing?

[kivi]

In case of Elvina's victory, it was possible that both Russian players get the trip to China (for SportAccord)

You need not only Elvina win against Vanessa but also Rita to lose her last game, as Elvina doesn't have enough SOS. That is lots of wishful thinking.

The pairing seems to be wrong though. Maybe they felt Vanessa is in top 3 anyway, lets make other 4 participants to have 'win this to get in top-3' type of games.

[breakfast]

In case of Elvina's victory, it was possible that both Russian players get the trip to China (for SportAccord)

You need not only Elvina win against Vanessa but also Rita to lose her last game, as Elvina doesn't have enough SOS. That is lots of wishful thinking.

The pairing seems to be wrong though. Maybe they felt Vanessa is in top 3 anyway, lets make other 4 participants to have 'win this to get in top-3' type of games.

It was very close on SOS. Was possible for Rita to get 4th place even after winning the last game

[breakfast]

Just discussed it with our vice president. He said, we will send an official protest from Russian Go Association to EGF. I will sign it!

[Javaness2]

In case of Elvina's victory, it was possible that both Russian players get the trip to China (for SportAccord)

You need not only Elvina win against Vanessa but also Rita to lose her last game, as Elvina doesn't have enough SOS. That is lots of wishful thinking.

The pairing seems to be wrong though. Maybe they felt Vanessa is in top 3 anyway, lets make other 4 participants to have 'win this to get in top-3' type of games.

Indeed. It looked like that since they had 3 places to give, they would have a knock-out for the final 2. Vanessa having been judged to have won hers already.
If the tournament was supposed to have been McMahon... not sure if that is correct, but I don't know what the tournament system was!

[HermanHiddema]

Vanessa Wong played Laura - she went 2 groups down. Is that allowed by EGF rules?
Seems that this pairing was made on purpose of Rus-Rus pair.
I feel that the right pairing was:
Vanessa-Elvina
Rita-Bexfield Alison
Manja -Natalya
In case of Elvina's victory, it was possible that both Russian players get the trip to China (for SportAccord)
Best 3 players from this tournament will get the right to represent Europe

On the other hand, it was also possible with your pairing that neither Russian player would qualify.
This pairing guarantees there is a Russian player in China.

IMO the organizers made an excellent decision, making a pairing to avoid decisions on SOS.

[AlesCieply]

Hello!

I take the responsibility for making the pairings at the EFC and taking the decision on the final round.

First of all the table posted here is a bit strange, I mean the ordering of players after round 4 was different than here with 2. Rita, 3. Natalia, 4. Manja, 5. Elvina, all of them on 3 points.

As already realized by some other people, my intention was to get three clearly qualified players and avoid decisions by side criteria (SOS). Some additional reasoning:
- The tournament winner is already decided. Vanessa would be an European champion even if she was paired with Elvina and lost the game.
- Before the last round Rita, Natalia and Manja had only one loss with Vanessa (Elvina lost to Rita), so it is a bit unfair to pair Rita down (in case of Vanessa-Elvina pairing) only on the (not so much reliable) better (by just 1 point) SOS and give her much easier game than the other two players (Natalia, Manja) who would face each other.
- My original intention was to pair Rita-Elvina (2. with 5. according to SOS), Natalia-Manja but it was not possible as the first pair already had a game in a previous round. Thus, the pairing was 2.-4., 3.-5. (on SOS). You have my word (but I cannot provide more as a proof, sorry) that the pairing was not influenced by nationality of the involved players.

Just to make sure I did an alternate pairing of the last round with Vanessa-Elvina, Natalia-Manja, and Rita paired down by the pairing program, marked wins for Elvina, Natalia, Rita and the rest (judging according to ratings) and the final standings of this alternate pairing would be:
1. Vanessa, 2. Rita, 3. Elvina, 4. Natalia, all of them on 4 points
I do not think anyone (including breakfast) would like the outcome.

I do agree the pairing was not a standard one though I am not aware of any EGF rule that would prohibit it. I remember only some recommendations on how to pair, not a strict rule in a situation we had.

With friendly greetings, Ales Cieply

[breakfast]

Dear Ales,
Just to confirm. It was a handmade pairing in the last round, right?
You cannot get such pairing using OpenGotha software

One more Q. Why 2d got a bye in the first round? Usually the lower-rated player gets a bye in case of odd number of players

[AlesCieply]

Just to confirm. It was a handmake pairing in the last round, right?

Yes, for the top players.

One more Q. Why 2d got a bye in the first round? Usually the lower-rated player gets a bye in case of odd number of players

Players ordered by ratings, split and slide(?) method, #8 (out of 15) gets a bye

[Matti]

Just discussed it with our vice president. He said, we will send an official protest from Russian Go Association to EGF. I will sign it!

Did you send it? It would be the first protest for the EGF appeals commission to handle.