Life In 19x19

According to http://www.eurogofed.org/calendar/calendar.htm "~22.07.2017 ~06.08.2017 To be announced 61st European Go Congress". According to http://senseis.xmp.net/?RecentChanges "Monday, November 21, 2016 / EuropeanGoCongress (diff +0) ... 37.219.189.225 / 'EGC Turkey cancelled'". Who is IP 37.219.189.225? According to http://www.egc17.com/ I wonder: will the congress be in Turkey or is Turkey cancelled and does the 2017 congress move to a different country?

I have attended European Go Congresses every year for 15 days from 1993 - 2016, that is, for 24 successive years and wanted to attend each year during my life. Only a few players attend each year. However, 2017 in Turkey I will not attend due to the current situation (if it persists, and things appear to become worse) of partially missing human (CSCE) rights, tens of thousands of officials having been removed and at least thousands undue arrests. I do not travel to Turkey because I do not want to give Turkish politicians the impression that I would possibly tolerate such. Human rights are more important than striving for a record of attendance or having its great joy. I spent ca. 15 days of actual work for getting my visa to the 2016 congress in Russia so time for travel preparations does not hinder me from attending congresses - systematic violations of human rights in Turkey do. For these reasons, I would be extremely happy if the congress moved to another country. Does "To be announced" indicate this?

It is going to be moved to another country, see http://www.dgob.de/yabbse/index.php?topic=6329.0 (in German, but that should be ok for you )

Interesting that there hasn't been a posting about this on the EGF site.

I would have thought that would be the second place that they would have posted it (the first is to EGF members of course).

There are more details in the thread opened by Bonobo here.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

I was going to comment that this would lead to a much smaller congress than usual, but apparently the congress in Turkey was already expected to be much smaller than normal. It seems a pity, because I imagine that most people thought that Turkey would be a great venue back when it was voted in. To my mind it still could have been, but obviously I am in a minority there. Good luck to anyone who takes on organising the event with under a year left on the ticking clock.

European Go Congress 2017 http://www.eurogofed.org/index.html?id=90

Following the recommendation of the EGF board the turkish organizing committee stepped back last week. In the meantime the EGF board managed to find two alternatives one from Germany (Oberhof) and one from Russia (Sochi). The board decided to give the congress 2017 to Russia, Sochi.

The choice of Russia (Sochi) over the alternative in Germany seems to have generated a lot of comment. For example: if Turkey was unsuitable because it was becoming a dictatorship, why then choose Russia. We are not allowed to debate this idea on LifeIn19x19. The other main complaint seems to be about the price - I have no idea what the price will be.

What's done is done though. Let's see how many people attend and how much they like it.

I've seen comments that the Russian bid's proposed sponsorship (I think by Polymetal, who sponsored this year's Russian EGC and may have some link with Russian Go organisers) may have been 'wot won it'. Plus the organising committee from this year being able to get up to speed quickly. Travel distance, visa requirements, repetition and supporting autocratic regimes being the downsides. I imagine the Turkey EGC had far lower pre-registrations at this point in time compared to previous ones hence the cancellation. For interest here's the recent EGC main tournament player counts from EGD:

2016, 601, St Petersburg - Russia
2015, 761, Liberec - Czechia
2014, 458, Sibiu - Romania
2013, 553, Olsztyn - Poland
2012, 608, Bonn - Germany
2011, 760, Bordeaux - France
2010, 459, Tampere - Finland
2009, 599, Groningen - Netherlands
2008, 718, Leksand - Sweden
2007, 573, Villach - Austria
2006, 292, Frascati - Italy
2005, 712, Praha - Czech Republic
2004, 558, Tuchola - Poland
2003, 310, St Petersburg - Russia
2002, 304, Zagreb - Croatia
2001, 327, Dublin - Ireland
2000, 500, Strausberg - Germany

As a Chart:

It is just the forum rules, don't blame me

From the German go forum I found this link to the Russian proposal:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sLG ... 69uv0/edit

and the German one:

http://www.dgob.de/yabbse/index.php?act ... ttach=5411
http://www.dgob.de/yabbse/index.php?act ... ttach=5412

There is an open letter of protest now. Total schism

The EGF executive has published its reasoning for its decision to move the EGC 2017 from Turkey to Russia / Sochi:

http://eurogofed.org/egf/EGC_2017_Offic ... tement.pdf

The cancellation of the congress 2017 in Turkey is mainly justified as a financial risk of the host country in view of missing new registrations since the congress 2016. Although this is an important aspect, the important cause in form of the political and human rights situation in Turkey is concealed as "difficult situation", without even mentioning politics and human rights. As if the EGF executive would have no responsibility for the individual go players but as if it would only be a matter of financial risk of the host country. I find this very regrettable.

The decision between Russia / Sochi and Germany / Oberhof is explained by different aspects, such as alleged travel expenses, visa difficulties, sponsor, already existing plan B, about the same organising team as in the previous year, allegedly more attractive tourist destination. Although all these aspects are worth considering (and it can be expected that Germany fares partly equally well, partly better, partly worse), other aspects are completely ignored: benefit of sponsor money for the quality of tournament organisation (in 2016 Saint Petersburg marginal because the tournament organisation was at best mediocre and partly bad, so at a level of quality that could have been reached without any sponsoring), quality of tournament organisation (as before), the ability of Germany even under time pressure of very good tournament organisation, the absolutely to be expected ability of Germany after the only one available week of writing its letter of application to significantly increase its organisation team. Eventenually it boils down to sponsor money without apparent additional benefit for the tournament organisation and touristic aspects being considered more important by the EGF executive than the quality of tournament organisation. I am shocked. First of all, a go congress is an event consisting of tournaments. One can weigh all the different aspects and come to whichever conclusion, but almost completely ignoring the criterion of quality of tournament organisation does not do justice to its great importance for each congress.

And no, it is known that the sponsoring for 2016 Saint Petersburg has not had a significant positive impact on the quality of tournament organisation (possibly even a negative impact because the sponsor-organisers listed too little to reason given by the go organisers). Many aspects can be mutally weighed in balance. What remains as quintessence of the decision of the EGF executive is the allegedly better touristic attraction of Sochi as an aspect treated as much more important than the mostly ignored aspect of the quality of tournament organisation.

Non-European question: when was it awarded to Turkey? Why? And what has changed in Turkey between then and now?

I don't follow Turkish news closely, but any security/HR concerns ... hasn't Turkey's situation been relatively consistent the past few years?

Assigned to Turkey: IIRC, 3 years ago. Why? Because the EGF's Annual General Meeting chose it.

What has changed in Turkey: Since early summer 2016, an attempted coup has been abused as pretence for a state-coup with these consequences: at least thousands of journalists etc. arrested, at least (according to numbers by the Turkish gouvernment) tens of thousands of Turkish officials removed from their functions, some human (CSCE) rights declared by the Turkish gouvernment to be out of order, Kurdish party members of parliament expelled from parliament. Increased state actions against Kurds. A few more suicide bombs than before. Allegedly more Islamic State people inflitrating Turkey apparently so far mainly as a place of resort and proliferation for the war in Syria and Irak. Ca. 2 millions Syrian refugees in Turkey and ca. 1 million more have fled through Turkey to other European countries. So far only rhetorical attacks by the Turkish gouvernment on the Greek / Turkish border. Abuse of referees as object for getting changes to treaties with the EU. The EU parliament suggesting to suspend EU membership plans for Turkey. Etc.

Until June 2016, you might call the situation in Turkey almost constant. Afterwards, it has changed dramatically as above.