Proposal #1: Add the Grand Prix finals to the list of major tournaments of the year. Tournament winner should receive 10 LDPs and wins against pros should count (1 LDP).

Proposal #2: Add the annual 2-week GO congress open tournament to the list of major tournaments. Tournament winner should receive 10 LDPs and wins against pros should count (1 LDP per win).

Currently, wins against pros in Bonus C tournaments count and you gen an extra point for winning the tournament, but you get nothing for winning the open? That doesn't seem right.

Proposal #3. Allow a player to become pro by winning 30 LDPs. The LDPs would be won the same way pros win them (by winning against pros and for winning tournaments). The amateur LDPs expire after 10 years.

Proposal #4. Change the mechanism for achieving pro status to be as follows:
A pro slot becomes available every two years. An amateur is awarded Pro status by collecting 30 LDPs or by winning a promotion tournament.
In the year in which the pro slot becomes available, the promotion is as follows:
a) If two or more players have 30 LDPs, these (and only these) will play a round robin tournament and the winner becomes the new pro.
d) If only one player has 30 LDPs, that player becomes pro and no promotion tournament is organized.
e) If no player has 30 LDPs, a promotion tournament will decide the new pro player. All players with at least 10 LDPs or with rating of 2600 or higher are automatically invited to this tournament.

An amateur player could win LDPs as follows:
1) win against pros in European Championship, Grand Slam, Grand Prix Final, Bonus A, B or C tournaments. (If proposal #2 is accepted, in the GO congress 2-week open as well).
2) Win the European Championship, Grand Slam, Grand Prix Final, Bonus A, B or C tournaments

At first glance, proposal #3 would dilute the quality of pros. But I don't think that would be the case. Right now, to become a pro, you need to 3 wins in a tournament against other amateurs. Andrii Kravets became pro by winning 3 games in 2017 European Pro Qualification Tournament. One could argue he had to win a lot more to take part in that tournament, but let's leave that aside for a moment.

So current way of becoming a pro is to win 3 times against other strong amateurs. My proposal is to also become pro by constantly racking up wins against pros and amateurs. Keep in mind that unlike pros, amateurs cannot take place in annual pro championship. So to gain 30 LDPs, they would win 30 times against pros, or to keep winning Level A, B and C tournament, or to win the Grand Slam or Grand Prix a couple of times. Or to win against pros in world tournaments.

And I believe this second way of becoming a pro is much harder than winning an 8-player tournament of other amateur candidates.

And the amount of LDPs was calculated from the current points progression system. It seems you need extra 10 LDPs to get from one rank to the next:
1p -> 2p = 40 LDPs
2p -> 3p = 50 LDPs, etc

So it seems natural that
0p -> 1p = 30 LDPs

Seems a resonable proposal, but first I propose listing the EGF pros on the EGF website (in an easy to find place), with a little bio and promotion history/explanation.

Actually, they did do that! https://eurogofed.org/pros/
I remember thread(s) here some months(?) ago where I "complained" about the lack of informations about pros and (commented) games on the EGF website so it seems things are moving forward!

Regarding #3, I think that the title of professional will become meaningless (too devalued) if amateurs are allowed to qualify through a points based system.

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North Lecale

You get this kind of thing in contract bridge, where one can accumulate points via sitzfleisch. One answer is to have amateur's points decay at a moderate rate, such as 10% per year.

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The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

"Once in a very great while his eyes light up for a moment, and he says "Whee!" very quietly."
— Lion Miller

How do they do it in chess ? Did they switch to a 100% ELO-based system for everyone, amateurs and (grand/international) masters alike, some years ago ? There's no such thing as a "pro (grandmaster) qualification tourney" in chess, is there ? Anyone's current ELO rating is all that matters ? So one must come continue to actively participate in the top tourneys to remain relevant with their ELO rating ?

Cho Insun is the first to become a Korean pro through their point accumulation system. But the bar is really high.

I agree. The only alternative would be to set a very high point threshold, but that might make qualification take too long for those who should qualify.

This is a bit far afield, but American Sporting Clays shooting has a slightly different version of this decay system. There are different levels of competition, and shooters accumulate points at each level by placing against similarly ranked opponents. Once they meet a specific threshold, they get bumped up to the next level. However, points expire after two years. So, players can't drift upwards after winning the odd competition every few years.

I don't think we would have that problem. But to assuage this concern, I would change #3 rule to be as follows:

Proposal #3. Allow a player to become pro by winning 30 LDPs. The LDPs would be won the same way pros win them (by winning against pros and for winning tournaments). Amateur LDPs expire after 10 years, so only the points accumulated in the last 10 years can be used to gain professional status.

I believe the players become pros faster through the Pro qualification tournament than through the points accumulation system. I will do a check, but I think Artem Kachanovskyi would become pro in 2018, after winning Kido Cup in May 2018. That is over a year after he became pro through the tournament. And Katchanovski is one of the stronger pros (I believe he will become 2P before Matheusz Surma).

And with the points system, the newest pro (Andrii Kravetz) would be years away from becoming pro. Kravetz accumulated only 2 LDPs in one year.

Still, the EGF wants to limit the number of pros. That's why there will be no qualification tournament this year. So why allow a new route via a points system?
I don't think it will happen.

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North Lecale

I think the points system is fairer. The points system would give pro status to someone who consistently beats the pros rather than someone with a good performance in only one tournament. I also believe someone who gets in through the points system would reach 2p faster than the ones who get in through the qualification tournament.

Also, at the moment I don't there is anybody that would be close to becoming pro using points. The pros keep winning against the strongest amateurs and there are very few players winning multiple bonus tournaments.

Another reason might be to encourage the top players to play as many bonus A, B, C tournaments as possible.

Amateurs getting points and playing against amateurs is how pros qualify in Japan. The inseis are amateurs and the pro qualification tournament players are all amateurs. A very few others become pros by different methods, such as Hiraoka Satoshi who won the WAGC twice and passed a test playing a match against a 9p. I doubt anyone would say Hiraoka didn't deserve his pro status.

I presume you mean Sakai Hideyuki, who went on to win a Gosei title, earned places in leagues and picked up several Kansai Ki-in 1st places. Hiraoka was still an amateur, last time I met him in WAGC in Thailand.

Cheers,
Vesa

Yes, I meant Sakai. Thanks for the correction.

I created a list of amateur players that have accumulated LDPs through my unofficial system. You can see it at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18cQPKamnkSUBgLQoc1ATLov-YxDT99z-YThP_6iXifA/edit#gid=536177528.

This list shows that it is very difficult to accumulate these LDPs. After 3.5 years, only one player (Cristian Pop) would have 10LDPs.

3 other players have 4 (Dusan Mitic, Lukas Podpera and Thomas Debarre). It is pretty clear to me that my proposal would not dilute or lower the quality of professional players. It is much easier to achiave Pro status by winning the promotion tournament than by accumulating LDPs.

Ilya Shikshin didn't give any LDPs to amateur players. Pavol Lisy has given up the most, but I think that is because he plays a lot of tournaments.

Also, according to my calculations, Ali Jabarin should already be 2p. The only thing holding up his promotion is because they haven't decided how many points to give for winning the Grand Prix final. Mateusz Surma is only 1 point away from 2p status.