EGF 2018

[silviu22]

This year's Open tournament seems to have some really strong players. Last year there were two Asian Pros (Zhang Tao 5p and Li Xiaoxi 2p). But this year's player list is even more impressive: https://egc2018.it/en/players.html. Of course, it remains to be seen if they show up to actually play.

I counted about 11 Asian pros, 6 of whom promising to play both weeks.

It is disappointing to see many of the top European Pros chose to play only the 1st week in the European Tournament (Ilya Shikshin, Artem Kachanovski).

If this keeps up, we might never see an European winning the European Open Championship.

[sorin]

It looks like the organizers listetd the visiting pros who come for teaching only, in the Players page. They won't be playing in the open.

Marketing strategy to encourage more people to register?

[Javaness2]

I thought top players (those in the European Championship) had their tournament fees paid for them starting this year. Is the accommodation so expensive that they can only stay 1 week?

[silviu22]

[quote="sorin"]It looks like the organizers listetd the visiting pros who come for teaching only, in the Players page. They won't be playing in the open.

I believe that the ones with the blue check boxes besides their name will play in the 3 tournaments listed (open 1st and 2nd week + weekend tournament). We'll see.

It is interesting that China (195) and Japan (121) are sending huge delegations. China has 2nd delegation, only 2nd behind Germany. I guess there are some benefits to the Chinese economy becoming so dominant: they can send a lot of tourists.

[Ember]

It is interesting that China (195) and Japan (121) are sending huge delegations. China has 2nd delegation, only 2nd behind Germany. I guess there are some benefits to the Chinese economy becoming so dominant: they can send a lot of tourists.

Japan traditionally has many players coming, it's a yearly organised event for amateur players. And listing the pros who don't play among the players is a normal thing, too. It's been like that for as long as I can remember.

Yeeeaaaaahhh... 6 days to go!!!!

[silviu22]

It looks like the organizers listed the visiting pros who come for teaching only, in the Players page. They won't be playing in the open.

Turns out that only these Asian pros are playing:

Code: Select all

Name                   Level  Rating  Score  Points  goratings rank     rating
Liao, XingWen cn 6 Pro 2800     25      0      25       110              3315
Wang, Shuang cn  3 Pro 2800     24      0      24       500              3035
Zheng, Yuhang cn 3 Pro 2800     24      0      24       657              2952
Xie, Shaobo cn   2 Pro 2800     24      0      24       911              2775

I took the rank and ratings from https://www.goratings.org/en/.

Zheng Yuhang has slightly higher rank than Artem Katchanovski.
Xie Shaobo has a slightly higher rank than Cornel Burzo

Zhang Tao (last year's open winner) is ranked 47, with a rating of 3420.
Li Xiaoxi (last year's 2nd place) is ranked 492, with a rating of 3040.

So this year's Chinese pros playing in the Open are slightly weaker than last year's, but I would still expect the top 3 to be Chinese (or, at least the top 2).

[silviu22]

There is another Asian pro that I missed:

Liu, SiJia (cn 1p) He seems to play in round 1. I couldn't find an exact match for him on goratings. The web site mentions a Lu Jian (5p), who is supposed to be teaching?

I found it quite odd that the last 3 pros (Wang, Shuang cn 3p), Zheng, Yuhang (cn 3p) and Xie, Shaobo (cn 2p) are in second flight with only 24 points. So they are scheduled to play against weaker players (4d, 5d).

The separation into the groups is not obvious to me. In each group there are people with rating that should have put them in higher or lower groups. It seems they take into account whether their rating is increasing or decreasing?

[Uberdude]

I found it quite odd that the last 3 pros (Wang, Shuang cn 3p), Zheng, Yuhang (cn 3p) and Xie, Shaobo (cn 2p) are in second flight with only 24 points. So they are scheduled to play against weaker players (4d, 5d).

Strange indeed. Wang Shuang is a women, so perhaps weaker than the average male 3p, but she's still plenty strong to be in the top group: at the WAGC 2 years ago she played a friendly game with Dusan Mitic (who is top end of euro 6d) and beat him fairly handily. Maybe they want to let weaker players experience even games with pros too?

[silviu22]

Strange indeed. Wang Shuang is a women, so perhaps weaker than the average male 3p, but she's still plenty strong to be in the top group: at the WAGC 2 years ago she played a friendly game with Dusan Mitic (who is top end of euro 6d) and beat him fairly handily. Maybe they want to let weaker players experience even games with pros too?

"Let the weaker players experience games with Pros" seems the best explanation right now. Because I bet Wang Shuang will finish in the top 5. She might even finish 2nd or 3rd, if she does as well as Li Xiaoxi from last year.

It's going to be fun to watch them climb up the standings. They are all around 64th right now, after winning their first game.

[HermanHiddema]

To play in the top group, players must play all rounds. Perhaps these players are only staying one week, and are therefore not eligible to play in the top group?

[Uberdude]

Good idea Herman: those 3 pros are indeed only registered for the first week and weekend.

[silviu22]

To play in the top group, players must play all rounds. Perhaps these players are only staying one week, and are therefore not eligible to play in the top group?

Ah, that's disappointing. I was hoping they will play in 2nd week as well. It was fun watching them rise through the ranks.

Also, turns out Liu, SiJia (1p, China) is a 20-year old female who made pro last year. There seem to be some other Asian pros that will play only in 2nd week. It will be interesting to see how well they do here.

[silviu22]

The organizers are not doing a good job showing the results. The right side text is truncated because they are creating a PDF document in portrait mode. They should render the document in landscape mode.

After round 5, you couldn't see the SOS column.

After round 6, you can't see the score column...

[silviu22]

Congratulations to Yoon, Namgi (7d Korea) for winning the Open tournament. He needed a little help from his fellow Korean-German (Kim, Young-Sam 7d) who defeated the 1st place Kim, Dae-Hyuk (7d Korea).

In the end, the Korean pack took down eventually the top Chinese professional Liao, XingWen (5p) with wins in rounds 8 and 9.

Also congratulations to the 2 Europeans in the top 10: Mateusz Surma 1p and Dominik Boviz 5d. And kudos to Dominik Boviz for reducing his rank to 5d when his rating fell below 2550. His rating will be back above 2550, so he can resume calling himself 6d.

Am a bit sad to see Dominik Boviz defeated my personal favorite (Elian Ioan Grigoriu, 4d from Romania) in the last round. Elian had a great tournament though and will become 5d once the results are recorded. Congratulations, Elian!

I hope Mateusz has gotten stronger after playing the whole 2 weeks. He seems to be the only one truly enjoying this game, since he was the only one who played in round 4, even though he could have taken the day off.

I am a big peeved with the top players who chose to stop playing once they were out of the european championship. Especially at those who lost games 1 and 2 and then went home sulking.

[Uberdude]

I am a big peeved with the top players who chose to stop playing once they were out of the european championship. Especially at those who lost games 1 and 2 and then went home sulking.

How do you know went home sulking? Maybe they stayed at the EGC and had a good time in a more relaxed atmosphere with friends or teaching their students? Or perhaps they went home relieved to be out early and fewer stressful games.