The European Championship system revisited

[Matti]

What is the point of trying to fudge a European Championship into an Open Championship?

There is no point of trying to fudge a European Championship into an Open Championship.

The point is, that there is a good system to find the Champion in slightly less than 10 rounds. How to make the best of the extra rounds for also non-Europeans. In the system the non-Europeans do not directly affect the European Championship. They affect it indirectly, but that cannot be completely eliminated because games played against non-Europeans affect the ratings of the European players.

[pwaldron]

What is the point of trying to fudge a European Championship into an Open Championship?

It looks like they're trying to do the opposite. It's an open event but they're trying to select a European champ out of it. I'm still baffled why anyone thinks they need a European champion, but it does seem to keep people occupied.

[HermanHiddema]

@Matti: Your proposed system has an inherent unbalance due to the optional presence of a non-European player in the round robin. If you are in a group with 4 Europeans, you must win at least 2/3 games to continue, 3/3 to get in the upper group. If there is one non-European, you only need 1/2 for going through and 2/2 for getting to the upper group. How do you propose to decide which European players get the relatively easier groups?

I would anticipate getting 16 non-European players to the groups, if not at the first, later. Anyway I would put the weakest European players into groups of four Europeans.

Which means that the strongest players get paired together already in the round robin phase? That sounds like a bad idea. I think this would need to be worked out further.

[HermanHiddema]

What is the point of trying to fudge a European Championship into an Open Championship?

You might as well ask: what's the point of keeping Ireland separate from the UK?

Some people want it, some people don't. The people that want it try to find ways to do it, the people that don't make disparaging remarks about how it is pointless.

(And the same answer applies to pwaldron's remark).

[Javaness2]

For me, the problem is that the European Go Congress is now a very successful open tournament. Trying to partition it into 2 events somehow seems just to be awkward, it might just lessen both. Why can't there be a European Go Congress, with a European Open Champion, and at some other time in the year, a closed European Championship. You could combine a closed Championship with the respective Youth and Female categories.

[HermanHiddema]

For me, the problem is that the European Go Congress is now a very successful open tournament. Trying to partition it into 2 events somehow seems just to be awkward, it might just lessen both. Why can't there be a European Go Congress, with a European Open Champion, and at some other time in the year, a closed European Championship. You could combine a closed Championship with the respective Youth and Female categories.

Well, for one, a separate EC at some other time might mean that many top players would stay away from the EGC. Because people only have so much free time, and travel can be expensive. Maybe you don't care, but a lot of people do like to see the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin at the EGC, and do like to watch their games live.

Combining the EC with Youth and Female categories might force many players to make an undesirable choice. E.g. does Svetlana Shikshina play EC or EFC?

[Javaness2]

I think that the top players could afford to attend more than 2 events a year - particularly as the EGF spends a good deal of its budget on subsidies for the top players. So for example, if we had a meaningful, sponsored, well organised, closed championship, we could get rid of the SAWMG qualifier.

If women/children are strong enough, they shouldn't need to play in the patronising events anyway

[Matti]

@Matti: Your proposed system has an inherent unbalance due to the optional presence of a non-European player in the round robin. If you are in a group with 4 Europeans, you must win at least 2/3 games to continue, 3/3 to get in the upper group. If there is one non-European, you only need 1/2 for going through and 2/2 for getting to the upper group. How do you propose to decide which European players get the relatively easier groups?

I would anticipate getting 16 non-European players to the groups, if not at the first, later. Anyway I would put the weakest European players into groups of four Europeans.

Which means that the strongest players get paired together already in the round robin phase? That sounds like a bad idea.

No. To be more precise if their would be n groups with four Europeans, the n weakest players will be divided in those groups, one in each.

I think this would need to be worked out further.

It will be worked further, if the system gets supported.

[Matti]

For me, the problem is that the European Go Congress is now a very successful open tournament. Trying to partition it into 2 events somehow seems just to be awkward, it might just lessen both. Why can't there be a European Go Congress, with a European Open Champion, and at some other time in the year, a closed European Championship. You could combine a closed Championship with the respective Youth and Female categories.

The problem is inertia. Next four European Go Congresses have been decided. The hosting countries expect that the European Championship will be resolved in the tournament during the Congress. If the European Championship is taken away from the Congress the organisers would feel having been cheated. The change should be planned four years ahead.

The European Go Congress lasts two weeks. It is possible to have an Open and a Closed Championship, if one is flexible with making the schedule.

[ez4u]

What is the point of trying to fudge a European Championship into an Open Championship?

You might as well ask: what's the point of keeping Ireland separate from the UK?

Some people want it, some people don't. The people that want it try to find ways to do it, the people that don't make disparaging remarks about how it is pointless.

(And the same answer applies to pwaldron's remark).

Herman, it would be quite easy to rephrase this so as to praise those who support separate championships and to disparage those who do not. However, to my eye that would run the risk of violating item 1. of the forum rules (especially if we named names), wouldn't it?

[HermanHiddema]

Herman, it would be quite easy to rephrase this so as to praise those who support separate championships and to disparage those who do not. However, to my eye that would run the risk of violating item 1. of the forum rules (especially if we named names), wouldn't it?

Well, the point of my post was certainly not to attack anyone personally. The point of my post was also not actually really to support or oppose whether the EC should be at congress, but rather that neither side has any particularly good or logical reason for their point of view other than: That's the way we want it.

This has been discussed to death in recent years. There has already been a proposal at an AGM (2007, IIRC) to separate the EC from the congress, but that was not popular.

So, given the fact that the majority of players currently seem to want an EC at the congress, I think there is very little point in revisiting that question now. Instead, lets have a constructive discussion on how to do it.

[Bantari]

For me, the problem is that the European Go Congress is now a very successful open tournament. Trying to partition it into 2 events somehow seems just to be awkward, it might just lessen both. Why can't there be a European Go Congress, with a European Open Champion, and at some other time in the year, a closed European Championship. You could combine a closed Championship with the respective Youth and Female categories.

Well, for one, a separate EC at some other time might mean that many top players would stay away from the EGC. Because people only have so much free time, and travel can be expensive. Maybe you don't care, but a lot of people do like to see the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin at the EGC, and do like to watch their games live.

Combining the EC with Youth and Female categories might force many players to make an undesirable choice. E.g. does Svetlana Shikshina play EC or EFC?

Not to distract you guys from your wise and interesting discussions, but a small point here:
I would assume that 'the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin' are probably playing in more than 1 tournament a year. So, with separate EGS and EC (or whatever) being the two most prestigious (and most prize-y) toruneys out there - they would most likely attend both. Maybe some other, more minor tournament will suffer, but hey - can't have everything, no?

Anyways - did anybody asked the Euro-elite what *they* really want? I think it should be mostly up to them to say what seems better for them.
And by the way... many other sports have separate open and closed championships. Not sure why there is such resistance to that in Go.
Just my 2c.

[HermanHiddema]

Not to distract you guys from your wise and interesting discussions, but a small point here:
I would assume that 'the likes of Taranu, Dinerchtein and Shikshin' are probably playing in more than 1 tournament a year. So, with separate EGS and EC (or whatever) being the two most prestigious (and most prize-y) toruneys out there - they would most likely attend both. Maybe some other, more minor tournament will suffer, but hey - can't have everything, no?

Anyways - did anybody asked the Euro-elite what *they* really want? I think it should be mostly up to them to say what seems better for them.
And by the way... many other sports have separate open and closed championships. Not sure why there is such resistance to that in Go.
Just my 2c.

Well yes, except the EGC lasts two weeks, which is quite an investment of time. Unless the prize-money is relatively high, which would be less likely if it is not the EC, many strong players might prefer to spend that time otherwise.

And yes, these players have been asked. There has even been a "strong players committee" to look at things, but AFAIK they had a hard time finding participants and didn't reach consensus.

[Javaness2]

If you have sponsorship, I believe that you can make a closed European Championship that everyone will love, and all the top players will be happy to play in it. It would be nice to see various strong players, say >2550, sit down, draft some some proposals, and submit them to the table. You'd imagine that the strong players' committee was supposed to come up with that sort of thing, but for various reasons it never did. Until it does, I think we'll just have a series of motions which either get shot down, or get adopted then shot down later.

[Bantari]

Well yes, except the EGC lasts two weeks, which is quite an investment of time. Unless the prize-money is relatively high, which would be less likely if it is not the EC, many strong players might prefer to spend that time otherwise.

Might?...
I say - lets try it.
EGS is thought of as the yearly Go-festival of Europe. It might also be that everybody who is somebody in European Go (and even everybody who wants to be somebody) will find a way to show up. For play, but also for teach, for buy, for sell, for advertise, for network, and whatnot. Its just a guess, but assuming people will not show up is also a guess. Unless we try we might never know for sure.

Anyways - an easy solution is to make placements in the Open to be taken into account when inviting for the Closed.
Its all solvable, unless there are other issues. For example: no possible financing for EC and EGC separately. But then - no need to discuss, its not gonna happen, period. Moot point.

And yes, these players have been asked. There has even been a "strong players committee" to look at things, but AFAIK they had a hard time finding participants and didn't reach consensus.

The voices I seem to remember from this forum were: strong players for separate events (with the main ideas being EC being 'more meaningful' this way and the Euro-elite will be able to count on more prize-money without having to compete with strong asians) vs. weak players in fear asians will not show up or whatever. But I am not really plugged tightly to the European Go community, so maybe there were other issues raised in other discussions.