Best super group size on EGC

[Liisa]

There are two aspects that are needed to include to this conversation. 1) No one that has chance of winning European Championship should not be excluded from the super group. (that means absolutely no one no matter how wrong is her rank!) 2) EGF ranks are really poor measure of strength because different countries has different traditions for giving ranks and people's playing skill may degrade when they grow old.

For some extremely odd reason European ranks are limited to 7 dan although it is clear that Breakfast's actual skill is 8 dan and strong Korean "amateur" 7 dans can reach European 9 dan level. On the other hand some European 5 dan players are more like 3 dans or less and does not have any chances against typical young and strong Finnish 3 dan player.

And according to my calculations strength difference between 9 dan and 3 dan is six stones. Thus Breakfast is not exaggerating his 4-5 stone estimate within current 32 player super group. But Breakfast should be cautious with his urge of limiting super group size, because it is always possible that some young players who has strong will can be though opponent for any old top European player (although not for young Koreans!). Breakfast himself has lost at least few games against some young Finnish 2 dan players in even (teaching) games. That should tell something how poor estimate EGF ranks are in estimating actual playing skill.

Perhaps we should include young 4 dans to super group, but exclude old 5 dans from super group. And for the rest we might have some creative usage of GoR for selecting super group.

[HermanHiddema]

No. I will try to help you sorting this out later. In the meantime, you might read more on the topic elsewhere, where I have explained most (RGG, SL, GD, here?).

Well, there is also your claim that the AGM 2008 changed the supergroup rule to "ca. 32", but the minutes of the 2008 AGM do not support that assertion. In fact, the section about the Rules Commission (section 9 a.) reads, in its entirity: "The Rules Commission is continuing and will complete their report next year."

And under section 16) AOB (Any Other Business) there is: "Rules Commission will consider changing the super group and bar rules."

[willemien]

Robert, what will be the supergroup size this year in Tampere?
I am not sure, will I take part or not, so it's important to find more info.

Right now there are only few Asians registered - it's unusual.

It's hard to find any info on prizes -it's the biggest problem.

You spend 2 weeks, teach lot of 4-5 dans, play only few games with equal/stronger opponents and get 500 Euro at the end (less than the hotel fee).
The title is important, but it's a very expensive to get it!

Right now the Congress is not attractive for top europeans, so usually we can see only few of them

I did read it but it was caused by 4 equal (by mcMahon score) players for 3 prizes.
if you were the clear winner you would have won 1000 Euro

I do have my questions about the prize money. it looked that only a third of the total prize money was spend on the top 6 prizes of the whole tournament. ( the top prizes being the 3 open and 3 european top prizes)

[RobertJasiek]

EGF ranks are really poor measure of strength

EGF ratings are a worse measure, e.g., because a player with 1 rated game is compared with another player with 1000 rated games.

For some extremely odd reason European ranks are limited to 7 dan

Are they? Pairing programs might have a 7d limit but in principle it is not prohibited to have 8d or 9d (would be just another artificial limit) or 10d. Players are realistic enough maybe not to call themselves 8d, which would claim to be as strong as a WAGC winner.

although it is clear that Breakfast's actual skill is 8 dan

Clear by which standard? E.g., Jürgen Mattern won more ECs but was 6d at his peak. E.g., Alexander is about as strong as the Korean 7d at EGCs; does this make him 8d?! There is no need to push inflation a la Nihon Kiin, by whose standard I am 8d.

typical young and strong Finnish 3 dan player.

That young Finnish, all Czech and all Polish players are underranked by one rank is well known. (Those ranks have prevented me from getting 1st place in EGC 13x13 championships with their rank-difference komis.)

Thus Breakfast is not exaggerating his 4-5 stone estimate within current 32 player super group.

He has been ambiguous about the reference; he might have meant one of a) 5d opponents, b) supergroup members, c) his opponents in all EGCs.

some young Finnish 2 dan players in even (teaching) games. That should tell something how poor estimate EGF ranks are in estimating actual playing skill.

Finnish ranks rather than EGF ranks.

Perhaps we should include young 4 dans to super group, but exclude old 5 dans from super group.

Discrimination by age violates human and basic rights.

[RobertJasiek]

Herman, if we took the notoriously weak protocols as the standard, then the EGF should better dissolve itself.

[RobertJasiek]

1. The AGM made a decision in 1996 on supergroup size, saying it should be "up to 32"

This is what we get from the EGF webpage, for which such old contents has been available only for a few years now (maybe since ca. 2005).

Up to about the late 90ies, the EC was also a Fujitsu GP tournament, for which the EGF Fujitsu GP Guidelines and EGF Fujitsu GP Regulations applied. Afterwards usage of those rulesets for the EC was continued also because otherwise there would have been rules gaps.

One of these two rulesets specified that a 10 rounds tournament has a supergroup if there are more than 48 players 4d+. (Therefore in 2001, 2006 and maybe another year there was no supergroup at all but just a big top bar group 4d+.) It also specified that, if there is a supergroup, its size is 32.

Now, with the knowledge of both the Fujitsu rulesets and the 1996 AGM decision, there are three possible interpretations:

a) Both are applied and combined with the result that "up to 32" may be only "exactly 32".

b) The Fujitsu rulesets override the AGM decision.

c) The AGM decision overrides the Fujitsu rulesets.

It is at least not obvious which of these interpretations was correct.

In the practice of the years 1997+ though, that AGM decision was:

1) Forgotton by those EGC Committee members supervising the tournament supervisors. (IIRC, the only EGC Committee member to supervise was Alan Held, then EGF President, up to 1997 head of the Rules Commission, 1997 actively participating in the tournament supervising, 1998 passively supervising the tournament supervising by the present Rules Commission members.)

2) Forgotten and / or unknown by the old Rules Commission members: Alan Held, Matti Siivola, Niek van Diepen, Hans Mulder, Matthew Macfadyen.

3) Unknown to the new Rules Commission member Robert Jasiek, who joined the commission as apprentice member in about winter 1996/7 and as official member in summer 1997.

Maybe "forgotten" is a too strong word. Maybe it was an implicit awareness that time turned into collectively forgotten knowledge because it was not recalled explicitly so that others would have been aware of the existence.

2. The rules commission, when supervising congresses 1997-2009, decided on ca. 32 players every year.

No. In some years, according to the rules, the supergroup was not formed. In years with a supergroup, the size was set as 32, with a (very) few exceptions (I think in 2007 a delayed players and maintenance of the even parity let us set 34, while Oleg Gavrilov, EGC Committee member supervised pretty actively).

The "ca." was available only since 2009 (i.e., after the AGM 2008 with its acclamation change from exactly to ca.; and the change from exactly 4d as lower rank to at least ca. 4d.) So only since 2009 the tournament supervisors have considered application of the "ca.".

3. In 2010, the EGF committee want to make a rules change about tie breakers.

The EGF Committee did make that decision in autumn 2009. Until April 2010, this was codified in the written rules. Several proofreading cycles between Rules Commission and EGF Committee took place until announcement.

4. As part of this, the rules commission wrote down the "verbal" rules, based on "usual" practice.

The verbal rules were written down years earlier to allow the Rules Commission itself to recall them well and were agreed as verbal rules with written reference within the commission. In 2009/2010, only the EGF Committee tiebreaker change (and a bit more headline structure) was added. Otherwise no new change was made, except that now the rules are accepted as regular written particular tournament ruleset.

(BTW, such codification practice between EGF Committee and Rules Commission had already been used earlier for other important tournaments like the Toyota Tour series. Every year's setting which rules of play are chosen for which boards on an EGC main tournament follow a similar practice, but purely verbal or informal by email exchange during the codification process relying on currently predominating sponsorship. So what excites you a lot is pretty common. IOW, the EGF does work rather than sleep:))

5. The rules commission told the EGF committee that the supergroup rule is "ca. 32" (a mistake)

Neither is it a mistake nor did the Rules Commission need to tell the EGF Committee; it was public part of the AGM 2008.

5. The EGF committee trusted the rules commissions on this, and accepted the written down rules in April 2010.

There was no need for specific trust because cooperation was closer than that: several cycles of (chances for or actual) proofreadings.

6. The rules commission is now claiming that their own mistake overrules a valid AGM decision.

It is unclear whether it was a mistake in the years 1997+, see above.

The AGM decision of 1996 was effectively overridden already since 1997 by a) the Fujitsu GP rulesets and b) the EGF bodies, see above.

Not only the current Rules Commission but also the former Rules Commission, the former tournament supervisors, and the supervisors of the EGF Committee overrode it. So consistently that effectively there has been a different rule (given due to the Fujitsu rulesets) that has been the valid, applied rule.

Maybe history would have been different if any players had pointed out the weak position of the 1996 AGM decision already in 1997. Now it is 2010 that the epic failure during the last 13 years is discovered;)

[Liisa]

Clear by which standard? E.g., Jürgen Mattern won more ECs but was 6d at his peak. E.g., Alexander is about as strong as the Korean 7d at EGCs; does this make him 8d?! There is no need to push inflation a la Nihon Kiin, by whose standard I am 8d.

By GoR standard. Breakfast's record is 2774 and that should go for weak 8 dan player. But many problems with EGC would resolve immediately, if we just throw kyuu-dan ranks to the trash bin. It is just better to use plain GoR for deciding McMahon groups. E.g. 2422 would translate to 4d rank and 2328 player would play as 3d.

At least we could pair somewhat well those Japanese Sunday players, because as you suggested, Nihon Ki'in ranks have not much relevance in Europe.

And to your notice, Jasiek. Those Korean 7 dan amateurs dropped some four 7-9 dan professionals from BC Card Cup (including Lee Changho 9 dan). Korean professional system is just sick. And I am quite sure that professional 9 dan would go roughly as european 9 dan.

[RobertJasiek]

Rating-derived ranks and traditional rank systems are two different things. It is quite possible to find a rating definition so that Alexander is rating-8d.

Using the rating system is bad because... see earlier posts here and elsewhere...

[topazg]

E.g. 2422 would translate to 4d rank and 2328 player would play as 3d.

Except as we all know, because people largely only play against others within their own country, 2400 in one country could be a stone or more different to 2400 in another country...

[Javaness]

Rating-derived ranks and traditional rank systems are two different things. It is quite possible to find a rating definition so that Alexander is rating-8d.

Using the rating system is bad because... see earlier posts here and elsewhere...

The rating system would be an excellent way to get rid of the ridiculous 4 dan bar.

[Liisa]

E.g. 2422 would translate to 4d rank and 2328 player would play as 3d.

Except as we all know, because people largely only play against others within their own country, 2400 in one country could be a stone or more different to 2400 in another country...

This is not quite true, because variation with kyuu-dan ranks are far bigger between countries. Japan vs. European ranks is the biggest problem and that alone outweighs any other comparisons, because Japanese players are one of the most numerous groups (70 or so players per congress). And if it were a problem it is easy to fix. Right now it is not that big issue that it should be fixed.

[Harleqin]

E.g. 2422 would translate to 4d rank and 2328 player would play as 3d.

Except as we all know, because people largely only play against others within their own country, 2400 in one country could be a stone or more different to 2400 in another country...

This is not quite true, because variation with kyuu-dan ranks are far bigger between countries.

Just that the variation of ranks is often presumed even worse does not make the variation of ratings better.

Perhaps someone should take the EGD data and feed it to a whole history rating algorithm.

[simpkin]

Finding all the email addresses would be more work than we would want to do any time soon.

It is possible that I am missing something here, but at present my reaction to this is to say "what the DICKENS?!?"

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the EGF has not kept a list including email addresses for the people who've become Certified Referees in the last, say, decade?

Obviously, this list would not include everyone who's ever been certified ever (assuming that certifying referees goes back a long way; I only actually heard that the concept existed recently, and have been able to find out astoundingly little about it, so I don't know how old it is). Also, people's email addresses do change, so a few more people might not be on the list.

But still. EGF officials who need it should surely have access to a reasonably complete list of Certified Referees, including their email addresses? If not, unless I have grossly misunderstood something, the situation is ridiculous.

And to put my money where my mouth is: if the EGF is really in a position where it has a list of referees but no contact details for them, I am happy to donate some time to researching contact details for some of them. I'm not going to say for all of them, just in case there are actually thousands, but I'm willing to help. I want to know exactly how the situation has arisen, though.

[RobertJasiek]

Javaness, the lower bound for the 4d bar is not as ridiculous as you think. In Dublin, only 17 Europeans 5d+ played all rounds. Without 4d as the bar, the poor Finnish, Czech, Polish 4d would be excluded.

simpkin, yes, we do not have a list of current email addresses of all the certified EGF referees. Maybe we should set a rule that they and all prior organizers of EGF tournaments have to always supply the EGF with their current email address?

EGF Certified Referees are created since ca. 2000.

Please send me an email, and we will see if we can sort out it!

[Harleqin]

How does that certification work? What do you need to know, and how is it tested?