Life In 19x19

breakfast wrote:We have only 1 Korean registered for EGC-2010 so far

Two actually.

breakfast wrote:We have only 1 Korean registered for EGC-2010 so far

You have many Japanese.

If Koreans are interested in prizes, this years congress is a bit late in providing that information. Best I could find is 5k€ for Europeans (viewtopic.php?p=16217#p16217), looks like non-europeans get warm handshake and "see you all next year speech".

Is this normal for EGC that the prize money is not revealed before the congress starts (less than a week now, most people like to plan a bit more ahead)? What I recall reading from last year, they didn't announce any prizes before the prize giving or did I miss something again?

Perhaps people organizing the next congress in France can learn from this year and provide the information a bit earlier.

breakfast wrote:Main reason: very small prizes in Groningen last year.
Also, no information available about prizes in Tampere. In every event in Korea they announce prizes in advance and only EGC it is usually a big secret

Top Korean amateurs are interested in big prizes, of course!

On a separate topic (and putting my foot in my mouth again):

So maybe this can put to rest the whole discussion about no Asians/Koreans showing up for the ECongress if the top Europeans play in separate competition. Since the above seems to suggest they are more interested in money than in playing the Euro-elite. So, organize the open tournament with regular prizes, all Koreans can play and enjoy the money, and the Closed Championship for Euro-elite however you/they like. And even if the events are separate, strong Asians will show up, no worries, provided the money is there.

As a matter of fact, all the lower-ranked people who scream about 'discrimination' and 'ruining' the Congress for lack of strong Asians if the top Europeans play separately - they might all be the winners and get to play more games against the strong Asians. So they should support the idea of separate tournament instead of making fuss. Its a win-win scenario!

Just taking some wild guesses, I think that several factors might contribute to low attendance by strong Koreans:

• certain people spreading the rumour that there were plans underway to more or less exclude them from the interesting parts of the main tournament,
• low prizes in the last year,
• lack of prize announcements,
• economic crisis,
• late registration.

Diabolic wrote:If Koreans are interested in prizes, this years congress is a bit late in providing that information. Best I could find is 5k€ for Europeans (viewtopic.php?p=16217#p16217), looks like non-europeans get warm handshake and "see you all next year speech".

Is this normal for EGC that the prize money is not revealed before the congress starts (less than a week now, most people like to plan a bit more ahead)? What I recall reading from last year, they didn't announce any prizes before the prize giving or did I miss something again?

Perhaps people organizing the next congress in France can learn from this year and provide the information a bit earlier.

Of course it is always better to announce the prizes early, especially if they are meant to attract players. But it may often be difficult to do that. Many congresses have been very late with announcing prizes, or haven't announced anything at all.

Most organizers of EGC:s don't have ny big funds to draw on, in case of poor financial outcome. Normally one doesn't know for sure how many will turn up until the event actually starts. There are also many fixed expenses involved, such as rent of venue, down payments on accommodation and many other things, so one needs some flexible items in the budget, that can be cut down if necessary, in order to avoid a big loss. It is easier to announce prizes early if in a conditional manner, such as prizes will be such and such if the number of participants is > N.

At the EGC 2008 we didn't announce prizes well in advance either. In the end the cash prizes came up as 15 keuro or so (136 kSEK), which is ok I think, but that was not announced in advance, nor was the distribution between europeans/non-europeans, main tournament and other events. We still got a good number of Korean participants.

We had a fair idea early that there would be many participants at EGC2008, so if we had given it higher priority we could have announced minimum prizes early. A reason why we didn't get there was a longish internal discussion on what the the relation should be between open championship prizes and prizes for europeans - a difficult question at the time as it still is.

One possibly big failure in 2008 was that the European Masters was decided/announced so late. If it had been in the schedule from the beginning we could have announced substantial prizes for that, maybe we could have attracted more top European players that way (we did have many of them anyway of course...).

In 2008 the largest Korean group was sensitive to costs, such as accommodation. I would guess that this is an important parameter as well for their paticipation, not only prizes. Of course, with the intercontinental flight to pay, attending the EGC is not cheap for non-europeans.

best regards,
Henric

breakfast wrote:

Diabolic wrote:Are these questions the reason there is only 1 Korean player coming to this years Congress (http://www.egc2010.fi/registered.php?sort=5)? There are no separate tournaments this year, just same kind of main tournament as previous years or have I missed something?

Main reason: very small prizes in Groningen last year.

I wonder if this is true. In Italy in 2006, there was no prize money at all, yet 6 Korean 7 dans participated the next year in Villach.

In Villach 2007 there were high prizes, and in 2008 again 6 Koreans show up.

In Leksand 2008 again high prizes, yet only 5 Koreans in Groningen.

Also, AFAIK three of the Korean players in Groningen were there because they knew some Dutch players personally, players who had visited Korea, and part of their reason for being there was making a return visit (ie: Social reason, rather than financial).

I think that even with higher prize money like Villach or Leksand it is hard for a Korean player to break even, considering the cost of the flight, accommodation, food & drink, etc. Especially if they have to compete not only with top European players, but also with other strong Korean players.

Also, no information available about prizes in Tampere. In every event in Korea they announce prizes in advance and only EGC it is usually a big secret

Top Korean amateurs are interested in big prizes, of course!

No information about prizes was available in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, etc. I doubt this has any impact on Korean visitors.

I think for most Koreans, the prize money is a nice extra, but the main reason for visiting the EGC is to be on holiday, to meet people, to see new countries and to play the game they love. The same reason 60-70 Japanese (and of course 600-700 other Europeans) show up.