Televised 2010 EGF AGM

[richardamullens]

The 2010 EGF AGM was recorded and can be seen on EuroGoTV1 http://www.ustream.tv/channel/EuroGoTV1

The meeting ran for about 6.5 hours and is divided into 4 parts as follows:

Part 1 060' 34" http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8609667 - Agenda points 1-5
Part 2 138' 18" http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8610926 - Lot of Talk
Part 3 180' 10" http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8613288 - European Championship proposals @ 1:49:25
Part 4 011' 54" http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8616007 - Tail end

The video for part 1 did not work for me

If you want to know how the EGF works and have the stamina then you should watch these videos.

The Agenda for this meeting is at http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/agm2010agenda.txt

Richard

[willemien]

problem the sound of my computer is not working anymore.
but it most be getting late at the end of the meeting.

I will wait for the minutes. (probably it will alsotake less time to read it, but i will miss the buzz

[breakfast]

EGF members voted for the system proposed by British Go Association.
7 rounds as usual, after that - play-offs for best 8 Europeans. After losing in play-offs, Europeans returns to Main tournament.
I can clearly see some pluses, but ...
If we check the current table after round 7: http://www.egc2010.fi/results/egc-main-results.txt
We can see that Taranu is on position number 9.
Imagine: Antti will play in play-off and will have a chance to become the European champion, but Catalin will not.

We will have a poor system again in 2011. But, I guess, I will be happy to see it used in 2010. At least I will have a chance to get better place than Ilya Shikshin and with the current system it looks much harder ( I have to win 3 from 3, Ilya must lose 2 from 3. No hope for SOS, if we get same 8 from 10 points

[Harleqin]

The new system surely is not in force for 2010 already, is it?

[breakfast]

We will see the new system in EGC -2011

[pwaldron]

Imagine: Antti will play in play-off and will have a chance to become the European champion, but Catalin will not.

With those two both being only a single game ahead of a 50% score it's not clear either of them really deserve to be in competition for the European championship. If they want to be champion they have to stop losing games.

[topazg]

Imagine: Antti will play in play-off and will have a chance to become the European champion, but Catalin will not.

With those two both being only a single game ahead of a 50% score it's not clear either of them really deserve to be in competition for the European championship. If they want to be champion they have to stop losing games.

This has been one of my underlying issues with all this EU vs EU required for European champion stuff. If the tiebreak leading European in the open is top because he beat those Korean 7 dans that the other tying Europeans didn't, that should surely count for something ?

[DrStraw]

I cannot believe that the AGM for an amateur association lasted longer than many professional games!

[richardamullens]

EGF members voted for the system proposed by British Go Association.
7 rounds as usual, after that - play-offs for best 8 Europeans. After losing in play-offs, Europeans returns to Main tournament.
I can clearly see some pluses, but ...

Presumably (perhaps depending upon the prize money which might not be announced in advance) a European player with the chance to win the main tournament might prefer to stay in the main tournament (surely this can't be forbidden) and in this case we get the absurdity that the European Champion is not the strongest European.

I would like to understand how it is that last year there was a vote that the European Championship should not be affected by games with Asians. (Now, of course we have a decision that reverses this although it is presented otherwise).

[henric]

EGF members voted for the system proposed by British Go Association.
7 rounds as usual, after that - play-offs for best 8 Europeans. After losing in play-offs, Europeans returns to Main tournament.
I can clearly see some pluses, but ...

I would like to understand how it is that last year there was a vote that the European Championship should not be affected by games with Asians. (Now, of course we have a decision that reverses this although it is presented otherwise).

I think that reflects the way last years' vote was carried out: three questions were thrown on the table for voting, without having been announced on the agenda and without discussion, just as the meeting was to be closed. One doesn't extract any well reflected views that way. From what I heard at the EGC, many were unhappy with the numerous proposals that had been prepared based on last year's decisions.

The proposal that was selected this year was not on this year's agenda either, which is a bit unsatisfactory. I would have preferred to see a final vote to choose between the knock out proposal and not changing anything at all, at least to have a clear picture of what the opinions are.

The knock-out proposal has a history. It was proposed by the Dutch in 2006 (KO after 5 rounds) and by Sweden in 2007 (KO after 8 rounds). In the pre-AGM meeting on thursday last week it came up again, actually proposed by the Russian delegate, suggesting KO after 7 rounds. When people present asked why it had been turned down earlier years, they were told that it had been sort of adjourned, since nobody knew e.g. what the strong players thought about it. Oleg Gavrilov from Russia asked for an investigation based on congress history of who had been the top 8 Europeans after round 7, the president and others said that this was not relevant. I guess it is a bit unfortunate if nobody has looked closer at the possible consequences of the proposed system in the years since 2006. It is certainly a bit surprising to me that Catalin is not among the top 8 after 7 rounds. One can also imagine unpleasant situations where one or a few non-Europeans are paired down so that they can not win the open tournament due to the KO rounds.

The four suggestions that were voted on this year were Martin Stiassnys proposal (Catalins favorite), Dinerchteins proposal only to cut down the size of the supergroup, the Executive's proposal and the KO proposal.

Of these, the Executive's proposal had the drawback that it entailed cutting down the thinking time for the majority of participants in the open EC in order to make room for a parallel closed EC to be played during the EGC. It seems disproportionate to me to make unasked for changes to the tournament for everybody, just to solve a perceived problem at the top. When it also became clear that neither Alexandre nor Catalin would play in both the closed and the open EC anyway, that proposal clearly had only drawbacks.

Martin Stiassnys proposal was the second most popular at this years meeting. However, as many other proposals it has the drawback of severing the top European players both from strong visitors from outside Europe and from Europeans further down the list in the open tournament. This is an aspect that clearly many of us don't like. Many feel that the open congress tournament is a very successful recipe.

Another contributing factor could have been that there were too many proposals (someone counted to 13) on the agenda this year, it would probably have been better to prepare things better by condensing them into fewer schemes.

To the Swedish association the Dinerchtein proposal would have been the second best alternative, but it didn't get much support in the initial vote. Still, it would have been interesting to see if many of those supporting the MS proposal would have preferred leaving things as they are, in a final vote against the KO solution.

The details of the new system are to be better defined now, including the number of qualification rounds I think. If it will still be felt that this doesn't solve the problem, maybe it will be time to look again at the idea of an open European championship at the summer congress and a closed European championship as an elite tournament some other time of the year?

best regards,
Henric

[freegame]

If they want to be champion they have to stop losing games.

yup.

If the tiebreak leading European in the open is top because he beat those Korean 7 dans that the other tying Europeans didn't, that should surely count for something ?

The problem is that the guy who maybe only beat 3 Koreans, compared to the 4 of the winner, just had no chance to win the championship because he did not get paired against a 4th Korean, even though he might be strong enough to have won. This way the champion gets decided based on who the pairing software selected as your opponent(s). That is not really fair

a European player with the chance to win the main tournament might prefer to stay in the main tournament (surely this can't be forbidden) and in this case we get the absurdity that the European Champion is not the strongest European.

This is not that absurd. There might also be Europeans who are very strong, but don't go to the EGC at all, even though they might be the strongest European.

From what I understand what they will have just one Wall List, but use forced pairings after round 7 for the top European players. This way the strong Europeans will play each other.
The fact that they say that if a European loses in the "special" closed European games, he drops into the open tournament again, just means his next opponent can be an Asian player.

[Harleqin]

Is it right that leaving the system as it was was not an option to vote on this year?

[tapir]

Imagine: Antti will play in play-off and will have a chance to become the European champion, but Catalin will not.

Antti leads by 3 SOS points over Catalin so (in case the new rule would have been applied already) he would have been as much entitled to qualify for the final ko stage as Alexandre was entitled to the Championship 2009 by leading with 2 SOS points over the very same Catalin.

Cheers Tapir

PS
Just notice that in the current system neither of them has a chance to become European Champion anymore. Furthermore the chance is that there will be a unique European Champion this year (i.e. one winning the open competition as well).

[betterlife]

Is it right that leaving the system as it was was not an option to vote on this year?

Yes, that's right. I was wondering about it too because the old system was better then the new one

[Diabolic]

EGF members voted for the system proposed by British Go Association.
7 rounds as usual, after that - play-offs for best 8 Europeans. After losing in play-offs, Europeans returns to Main tournament.

If we check the current table after round 7: http://www.egc2010.fi/results/egc-main-results.txt
We can see that Taranu is on position number 9.
Imagine: Antti will play in play-off and will have a chance to become the European champion, but Catalin will not.

I can't find the British Go Association proposal anywhere (either here or other sites that had the proposals), did they select a proposal that was not in the given out before the meeting? I got the feeling the President (and chairmen of the meeting) couldn't give a **** about the system in the end.

I think Israel is at least a member of EGF if not actually European country. If this years result were used with next year system, would Ali Jabarin be able to take part in the last three round cup?

I cannot believe that the AGM for an amateur association lasted longer than many professional games!

Well, if you look at the recorded meeting you notice that the whole meeting had "Amateur" label in it. I got the feeling that most people attending didn't have any glue what was going on. I saw papers being delivered at the meeting. It is unfortunate that the highest deciding authority of EGF is a discussion club.

I would like to understand how it is that last year there was a vote that the European Championship should not be affected by games with Asians. (Now, of course we have a decision that reverses this although it is presented otherwise).

After seeing that recorded meeting I have to say that anything is possible in AGM meetings. For example, they accepted the last years meeting minutes and then there was discussion about discounts to countries with few players. In the end the Secretary concluded that the officers have been given the right to accept lower payments from them last year, but that is not in the meeting minutes. Usually when important official meeting is held, the minutes are the outcome of that meeting. I know that there are meetings where the beef of the meeting is in notes of each members and ideas thrown out in the meeting, but AGM is a formal meeting and it's decicions should be clearly written in the meeting minutes.

clip, read the original

Was it the actual Russian delegate or one of the other Russian members representing countries that didn't have a representative in place. I heard rumors that Russian members had 5 votes in the meeting (this information is secondhand so I can't be sure if it is true, the 1st recording is not perfect). If a member of EGF can't send it's own representative to a AGM meeting which is held in the biggest and most important event in the whole Europe, I think that country should not have any voting rights.

Thanks for your history lesson, it just underlines that the officers of the EGF don't really care about the titles given in the EGC. Maybe this is good since there was a lot of discussion about money and how it is distributed between tournaments so maybe the time they spend to other issues are more important.

What seems clear is that the actual proposals that were being voted did not all comply with the requirements of last years decisions. So for now on for any proposal to the AGM, the previous decisions can be thrown out and the best you can figure out is what you should propose.

Is it right that leaving the system as it was was not an option to vote on this year?

It was proposed several times that there should be a vote between change and no change, but those were pretty much totally ignored.


About the system used in 2011, we have to wait until the rules comission gives us the details. Already we can say that non-europeans can and will affect on who gets into the knockout and also that there is a possibility that some european player can drop from closed EC to play in Open EC.