The information below is from the Secretariat of the International Go Federation:

SportAccord World Mind Games Online Tournament

An online Go tournament will be held on the Internet Go Server (IGS) under the auspices of SportAccord, supported by Samsung and Rado and organized by the International Go Federation and Pandanet.

The winner of this all-amateur event will be presented with an invitation to observe the 1st SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG) held December 8-17, 2011, in Beijing, China. SportAccord will provide entry ticket, round-trip airfare, local transportation, all meals and accommodations. In addition, a medal will be presented during the SAWMG official banquet.

Registrants must be an amateur player and a member of an association affiliated with IGF or recognized by such an association, must be able to communicate in English by email, and must play all tournament games on IGS.

Registration starts September 15; the tournament will run from early October to mid November. Application information and forms are available on the IGS website: <http://www.pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet/74>.

Awesome. Now danigabi has a chance to enter and hopefully represent Argentina
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4558

Note "observe" not "participate in."

what?!

I missed that bit.

I did sign up but its a pretty ridicolous tournament. Properly propagated, the winner of this tournament would be stronger than any other participant in the event.

Figure that any pro can sign up so this tournament is potentially as difficult as an LG or Samsung cup and even more difficult, because there also more amateurs u have to beat before that.

Of course, its likely almost no pro signs up: they cant win money on it. But anyway, hardly something to quench the thirst of representation .

I'm the reader. I'll read, so you don't have to!

In unison, several people reach for their homework assignments...

_________________
Occupy Babel!

Never mind homework! I'm expecting mw42 to do all my reading for me in my next game...

Had totally missed the amateur restriction.

Its surprising, im guessing the IGF pushed for it? it goes against the outline of the original tournament (which is to find the strongest players no matter what).

Anyway much better . Still very difficult, because all the insei houses can still play it. Its all about who ends up signing up.

Wbaduk's team championship could be the hardest ama tournament on earth but its far from that if you look at the player list.

Please tell me where you saw this "find the strongest players no matter what" outline.

The text on the site has changed many times, but lines like "he event will not only show the world a first-class performance of the Mind Sports’ competitions" were splattered all over, including things like "competition being the first priority" and so.

You dont see a different strategy in making a tournament pro-allowed and an only amateur one ?

Hey, how many people here are in this tournament? I registered, but I still have no idea how the preliminary round works. When I enter the tournament room on IGS, GoPanda tells me the room number is invalid.

Did you use your registered handle to log in? You can enter the tournament room only if you are a player and use the handle specified in your registration.

Read the instructions sent to you, or go to the pandanet webpage, to find out how the preliminary round works.

It works now; it wasn't working yesterday.