Life In 19x19

The EGC (European Go Congress) is winding to a close, and there was no thread here about it. Does nobody give a hoot?

Here we have the new European pros such as popular KGS players Roln111 (Ilya Shikshin), Cheater (Pavol Lisy), OohAah (Ali Jabarin) and Breakfast (Alexandre Dinerchtein) and others battling it out for the title of European Champion, as well as a main tournament open to players of all nations. We have a well done website which offers live streaming of the competition and game records. We have the top boards all being broadcast on KGS, and yet here on the main forum for go in the western world, nary a word.

We often discuss why go isn't more popular among the general populations, and yet here we have one of the two most important go events in the West, and apparently it's not interesting enough for even the members of the main Western go forum to talk about. The US Go congress hardly fared better, represented by a thread focusing on the difficulty of finding results.

Why such apparent indifference?

Usually, good results require work. The better the outcome and higher the quality, the more work.

In this particular case of the EGC, I heard it has to do with the new sponsorship from the Chinese group(s) --
they are new to this, and lacked the experience (or foresight) to promote it either in the West or in Asia, for that matter.

The recent bumpy situation with EuroGoTV didn't help, either.

The difficulty of even finding the results of the 2015 US Open... kind of speaks for itself.

On the bright side, this year the live Youtube streams of the US Open Masters are very nice indeed.

Win some, lose some.

I think the forum has lately gotten quiet overall.

The best thing about the egc is the 3d player named Sai, who won the first seven rounds.

the 3d player named Sai

Oh, interesting -- which ethnic origin is this name ?

I think the forum has lately gotten quiet overall.

After all, it is summer, though nearing the end.

Many people are busy at the two Go congresses.

When chess Giants Nakamura and Aronian had their face-off in New York, it was about the players, the site had both of them full-page advertising spread of mean-looking chess players duelling it out. It drew the crowds and generated a lot of attention. Do you think many tournaments in one congress (not to mention it being scheduled at the same time as the American congress, in the holiday season) means that you can't see the wood for the trees? Where is the main event?

I followed the EGC a little bit on KGS but since I just opened it up every now and then, I had to copy the games each time to see the moves I missed, because KGS doesn't allow such a thing inside a demo. Put me off after a while.

But I really liked the live broadcast plus KGS board on the webpage. Though I think the thing I missed the most are concise summaries of the rounds and the results, preferably with pro comments on the key aspects of the games.

They had a pro there, who sometimes analysed the game while the players were still playing but the audio was quite bad and you could tell this was just on the fly. Still great but I think for the casual Go players such reviews would be very great when presented with a little more care (e.g. in a seperate video on Youtube).

I did not even know the European was going on. Seems strange to have it the same week as the US. Had I know I would have followed the results. Had the results to the US been available I would have been following it more closely. (Yes, I know they were available, but in a format which was useless for seeing who was ahead.) As it is, there is little to talk about when information is not available.

The US Go Congress and the European Congress have overlapped many years. Sometimes it helps pros to spend time at both. Both Congresses happen in August and the EGC is two weeks long so it is difficult to avoid overlapping.

The first ones to create a thread about the egc should be the organizers, no?
There was a good deal of fuzz about the european pro contest.
Perhaps the egc is regarded as more of a convivial event?

Knotwilg wrote:The first ones to create a thread about the egc should be the organizers, no?

It that is the case then perhaps the question should be changed to "Do go organizers in the west care about L19?". The presumably care about their tournaments.

Knotwilg wrote:The first ones to create a thread about the egc should be the organizers, no?

Why? We have discussions about professional tournaments as well without organizers creating the threads. Perhaps the reason is that this forum is too international? I mean in the german forum are lots of threads about german tournaments, but here it would be strange, since most people won't care about that. So perhaps the egc and american go congress are too local as well?

daal wrote:Why such apparent indifference?

I lost interest when the broadcasted games were not the strongest players in the European open. When I see results and news, I don't care about best European player, I want to see the best games in the tournament.

I followed the American Congress because YouTube personalities (e.g. Haylee, Andrew, etc) were involved, the livestreams were solid (for a first attempt), and it was (fairly) well-advsertised. If they streamed on Twitch they would have done better.

I never even knew the EGC was happening.

People watch for an event. 100,000 people watch LoL on Twitch, and I bet half are (very) casual players, and a quarter haven't even played the game. Create a reason to watch (elite players, "Rumble in the Jungle"-style advertising, colour-commentary and personalities), and advertise it to death. Enough said.

EdLee wrote:The difficulty of even finding the results of the 2015 US Open... kind of speaks for itself.

Home page -> Tournaments -> Tournament Crosstabs
http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/crosstab/

Honestly there's just more action and chatter over at r/baduk. But I really did enjoy watching the US Go congress streams this year. I very much look forward to if I could attend next year.