[news] European Professional Go System established.

[haewgs]

Sponsored by the Beijing Zong Yi Yuan Cheng Culture Communication Co. Ltd.

"Starting in 2014 the EGF will certify up to two players per year as "European Professionals". Only players holding a passport of an EGF member-country for at least 10 years are eligible for a certification"

Full document at http://www.britgo.org/files/China.pdf.

[Javaness2]

I wonder who haewgs is, and how they knew that this file was there.

[moyoaji]

First the AGA and now the EGF as well...

Good things are happening in the wide-wide world of go.

[hyperpape]

Quite interesting.

Is there some significance to passport instead of citizenship?

[tchan001]

Probably to avoid very strong Asian inseis from migrating to Europe and becoming go pros in a short period of time

[hyperpape]

I meant "passport holders for 10 years" as opposed to "citizens for 10 years".

[Boidhre]

I meant "passport holders for 10 years" as opposed to "citizens for 10 years".

It's interesting since some countries like Ireland used not issue passports to anyone under 16 (you were added to your parent's passport instead), so theoretically an Irish 17 year old not would be ineligible if they strictly applied the rule (admittedly in a nonsensical way which would be against the spirit of the rule).

I think Belgium is the quickest place to get citizenship, 3 years versus 5-9 years in most other European countries and usually you can't claim until you're 18, so you're looking at a minimum age of 28 for becoming a European Pro as a non-national to begin with if your parents moved countries as you're not going to get allowed to stay in most European countries permanently when you're under 18 and not an EU citizen.

[RobertJasiek]

The best of this is Chinese Rules, although we will have fun of declaring how to interpret the ko rules.

The EGF shall become commercially aware? For a start, it does not even need sponsor money. The EGF could simply start distributing and announcing available playing teachers, children / school teachers, books, other media etc. At the moment, the EGF artificially creates two classes (IIRC, players with / without rating of at least 2550) and cares for highly rated players at best for the sake of EGC lectures, while ignoring the EXISTING lower rated professionals (such as book authors or school teachers) and the non-EGC activities of the higher rated professionals.

The worst of all is the guild-like system of limiting access to sponsor money by setting requirements (and even wild cards, which rely on political selections of players) of who may participate in certain events. This creates a bottle neck like in East Asian professional selection systems and discrimination between those lucky to make it versus the unlucky "non-certificate-professional" professionals called "amateurs". Or do I misunderstand the intended system and it is about as open as the current EGC?

[wineandgolover]

This is very exciting.

I am interested by Javaness' comment as well. Can I assume this is a premature leak then?

Is the US pro system similarly sponsored?

[HermanHiddema]

Wow, they're putting a lot of money into this from China.

[tapir]

Some questions pop up in my mind:

* What is with European players who already are professionals by the Hankuk Kiwon or Nihon Kiin?

* EGF has no jurisdiction over the vast majority of tournaments: how will they induce tournament organizers to apply for bonus point tournaments?

* What is the new amateur diploma scheme? I expect a lot of resentment when this is supposed to mean we have to pay for ranks and/or EGF is setting the rules for every country.

[HermanHiddema]

The best of this is Chinese Rules, although we will have fun of declaring how to interpret the ko rules.

Actually, this adoption of Chinese rules in certain cases looks like the only downside to me. We don't need yet another rule set. We managed just fine without Ing rules, we would manage just fine without Chinese rules.

[walpurgis]

This is very interesting news indeed, especially after the (apparently?) failed attempt at professional European league some time ago. Could this be the beginning of closing the gap between east and west now that both US and EU have a pro system...

[HermanHiddema]

This is very interesting news indeed, especially after the (apparently?) failed attempt at professional European league some time ago. Could this be the beginning of closing the gap between east and west now that both US and EU have a pro system...

The earlier attempt was really just some enthusiastic players saying they wanted a pro system. They had no sponsors, and you cannot set up a pro system without money. This proposal has big sponsors (to the tune of $150,000 per year) and has the opportunity to allow talented players to study in China, so it looks a lot more viable. Also, the sponsorship lasts until 2021, so they have quite some time to try to work towards self-sufficiency.

[RobertJasiek]

We don't need yet another rule set.

It would have sufficed to use Simplified Ing Rules, as possible according to the EGF General Tournament Rules.