Korean opinion: EGC system

[Javaness]

The more I see the more I agree with Java. Let the congress pick the top 8 Europeans who then play a double round-robin tournament to decide the European champion.

A double round robin would need a whole week to play, I was only advocating a single round robin. 7 games in 4 days.

[LovroKlc]

The more I see the more I agree with Java. Let the congress pick the top 8 Europeans who then play a double round-robin tournament to decide the European champion.

A double round robin would need a whole week to play, I was only advocating a single round robin. 7 games in 4 days.

This would be ideal, but maybe hard to organise. Breakfast made a better suggestion, about online qualifying.

[RobertJasiek]

7 games in 4 days is not ideal at all:

- Too few players in the championship.
- Too small thinking times.
- Too few rounds.
- Number of rounds violates an AGM decision.
- 2 games per day further reduce playing quality.

[quantumf]

Too few players in the championship.

Everyone who took part in the online qualification is part of the championship. Having "only" 8 in the final stage is still exciting for spectators.

Too small thinking times/2 games per day further reduce playing quality

Are you professionals that are paid to play go? No, championship needs to be compressed to fit in with leave arrangements etc.

Too few rounds/Number of rounds violates an AGM decision

A bureacratic matter.

[Javaness]

I think 8 players in a championship is very common, but I am not surprised to see Robert claim otherwise. The EGC was decided many times with an 8 player group.

[gowan]

...

b) Giving some legitimate recognition to the strongest European player.

A sub-problem of b) is defining "European."

From discussion on GD and other places (RGG?) it was made clear that a big reason for excluding "non-Europeans" is because the European players want the prize money. Likewise I think it could be said that some of the Asian players come to the EGC because they can win prize money. However, it costs them a lot to come and without a chance to win money covering their expenses maybe they wouldn't come at all.

There is no reason why an open tournament can't be used to determine the championship unless the European Champion is supposed to win the top prize money. If there are players who the "Europeans" can't beat then the "European" champion becomes similar to a contest decided by who climbs the highest up an unclimbable mountain. That seems an entirely reasonable way to determine a champion. As for the prize money, it really does seem that some strong European players view the prize money as "theirs" to win and are upset that "foreigners" win it. Regardless of actual intention, excluding foreigners from the tournament has the same effect as if there were an intention to discriminate. When some action has the same effect as a wrong action, intention isn't important.

I'm afraid that excluding the Asian players makes the people who manage European Go Congress look very petty indeed.

[RobertJasiek]

quantumf, the long thinking time is great! It produces high quality games. One does not need to be a paid professional to use long thinking times.

[RobertJasiek]

Javaness, 8 players round-robin in the past was ok since at those times there were comparatively few strong players.

Nowadays, there are lots of more strong players. 8 (or 10 or so) players round-robin would still be ok if the 8 players were qualified by a highly reliable seeding procedure like, e.g., a series of qualification tournaments.

[RobertJasiek]

gowan, prize money is not the only, but just one of the aspects.

I'm afraid that excluding the Asian players makes the people who manage European Go Congress look very petty indeed.

Why do you think so?

[topazg]

7 games in 4 days is not ideal at all:

- Too few players in the championship.
- Too small thinking times.
- Too few rounds.
- Number of rounds violates an AGM decision.
- 2 games per day further reduce playing quality.

Sure, but without subsidies you want the top players. I would love to see a double round robin, with a game per day, taking a whole fortnight. You can have 4 hours per player per match thinking time if you like, you have more rounds than in any other European tournament, and no issues with game quality.

However, how do you propose getting 8 top European players to take a fortnight off, likely in a foreign country, with no expenses paid, just for a single tournament? If this is manageable, I would love to see this format, else it's a matter of making the most of what can be done with the resources around.

Selection for this top 8 could be the top 8 Europeans from the Go congress, or a number of other possibilities like awarded points for results across the various PandaNet European tournaments.

[Jonas]

I only attended the EGC once in 2009 (gronningen) and played there as a 4kyu. I was paired with 3 asian players (2x jap, 1x Kor) and I really really enjoyed the cultural exchange. Analysing the game with Mr. Masashi is one of my treasured memorys when I think back

Therefore I think excluding all asians from takeing part in the main torunament would be a shame! Seperating the European Championship from the maintournament seems the best solution. I think an online qualifier with the top 32 europeans several weeks before the congress is a really good idea. The winner of the online qualifier is allowed to challange the euro-champion of the previous year.

[topazg]

gowan, prize money is not the only, but just one of the aspects.

I'm afraid that excluding the Asian players makes the people who manage European Go Congress look very petty indeed.

Why do you think so?

This should at least be obvious. It looks like "You're too good for us, and you're spoiling our fun. Go away" regardless of how it is intended.

The only way for it not to look like this is to have a separate European Championship and make sure that the "main" congress tournament is still open to the Koreans. Having the dates separate is in the interests of the European Championship anyway: If I was a European 7 dan, I'd choose the open over the championship any day to get the chance of such top level games, so the only thing that would suffer by hosting at the same time is you'd lose top Europeans from the championship, which would then risk it being a bit of a farce.

[RobertJasiek]

Jonas, online go is very different from real world go. (E.g., players have very different quality of hardware equipment.) Therefore online qualification for real world finals is a bad idea.

[RobertJasiek]

Nobody has suggested to make the main tournament closed. So why do several of you express a fear that it might?

If someone reads a wrong interpretation (like the one you suggest) into an EC system reform, then that is his problem.

Since you are not a 7d, your farce fear is immaterial.

[topazg]

Jonas, online go is very different from real world go. (E.g., players have very different quality of hardware equipment.) Therefore online qualification for real world finals is a bad idea.

Ah, but Robert, real world Go is very different to online Go (e.g. players may not have the financial ability to afford getting to extra tournaments outside their own country). Both systems have natural handicaps for that player to be involved in a real world finals. Unless you are claiming that the game itself is somehow different, I find this a very weak argument. I suspect significantly more people are excluded by cost and difficulty of travel than they are by hardware equipment.

Since you are not a 7d, your farce fear is immaterial.

Nonsense. It's how I view the game, and if I do, someone else may as well. Unless you are saying that "unless you are yourself likely to be eligible for the championship, your opinion doesn't count", in which case why have this thread?