World Amateur Go Championship 2016 in Wuxi, China

[Uberdude]

And I'm not sure China (Bai) was much stronger than Korea (Kim): they reviewed for a long time and it seemed they both had chances, Kim was pretty rueful about his overly passive play when he thought he was ahead (though I don't know if Bai agreed with that judgement).

[Uberdude]

The results are now available in the nice formating of the European Go Database. http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/To ... n=14337147
As my forfeit loss was rated (aren't they normally unrated?) I actually lost rating which reflects my strange weak yet 5 wins result.

[Javaness2]

Their is no fixed convention for loss by forfeit - maybe the EGF should have agreed upon one by now.

[mumps]

My result was rather strange: my aim before the tournament was to do better than recent UK representatives, notably Andrew Kay's 4 wins and 24/56 in 2013 (Matthew Macfadyen 6d and Bei Ge 5d got 5 wins and 21/68 and 16/68 in 2008 and 2007 respectively). I achieved this with 5 wins and 21/56 but it didn't really feel deserved given the weak opponents I beat: I only beat 1 player stronger than 1 dan. My SOS was absolutely awful at 52 which was lower than any player on 4 wins (the highest 4 wins SOS was 78, and highest 3 wins was 68).

I suspect the reason is that, like the KPMC, without actually telling anybody they may be running a McMahon tournament setting the players from countries who featured below half-way at a lower start point than the rest (or something like that).

So the UK player next year will have a tougher draw than you did!

Thanks!!!!

Jon

[Javaness2]

Well I don't think that they ran a McMahon system this year, much to the despair of some. I think that I read (in Ranka) that the approach taken was just to separate the 4 top seeds, so that they did not meet too early. I think McMahon is only a good choice if you consider the ordering of the top 10 places to be important.

[Uberdude]

It was indeed not a last-years-position-seeded McMahon (I played Csaba 6d from Hungary in round 1 and Hungary came 9th last year) but a "Chinese-style" Swiss as described in the below photo from the tournament brochure. It was rather fortunate that China beat Japan by half a point because if they had a 3-way tie on 7 wins Korea's SOS would have sucked from playing John Gibson 5k from Ireland in the first round. A banded Mc-Mahon as was used at the WAGC last year in Bangkok does sound like a better system to me, as would taking out the 1d Chinese ghost when Madagascar didn't turn up rather than giving 8 players no games and a free win. As it was the likely 2 weakest players (Belarus and India) never played each other and never got to win an actual game, just a default win each against Madagascar.

20160612_111424.jpg (119.11 KiB) Viewed 15242 times

[Matti]

No one from Finland. I wonder why?

I heard just afterwards, that my name had been missing from the web page, although it was there just before the tournament. Also, when receiving players at the Pudong airport, my name was not on their list.

[nukeu666]

Great, the Indian player gets last position again

When I reach dan level

[Uberdude]

Great, the Indian player gets last position again

When I reach dan level

Are you Indian? At 8k KGS you aren't much weaker (if at all) than their player this year who was quite a lot weaker than a 1 kyu European. Here's my game with him.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/12/Uberdude-2.sgf

[nukeu666]

Yup, I'm from India
That game looked pretty one-sided, seems I won't have to aim too high to get significantly better than him
Otoh, can't believe the indian go assoc. couldn't find anyone stronger who could fund their own travel

Are sgf's for all the matches available on ranka or is that only for top rated players?

[Uberdude]

Yup, I'm from India
That game looked pretty one-sided, seems I won't have to aim too high to get significantly better than him
Otoh, can't believe the indian go assoc. couldn't find anyone stronger who could fund their own travel
Are sgf's for all the matches available on ranka or is that only for top rated players?

I don't know how the India Go Association picks players, but apparently Soni Shah 1d from last year was really about 1d strength. In http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/To ... n=16962231 it shows her beating 2 5ds (from South Africa and Mexico), though looking at their results 5d looks rather dubious for them (also losing to European 2k, 1k, 1d, and losing to European 1d, 2k).

During the tournament the winner was asked to record the game afterwards on some laptops in the playing room so the organisers should have sgfs for most games. After some hassling from players they said they would publish them, but I don't know if/where/when that will happen. I've been re-recording my games when I got home.

Best of luck, hope you get to go to the WAGC some day!

[Uberdude]

Here are my 8 games, in case anyone is interested. The first against Csaba had some comments from Yamashiro Hiroshi 9p.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/12/Uberdude.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/12/Uberdude-2.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/17/Uberdude.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/17/Uberdude-2.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/17/Uberdude-3.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/17/Uberdude-4.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/19/Uberdude.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2016/6/19/Uberdude-2.sgf

[quantumf]

I don't know how the India Go Association picks players, but apparently Soni Shah 1d from last year was really about 1d strength. In http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/To ... n=16962231 it shows her beating 2 5ds (from South Africa and Mexico), though looking at their results 5d looks rather dubious for them (also losing to European 2k, 1k, 1d, and losing to European 1d, 2k).

This drew my attention because South Africa only has one 5d, and is not a citizen, so doesn't play in the WAGC. John Leuner, the apparent 5d, is actually 3d on our system*. Still a good win for the Indian player, of course. I see she improved quite a bit, because I remember her from the WAGC in 2013, where she was entered as a 2k, which was probably about right given her results: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/To ... y=W130901A

*Our recent results in the Pandanet tournament do suggest that South Africa are a bit over-ranked, by 1 or perhaps even 2 stones, at least compared to European ranks.

[Babelardus]

I see things such as "record the game afterward"; is it expected that someone can memorize the entire game?

In chess tournaments, it is (or at least was, when I still played tournaments) obligatory to record a game on paper, and submit a copy to the tournament direction. Now, the submission is mostly handled by the DGT computer chess board, at least for the top players, but I think they still record games.

[dfan]

In chess tournaments, it is (or at least was, when I still played tournaments) obligatory to record a game on paper, and submit a copy to the tournament direction.

It still is, except for fast games. In the US players don't usually hand in their scoresheets, though.

Now, the submission is mostly handled by the DGT computer chess board, at least for the top players, but I think they still record games.

Yes, they still do.