Kulkov's Gor was 2555 before the tournament. By any standard he would have been included to the super group.

{addendum: Even perhaps in Groningen that was very high level tournament, because 2555 is higher gor than what some 6 dan players has.

It is good idea for you if you just stop thinking that you are 5 dan, but think that your rating is EGF 2404, because that is more proper estimate of your current skill.}

If people want their opinion to be appreciated higher by me, then they should have the courage to write under their real name. Maybe some people lacking that courage disagree with me. So be it. I do not raise my opinion on lacking courage just because they would prefer me doing so. I appreciate courage more than lacking courage. If that damages some people's opinion about me, they might reflect to change theirs and acquire greater courage. I do not consider my advertisement for greater openness and courage unnecessary, as you seem to suggest.



The scale of evaluation is wrong when something is called very good but still significant changes are being suggested. A thing should thus rather be called "good with easy potential for very good in case of moderate changes".



We can assume that the trend is, on average, towards 9d. Maybe after another 15 years, a 5d would not have any further chance in any year, not even in case of an EGC in Iceland. It is, however, wrong to confuse future with present time. Currently we do not have that many 7d to be sure that some 7d attends in each year. A congress with only 6d or below is pretty much still possible. Then a 5d does have his very realistic chances. Even an ordinary 5d having an above average tournament for himself.



Never trust only one source of history;)



Juding from the last 9 years. Expand to the last 30 years and you might change your mind.



Has anyone done the actual rating statistics for the supergroups in all years?



That would be saying: We may as well forget about the 2001 title holder...



Hear, hear.



In either direction of size. Ok. We are approaching the assessment problem a bit more closely. With more data and evaluation, we might actually get somewhere. Like finding the optimal supergroup / EC size, depending on other parameters.

Ok, thank you, that is a convincing argument! Now does that mean that, under "normal circumstances of other parameters" (like only a modest number of non-Europeans), a likely good number for the supergroup / Swiss / round-robin size would be 22, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10 Europeans? Just which of them is large enough to safely include the currently strongest European?

And what does a small supergroup in a McMahon actually mean for SOS? Top players would more likely also get players of lower and yet lower MM groups of opponents.

You could calm me quite a bit if only you would abandon usage of numerical final result tiebreakers. The best supergroup size does almost nothing (positive or negative) for a tie situation after the last round.

On the offchance you may have misunderstood, I mean for that tournament, not as a general rule.

I added this afterwards, but your reply skill is too fast.

{addendum: Even perhaps in Groningen that was very high level tournament. That is because 2555 is higher gor than what some 6 dan players has.

It is good idea for you if you just stop thinking that you are 5 dan, but think that your rating is EGF 2404, because that is more proper estimate of your current skill.}





Like I previously stated that group size itself is irrelevant, but skill distribution within group should not be too large. If you cannot understand this reasoning, then it is bad for you. If you want grude estimates, then I would say that if GoR is over 2550 then it is certain ticket for any super group. Even if that would mean 64 player super group. Usually 2550+ player is strong enough to challenge the top Europeans.




This is the reason why we need middle group below super group. And also we could prefer second game for already once played pairs if there is no other opponent available in same McMahon-group. (I am not sure how well this will work in practice but 10 rounds might be enough for this)






Solving tie is not important by itself. Only thing that matters is that we can have as much as possible relevant data. If that is still tie then it is a tie and there is nothing that we can do. We can only solve ties by increasing data (i.e. increasing available relevant rounds). Creating artificial tiebreakers like reducing the amount of rounds dynamically, creates just superficial order for players, but that is false order, if it was gained by reducing available data.

Both kinds of values (increasing ranks and dynamic ratings) have their good purposes in principle. I do not believe in the accuracy of any existing Go rating system thus far though. They all make bad assumptions, have design flaws etc.

Skill (principle ability) is something different from strength ("current" performance). I think what you mean is current strength.

Current is somewhat unclear though because a rating system tends to evaluate lots of older games, too.

Ideally what a rating system does is to predict a current probability of (about) 50% against equally rated players.



I disagree. The group size in itself is relevant, too. E.g., suppose you had a group size 2000 (all players very close in strength). It would be too big! 10 rounds McMahon do not produce a particularly meaningful result.

I agree that skill distribution within a group should not be too large - but what is too large...



I presume that a middle group slightly relaxes the problem. It does not solve it at all. The problem is solved if it is dissolved: Do not use tiebreakers for the final results!



In McMahon / Swiss, they are very much disliked by most.



I think nobody suggests such. What is suggested is INCREASING round numbers dynamically BEYOND a certain minimum.

(Why would reducing the amount of rounds dynamically be a "tiebreaker"?! It would be a heavy impact on the first result criterion, but that does not make it a tiebreaker.)

Oh dear, an argument between RJ and Liisa. This it not going to end anytime soon.

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This is just another of too many cases of Robert trolling. The condescension toward Liisa qualifies as a TOS violation in my opinion. It's one thing for Robert to start his own thread in the Rules Forum and pontificate scholastically for eternity, it's quite another when he hijacks a thread and begins by insulting the OP. Topazg enumerated the offenses beautifully, so I won't repeat them. I see absolutely no reason why this type of behavior should be allowed or given free reign on L19.

Robert, knock it off!

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deja, trolling is flooding without factual discussion, which is not the case for me. Criticising somebody for hiding his identity must be possible; asking for someone's name is not insulting him. If everybody regardless of his rank had the same right to the EC, then we would be having an all participants supergroup, which would defy the tournament's purpose of being a championship. Therefore, when somebody claims to have a personal interest in playing in the EC, it is essential to know his playing strength.

For your reference, "It might be a troll, liar without taking responsibility, multiple namer or person paid for upholding an opinion." does NOT refer to the OP but to the principle possibilities given due to anonymous posting.

Can we now end the meta-discussion?

Usually trolls them-self do not understand that their flooding does not have much factual content. Most of your "discussion" is based on that you have difficulties of understanding semantics. E.g. you have no idea what even trolling means. Often case trolling does not require that it is intentional activity, e.g. it is possible that some religious trolls do not mean to troll, but they do it because they do not have enough social intelligence to grasp what other people are thinking from the discussion and its factual content. And they continue and continue writing without delay and getting tired and are unable to read between lines cues for other people's emotions.

Understanding semantics and what is going on on other people's minds is of course very difficult and lot of people (me included!!) have great difficulties with it. Problem with you is that you do not have enough self-criticism that you could recognize and admit your flaws in the reasoning and behavior. But you act like you know everything and that your personal opinions would have more relevance than other people's opinions.

It was my mistake of course to react your trolling, but I did not suspect that your purpose (intentional or not) was mainly to flood this thread because it is not for your likings. But as I know other EGF rules commission members, I should have guessed it.

I hope that this (psycho-)analysis is not correct, because I do not know you well enough (it is mainly derived from other people's implicit attitude towards you). And certainly I would hope that it is not necessary to return this meta-discussion, at least not in this thread.



Who is hiding her identity? Perhaps it is hidden only from trolls. But if you are unable to connect my EGF rating to the EGD rating list, I can make it easier for you and I publish link to my home page.

Your definition of trolling is not correct, but I also think that you aren't trolling here.



Criticising somebody for hiding identity is poor arguing technique. It is irrelevant who he or she is if their arguments are sound and well reasoned. Asking for someone's name is not insulting, using a condescending tone about how little they know what they are talking about, just for the sake of pointing it out, is insulting and ad-hominem. Ad-hominem behaviour generally is unacceptable. You've walked close to the line with liisa and cassandra, but I don't believe you've quite crossed it yet.



Have you really interpreted the OP as wanting to participate not just in the EGC, but the supergroup with regards to a title challenge? If so, you have misunderstood so much of the OP's original post.



And likewise, your account might have nothing to do with the real life person Robert Jasiek. I could register with the name ChoSeokBin, It doesn't mean I am him. The only thing we can do is assume good faith and read the contributions for what they are. The anonymity of the poster is guaranteed regardless of whether it appears to be their real name or not. The OP has provided enough useful info in their personal profile.

People have the right not to give their real name on any online discussion without it impacting their argument credibility.

As there has now been complaint with support by other users for the tone taken in some of your responses, please can you stick to the arguments and their content and not attack the poster in this thread and other rule discussions. If you do not understand how you attacked the poster, you are welcome to PM me and I will explain.

Where I do not understand something but want to understand it, I ask. If something is clear before, I do not need to ask.



We do not need a meta-discussion on defining trolling, I hope.



Have you noticed that from Kulkov's rating number I HAVE learned from my previously wrong assumption that, given the current participation numbers of high dans in ECs, ca. 24 would be the most suitable supergroup size?

I do learn. Especially I learn from facts. I do not learn as easily from other's opinion, as long as it is not supported by facts.

(FYI, as long as we have the current rules, ca. 24 is still the number to be chosen. To change that number, the AGM must be convinced. It is not sufficient to have convinced me.)



Rather I provoke discussion. Without that, discussion would proceed much more slowly. I urge others to express their opinions clearly so that discussion will proceed at a reasonable speed. This is particularly necessary for this topic since the congress starts in a few weeks.



Please. Trolling is the wrong word. Call it provocative discussion style, if you like.



In fact, it is not. Eager, frequent discussion requires a high number of posts. Calling this "flooding" misses the point. It is the very purpose of a discussion to participate in it seriously and eagerly. You don't want to prohibit this, do you?



Their number is one.



Normally I do not guess identities; it is too easy to guess wrongly. Now that you have provided a link to your home page, you have revealed your identity, thank you!

I have said that before.



I have not referred to playing strength "just for the sake of pointing it out". I have referred to playing strength to find out the relevance of the personal interest of someone playing in the EC.



As before.



Cassandra tried to let me educate him how to make and understand maths proofs in great detail and on a rather high level. There are limits to my available time; I cannot replace everybody's missing university study. Therefore I have suggested that Cassandra should educate himself better before doubting every proof detail he did not understand yet.

The discussion with Cassandra is one of the most fruitful ones here. It has created several research results! Probably it will create more later.

Cassandra is willing to learn and overcome part of his knowledge gaps. What starts as education poker turns out to be very valuable research.

So why do you question my dicussion with Cassandra? Quite contrarily, we have may thank him that he motivates continuation of research where it paused.

Have you read the related rules threads to their end? You might learn quite something. I did. (It is maths contents though; not easy to understand.)



I would like to understand the OP's intentions better instead of having to guess too much.



If anybody has doubts about a declared identity, it is pretty easy to verify that. Not so for a hidden identity because the number of possible persons is much greater.



Right. They should be aware though that their arguments will find their way to the EGF much harder then (unless the contents is already very convincing and well reasoned).



It is not my intention to attack persons. My intentions are to know their names where relevant and to see their explanations and reasoning where missing, IMO.



I will ask you. Everybody can send me emails, too. (I like emails more than PMs, e.g., because I check emails regularly.)

OT: in case you didn't know, you can select to be emailed every time a PM arrives.

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As a kyu player I can say that I am not in the least interested in who is the best European player. In fact, I find games between Europeans and Non Europeans more interesting - just as I would find a match between an Earthling and a Martian more interesting than one between two Earthlings.



They should certainly be at different times so that top players can participate in both. Personally I would probably not watch EC games outside the main tournament - I think that I would rather take part in a rapid tournament or socialise.



At Groningen the top players rooms had few boards compared to, say, those at Prague. I found watching live games better at Prague than at Groningen. One could easily move between games and sense at what boards the excitement lay.

Although I attended some of the afternoon commentary sessions I found it hard to take anything away - in fact all I can recollect is that "if one can place a hand in an empty area - then it is possible to live there" !



I think that the "entertainment" aspects of a tournament are much wider than just watching strong players. I think that from the perspective of entertainment, Prague was better than Groningen (beer tournament, disco, bars (playing rengo), everyone accommodated together, the coachload of Lithuanian girls, taking the metro into Prague, and the melee outside while waiting for round 1). Likewise at Marseille with a belly dancer, band, walk to the Calanque, playing outside on tables near the bar. Of course there were aspects of Groningen that were nice like hiring a bicycle, cycling round the town, along canals - but 2 euros for a small beer - that's too much (it does not need to be that way (for example 50c at Zomergo - http://zomergo.octalo.com/en/node/3 )).

Is this experience your personal? As a member of rules comission, I am sure that you know that watching other players game while still playing has been clearly forbidden (see http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/tourrules97.htm 2-b.). Watching equals study in my mind, I can't watch any game without counting possible outcome on the board and I believe this to be true for most players. Have you actually watched other games while your game was still going on? Have you notified the referees if/when you have been experiencing other people watching top games live?

BTW, the rules have been changed recently (June 2010) http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/tourrules.htm

Sure. From having attended the congresses since 1993 each year for two weeks and watching top games a lot. If you should have more profound witnesses, please tell us:)



This nonsense rule, when it was still in use, was not applied by pretty much anyone. It had been a reaction to the 1988 incident of players copying each other on nearby tables. Now the current General Tournament Rules do not have the rule any longer. Instead what would prevent 1988's behaviour is the sportsmanlike behaviour.

Actually, still playing players tend to concentrate on their own games and have only occasional watching of other games. When they have finished their own games, then longer watching of other games occurs the more often.



Yes. - Most players have.



IIRC, yes, sometimes.



I do not know what the June 2010 stands for; it must be a webpage update date. The rules are from the AGM 2007. See §10.1: "These EGF General Tournament Rules become valid from 2007-07-21."

Firstly Robert, your tone is really unpleasant in this reply and completely uncalled for.
Liisas analysis this time is perfectly reasonable and also contains some interesting observations.

Secondly, your quoted statements probably explain why your views on the EGC are so odd.
Clearly anyone is free to have whatever preferences and priorities regarding the EGC, but yours are
very odd (as far as I can see, of course) and consequently not very relevant for the decisions to
be made.

You call the EGC a "marketing gag".
But the EGC is in fact a great success story, understandably copied by the americans.
The EGC has large and growing numbers of participants, from Europe and from outside.
The EGC, for the same reason presumably, also attracts sponsors. The EGC is a great opportunity
to enjoy go and to improve at go, at every level. I also believe that he EGC is good marketing
of go, mainly due to its size. The EGC is the biggest go event in the western world and the only
go event that is big enough to be comparable to other sports events, generally speaking. The EGC
is also a great opportunity for contacts between European players and strong players from the
more developed go countries in asia, professionals as well as amateurs. As far as I know it is thanks
to the EGC that Catalin and probably a number of other top European players got in contact with the
far east pro world.

People come to the EGC to play serious games with players at their own level, whatever that may be, to have an opportunity to get feedback on their games from stronger players, to enjoy summer vacation doing something they like (play go), perhaps bringing their families too, to meet go friends from all over Europe and from elsewhere, to visit every year a new place in Europe and for the numerous splendid side activities that are organizad at the EGC.

Only to very few EGC participants it is a major attraction to watch the games at the top boards or to see who is going to become European Champion. Even fewer aspire at the title themselves. The majority of EGC participants probably don't know who is at present European Champion and don't care very much. I strongly doubt that any single player has ever participated in the EGC mainly to "brag" about having taken part in a European Championship, as you suggest, Robert.

Of course the title is important too, the Championship, and generally the elite competition, bringing the strongest European players together. But the matter of the title is clearly of secondary importance besides the bulk activities of the go congress, by any measure. For example economically: it is the large crowd of kyu and lower dan players who provide the financial resources in terms of registration fees, it is the large number of participants that attracts local sponsors, reduced accomodation charges and likely international sponsors as well. The title at stake and the Championship of course does its part too to attract sponsors, but less so than the numerous participation is what I think. If anything it is the title and Chamionship that might be termed a "marketing gag".

At the third level of general interest is precisely how the European Champion is appointed, matters of tiebreakers and what not. Yes, of course those matters ave their interest and importance too, but they are by no means comparable to the main activities at the EGC.

Now, it is true that some top players have been complaining about the sloppy way the Championship is determined, and that criticism is perfecly understandable and justified, as far as it goes. The number of ways to mend those problems that have been proposed is becoming innumerable, one more complicated than the other, but it has not been possible to agree on anything so far. We'll se how it goes this year. But the difficulties to agree may be a sign that most people like the congress as it is and that it is not so easy to fix the problem without creating new ones.

So how about returning to the idea of separating the EGC and the open European Championship from a closed European Championship to be held independently on some other occasion? For example there is some discussion now on a European Champions League, where all national champions would meet. Why not develop this into the new, closed European Championship? It could be a knock out tournament. Optionally one could include a few places for the best placed europeans in the Open European Championship (EGC). This has the advantage that it lends some more prestige to the national championships, which might be good particularly in the smaller countries. Or else the elite closed tournament could be set up with some other selection scheme, e.g. like the Ing memorial. Personally I would say that selection in qualification tournaments is better than just selecting the highest rated players, since it stimulates tournament play further down the line. What are the drawbacks with a separate closed elite tournament? Firstly the marketing value of the EGC might drop a bit (not very much is my expectation). Secondly, on the other hand, maybe the top players feel that they need the money from the EGC (the registration fees from the many kyu players and the sponsorship that the EGC can attract due to its large numbers) towards price money. In a sense, these drawbacks can not both be important - if the marketing value of the title tournament is great, it can find its own sponsors. If it is not it doesnt mean so much to lose it from the EGC. Anyway, it may be a price worth paying for not messing around too much with the EGC. Are there any other drawbacks with separating the elite championship from the summer vacation EGC family event?

best regards,
Henric

What I call a marketing gag is the myth sold to and perceived by some low dan and kyu players that letting them play in the same tournament would give them actual chances to win the title.



But why is that so? Because the congress has many attractions. The main tournament is one of them because of a) a great variety of roughly equal opponents and b) the serious games due to the long thinking times. Maybe the illusion of the marketing gag also played a small role. If so, it is not needed any longer though; the tournament is already so big that some have started saying: "Too big!"



Then what would be the purpose in keeping the EC part of the main tournament? If only few participants care, then it would not matter for the congress quality whether it is a separate tournament or not.



Presumably not by the measure "for those strong and interested in winning the title".



It is very sad to see you lowering the title quality that much.



Determination of the title is one of the main activities.



No. Some proposals are really simple.



Then all(!) the delegates would extremely badly represent the players. Otherwise the absolutely one-sided votes of last year (EC at congress, EC with European-only games) could not be explained.



If you want to try undoing the 21-0 vote...



Because it would greatly decrease the playing quality and thus the title's value. (A European Champions League in itself as an additianal tournament is a nice idea though.)



The German Championship has (within Germany) a very high prestige because the tournament system requires the players to exhibit great playing quality. Is this different in other countries?



Many selection systems can be imagined.



Yes. Even small improvements would be an alternative: Set a minimal number of rated games. Use average instead of last rating.

I do not believe that anyone actually entertains this delusion, nor that anyone is trying to "sell" it. I perceive this notion of "marketing gag" as a strawman argument.

Having everyone play in the same tournament simply means that there is a continuum of opponents available, so that, for example, no one gets only mismatched opponents due to having been put into the wrong group.

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