Life In 19x19

The European Championship is usually (as decided in 2011) a knockout tournament between the 32 European nationals who are placed highest after the 6th round of the Open European Championship. There are no wildcard and such things if I remember the details. This year the Open European Championship is not held so there is a need to pick the players if the European Championship is to be held. At least the format is fair in principle and it is hard to understand the criticisms.

There are in fact very strong female go players that qualify the nationality requirement that would only need to register (and possibly show up for a single tournament sometimein the last 2 years). It is not unreasonable to require that players that join this kind of high profile tournament have a minimum participation in the European tournament scene and show enough interest to register.

Is it necessary to point out that women have won the European Championship in the past, many times?

Ferran wrote:But, as I see it, the message right now is that, if you're a woman, you're out of luck: you can play in the Female Tournament or Go East, but there's not much for you here.

There is a fair selection rule to replace the 6th round rule because the open tournament can't be held and you say people are not welcome.

Ferran wrote: What I'm not sure is that the EGF has a proper balance, or that it has a clear vision of its reason. Is it there so that people can play? Internet has sort of turned that obsolete, even if you only use it to set up real life meetings through Whatsapp. Is it there to give pros a marketing push? That's the origins of the Kiin, as I understand it, but not of the EGF.

If the reason for the EGF is the *promotion* of Go, then not using Asian certified Pros AND not making sure there are women in the *general* events is a mistake. It's not a question of rank.

I believe you're conflating the purpose of the EGF with the purpose of the European championship. While the EGF has many goals, including the promotion of go, the main goal of the European championship, as I understand it, is to find the strongest European player(s). So, it very much is a question of rank (or rather, rating and playing strength).

The rules for selecting the candidates are quite clear, reasonable and don't favour any gender. Here's a direct quote from the 2021 tournament rules:

24 top European players (passport of EGF member country required) will participate in the event. They can be either amateur or professional players.

The players qualify for participation in order of their best achieved EGF rating within the last twelve months (1.11.2020 – 31.10.2021), as given in the EGF rating database by 31.10.2021.

A minimum of 2351 EGD rating is requested.

Only active players with a tournament result since 1.01.2019 documented in the EGD will be taken into account.

The selection is done as follows:

a) Nominate the Top 8 from 2020 European Championship
b) Then, we nominate 13 players from EGD list based on max rating 1.11.2020 – 31.10.2021
c) U20 champion at 2021 European Youth Championship
d) 2 EGF wildcards

Players who want to play the European Championship have to preregister [...] for the EC latest till the deadline for registration is: 31.10.2021

Who are these strong female players that meet the criteria but were not included? If we take into account that the lowest ranked player who was nominated has the rating of 2566, then the only female player who could potentially participate is Svetlana Shikshina and she's only played in 4 tournaments in the past 5 years so doesn't seem to be particularly active. I only did a quick search so may have missed someone but clearly there's not many potential female candidates.

The only contentious issue here are the wildcards and I'm generally in favour of them being given to strong young players as it was done in the Pro qualification tournament.

Ferran wrote: But, as I see it, the message right now is that, if you're a woman, you're out of luck: you can play in the Female Tournament or Go East, but there's not much for you here.

I've yet to hear of a single European tournament where women aren't allowed to or aren't welcome to join provided they meet any required nationality, age and strength criteria. What is more, I never felt that the European Women's championship was particularly well-attended, especially since many strong female players choose not to participate and I doubt it's because they're not feeling welcome.

It's always easy to say that there are no explicit hurdles for a part of the population, but there are many invisible ones that are not intentional. There is no intrinsic reason for there being no active woman player in the top ratings, but rather the observation that there are much fewer women even in the dan ranks. I think that's because there are much fewer women investing so much time into the game. If you want to improve that, one step is to enhance visibility of woman players, so that more women see that the top ranks are not a male domain. And I think that is a very good use of wildcards.

I guess I was wrong that the 6th round rule was still being used, the EX seems to have published new rules for the EC regularly. I forgot that because I am excited about the topic

Harleqin wrote:It's always easy to say that there are no explicit hurdles for a part of the population, but there are many invisible ones that are not intentional. There is no intrinsic reason for there being no active woman player in the top ratings, but rather the observation that there are much fewer women even in the dan ranks.

There are strong and active women players, there are also two less active former EC champions (one of which would have qualified if I understand the rules).

I think the "unintentional" hurdle with the EC is that it is a small invitational tournament (that is not unintentional per-se but rather not intended to exclude anyone in particular) but small invitational tournaments are never going to include everyone because they are small and invite participants based on narrow criteria such as recent rating.

Harleqin wrote:If you want to improve that, one step is to enhance visibility of woman players, so that more women see that the top ranks are not a male domain. And I think that is a very good use of wildcards.

Alternatively it could be possible to organize a larger tournament with qualification rounds (possibly online or partially online) that includes a lot more players. There is a number of active female 5 dans, also 5 dan teenagers and the top players in most European countries haven't had a realistic chance to qualify to the championship for years. That also sums up the problem with wildcards, there isn't a criteria for wildcards that satisfies everyone.

The argument against that is probably something along the lines that larger tournament is a bigger undertaking, that the rating list is a good way to replace qualification rounds, and that we have to draw the line somewhere. But then again, a larger tournament would lower the barrier of entry and allow the fans see their players.

Giving a wildcard to the current U20 champion and the Female European champion, if they didn't already qualify, would sound very reasonable. That's at most 2 players out of 24. I guess a higher number of players than that would have qualified but chose not to participate.

I mean, the number of players in the tournament, 24, is quite arbitrary, it could have been 16 or 32 or any number in between.

kvasir wrote: EDIT there is some limit on the number of players from the same federation so maybe not).

There is? I didn't see this stated anywhere in the 2021 rules but if it's true then it seems a bit counterproductive.

jlt wrote:Giving a wildcard to the current U20 champion and the Female European champion, if they didn't already qualify, would sound very reasonable.

I've always found having a token woman just for the sake of having a token woman more insulting and patronising than inspiring but maybe that's just me. I'd prefer it if the organizers put more effort into convincing some of the 6d+ female players to participate but then again, I'm also generally not a fan of such preferential treatment.

Either way, the online nature of this tournament may have swayed some players' decision just as some would not have been able to participate if the championship were an in-person tournament.

schrody wrote:There is? I didn't see this stated anywhere in the 2021 rules but if it's true then it seems a bit counterproductive.

Sorry, I was confused about what it said regarding monitors for the semi-finals.

Did anyone notice that the crowdfunding for the prize pot is offering heaps of subscriptions and other stuff in exchange for small donations?

The European Go Championship fundraising is now supported by European Go Journal, AI Sensei, and Go Magic!

For a small donation, you can get valuable rewards - make sure to check the EGF's crowdfunding campaign.

Ilya Shikshin 4p Wins Eighth European Championship: a report on the European Championship 2021, written by Artem Kachanovskyi and Jean-Yves Papazoglou

https://eurogojournal.com/blog/european ... nship-2021

artem.kachanovskyi wrote:Ilya Shikshin 4p Wins Eighth European Championship: a report on the European Championship 2021, written by Artem Kachanovskyi and Jean-Yves Papazoglou

https://eurogojournal.com/blog/european ... nship-2021

I watched game 2 and the live commentary by Lisy and Le Calvé and I must say I can see the benefit of having a pro system in Europe.

So if we ignore 1) real world versus online and 2) Europe plus EGF member countries versus only EGF member countries, Ilya Shikshin ties with the record holder Jürgen Mattern of having won 8 titles.