Probably not a "focus group", a popularity poll or the miscellaneous rantings of people on a newsgroup, who are far more likely to come up with impractical or unworkable solutions to something that may actually not be a problem. Every organisation has to have a procedure for changing old policies and instituting new ones; change things too fast and you create new problems.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

Can you expand on what you mean by this? How do you know that these certain members (whoever they are) didn't vote for what they thought the best option was?

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Is the AGA that small? Amazing. (Afaik Netherlands has about 750, Germany more than 2000 members. Both much smaller countries.)

It is interesting how we all use "the membership" to bolster our arguments with little care as to who we're talking about, but when someone with whom we disagree uses "the membership" we become skeptics and ask for clarification. It reminds me of U.S. politicians' use of "the American people".


I'm sure that'll be the next thing the board decides to adopt - giving strong players a mileage allowance for their trips to tournaments. You're going about it the wrong way, vash3g. You have to show no interest in the AGA or in playing tournaments at all. Only then will the board and "the membership" show interest in you.

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Again, the decision makers of the AGA do not have to blindly follow the advice of popularity polls or newsgroups, but such sources *can* provide insight from the people that make up the AGA. It's also possible that such "focus groups" can provide insight to the table that are new to the AGA decision makers.

The fact that the AGA has made action here is evidence that they are willing to be flexible and open to new ideas - which is great.

The point we should be discussing is not the speed in which a policy has been changed, but whether or not the policy change was a good idea. If the policy change was a good idea, then the fact that it was changed quickly is great.

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be immersed

It isn't a walk in the park for pros to win the major US open tournaments. Right now there is only one pro-tournament-level pro resident and active in the USA, Myung-whan Kim. The rest have lost strength over the years so that they aren't competitive in Oriental all pro tournaments. Many times pros are defeated by amateurs in US open tournaments. Since the question under debate is related to sending people on free trips to the Orient to play in tournaments we should certainly give a lot of thought to what people have to do to win that prize. The members of the AGA pay for some of the expenses of these free trips so the members are entitled to get something back. One thing they get back is to have pros playing in tournaments that they themselves play in. In no way is a pro entitled to win the prize just by being a pro. In China I think pros have to be active outside of pro tournament play in order to retain pro status. Playing in tournaments with amateurs is, perhaps, a kind of teaching in some cases, though in fact most of the pros have trouble defeating the top amateurs. Ten rated games is not so many. I think pros are usually comped for the Us Go Congress so it doesn't cost them much to play in the US Open and the Ing Masters tournaments. Add in the Cotsen, which has attractive prize money, and you can hardly say that it is a waste of time for pros to participate in these tournaments. Right now in the USA there is no professional go organization and there are no professional-only tournaments. There are plenty of ''open'' tournaments. I think it is entirely reasonable to expect people who ''represent'' the USA to play in more than just a single qualification tournament. It is also reasonable to expect people who represent the USA to be at least permanent residents, if not citizens, and, in tournaments that are not invitational, to have actually resided in the USA for some time prior to the qualification tournament.

My reply was not for being a strong player. It was for playing go. I gladly spend that money to be with friends a few times per year. I drag people from club to these tournaments as much as I can. I am a 5k AGA and I will never go overseas for a tournament.

This year at congress was the sixth anniversary of the death of a great go player. His presence is sorely missed in the north-east. He would lead us to tournaments, and encourage us to just play go as best we could. He was our mentor and friend. He played go to play go.

In this conversation there have been too many petty arguments about how pro's are so much better than "regular" strong players in this country. Its starting to make me sick. How have we all forgotten that go is a game to play with friends? To travel and meet new friends and play the game we all love? Did we all forget that professionals once played this game just to play?

You all can continue these petty squabbles on this. You can attempt to influence the board through this. I dont care anymore. If you do, please contact your board member and REALLY make your voice heard. I'm gonna go back to enjoying a game called go.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

I hope I didn't offend you, vash3g. I was being sarcastic, which obviously fell flat. The fact that you and others will go to such lengths to meet and play with other Go players is precisely the sort of dedication to the game that should be acknowledged and held as an example. Bending over backwards for players who demonstrate none of that commitment is not something that the AGA should reward, regardless of how strong they are.

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"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

"Bending over backwards"?

We're not talking about the AGA going out of it's way here, the AGA would spend the exact same amount of time on these tournaments whether or not the players were there or not.

We're talking about allowing people to play. If you want to give rewards for good standing, I'm fine with that. But as it stands, these are NOT rewards for good standing, these are punishments for bad standing.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

I never said that pro's were "so much better". I said that having them thrash amateurs in the open division (like me!) is a waste of their time.

For pro's go is NOT just "a game to play with friends", that's WHY they're pros, this is their livelihood. Pros may have played this game "just to play", but once they started studying it full-time, it became something more, and you need to respect their commitment to excellence. Asking them to teach and review is polite. Offering them incentives to do so is also polite.

Holding hostage their capacity to compete in tournaments which offer them a high level of play so that they will play against "hobbyists" is rude and petty.

If the purpose of this rule was to encourage pro attendance (which I might add, xed_over said was NOT the case earlier in this thread), then it does a terrible job of it, and further, excludes non-pro strong players that are not familiar with the AGA community.

I hardly think the player of whom you speak would attempt to exclude anyone.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Their 'incentive' is that they get to represent North America in overseas tournaments. They get expenses paid travel, accommodations and game fees for losing to a world class pro.

I find it insulting that we somehow have offer them incentives though. I'm a professional scientist, and when I deployed those professional skills to rebuild the AGA's rating system I did it for free. Should I have billed for my time spent on the project because I was using professional scientific skills? Perhaps we should be paying computer professionals when they do work on the AGA's web system as well?

Go in North America is in its infancy, and everyone, pros included should expect to put in some time for free. Pros certainly benefit from everyone's work--they get more potential paying students as the go community expands--and there's no reason they shouldn't be expected to put in a few hours of service.

If you wait to define "the right thing to do" you will never do anything. It is better to make a decision based on what you know now, learn from that and adapt. I see the 10 game rule as one of these learning experiences. The board learned a lot about the desires of the membership that they would have not otherwise uncovered. We need more of these "failed" experiments so we can progress the organization.

Unless you give up the idea of one right way, you will always be upset and suffer.

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Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
My Website

I agree-- but why must those few hours of service be spent trouncing a few poor souls at a tournament? I think there are plenty of different ways for them to assist AGA members which would be more profitable for everyone involved. For example, they could visit a tournament as the games are wrapping up and provide game reviews.

10 rated games was just plain a bad metric for the behavior we desire (helping out the AGA in return), I hope it is replaced with something more sensible if it is replaced at all.

If I were going to replace the rule (which I don't think I would, but if I did) I would make it multiple choice, as in, choose something from this list:

* 30 rated games (that's dedication!!)
* Game review sessions at three or more tournaments
* Give simuls or lectures at three (or more) different chapters
* Give at least five online group lessons/lectures for AGA members
* Provide game reviews via email for AGA members (say, one a month or something)-- the eJournal could publish them
* Something of equivalent benefit to the AGA, its members, or American Go.

I would also make it a condition of winning, not a qualification requirement-- meaning the people who actually win trips must do something from that list the year after they win (or else, if you want to be mean, they must repay the AGA for their trip). If they didn't want to do that, they can still represent the country as long as they pay for their own tickets.

I think that would be MUCH better than the 10 rated game rule.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

All of your suggestions are reasonable; game count is an easy metric to implement, but it's certainly not the only way one might give back to the AGA.

But I wouldn't characterize attending a tournament as 'trouncing a few poor souls.' You make it sound like sending lambs to the slaughter, but the number one complaint/request from strong players is that there aren't enough chances for serious competition with strong(er) players. A game with a strong pro (or amateur) is a worthwhile opportunity, and rarely (if ever) regarded with distaste.

Goal: Get the medium-strong players more chances to play with even stronger players.

I think a good way to do this would be through the qualifier themselves. We could try expanding the number of players allowed into them. It could be a tiered system where the strongest players get seeded into later rounds. So maybe in the first round only 4d play (or whatever boundary we want), then phase in 5d, 6d, 7d+/pros into the later rounds. Lucky/strong 4dans can win their way later and get a chance to play the pros. But for the most part 4d players will play a few games, maybe get the chance to try their luck against some 6ds, and then get knocked out.

Unrated players must start at the beginning rounds. If they're super strong, they "pay" for not having been AGA rated yet by beating a 4d, 5d, 6d along the way to the "real" games for them.

I think this works similar to the 10 game rule, except it's all one event. So it satisfies Nick's idea that a strong non AGA player can walk in and play. The way I'm imagining it though these would be internet only events, so that would not satisfy face-to-face proponents. Although now I just realized that at minimum players would need to get rated once if they wanted to avoid having to start at the beginning rounds.

Kinda like the L19 tournament. I think it's a good idea.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

In a qualifier, it's true that someone might be able to give the pro some competition, But in order to get 10 games a year prior to the qualifiers, they would need to play in smaller local tournaments, where the dan sections are usually not that large. Given an unlucky pairing, you might end up with the pro having to give 6 stones or more.

It's nice to get an opportunity to play them, but that's the sort of thing I expect at big tournaments/qualifiers.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Alright, folks should volunteer. I agree with that.

But if you had been told that you could not play in qualifiers unless you volunteered and rebuilt the AGA's rating system. Would you feel that this was fair?

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

I think the idea of a multiple tiered online qualifier would be a great idea. If we keep the strong players busy online every weekend, the people who hold face to face tournaments will understand when no one comes. With the seven dans playing online, many will stay home and watch. The namt qualifier allowed players down to four dan, but since want to encourage people, maybe should just tier in all dan players into the ongoing qualifier. One and two kyus will probably not go to tournaments because they want to play dan players(apparently the only go players who do not want to be challenged by strong opponents are the seven dans)

I am sure some exciting open section tilts between four and five kyus will keep local organizers happy.

Sarcasm ftw!

Because the 3 additional games involved in an initial filtering step cannot possibly be played in less than 6 months.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...