I'm not sure why more attendees from the U.S. Go Congress aren't posting here. I can only speak for myself. For me:

1. I was there, and when I'm at Go Congress, I like to unplug a bit. I don't tend to check e-mail, surf the internet, read news or watch news. I even missed the Republican debate. (I read the transcript later, and from what I can tell from the text, it is just as well that I missed it live.)
2. I'm not a journalist. I'm too lazy to check facts or get nice pictures of interesting people and places, or provide the most entertaining write-ups.
3. I'm an introvert, so I'm not necessarily doing all the cool things like getting drunk with the visiting pros.
4. I'm not very strong. The only time I see the inside of the strong player's room is when I volunteer to record games.
5. I lost most of my games, so I wasn't exactly in the "sharing" mood.

That being said, this was my 11th U.S. Go Congress and I'd be happy to summarize my experiences and compare this U.S. Congress to others. (I think this one was quite good.) Unfortunately, I've never been to the EGC, so I can't say much about that.

Let me know if there is interest. Like this post or PM me.

Do you subscribe to the AGA e-journal?

If not, that is probably the first stop that should be made. usgo.org was also updated regularly.

re: Bantari. For the USGC, here on L19 we posted announcements, a "who's going" thread (which was largely ignored), the video broadcast schedule w/ links to the channel, etc. Most were in the AGA subform -- do you visit it?

We also posted on reddit, facebook, G+, twitter, etc., as well as announcements on KGS and OGS, -- all of which had greater response than here. All nine of our videos of the US Open Masters board one have over 1500 views, about half over 2000, with an average watch time of nearly half an hour (which is phenomenal, for video). So, clearly we're reaching *some* audience. I'd've liked those numbers to be bigger, so i'm all ears for what we could've done better -- but it's not true that we didn't do "basic marketing"

Lastly, the AGA E-Journal -- still free -- automatically cross posts to facebook and G+, and posted daily updates. Maybe we should set it up to cross post here? AFAIK, there's nothing like it in Europe, and before you volunteer, let me assure you that it is a *lot* of work.

I wasn't sure whether I should post my pictures, since it seemed like nobody else was. (Also, during the conference I was too tired and busy to do more than post them on Facebook for my friends.)

Never even saw the 'who's going' thread. I must have missed it on my usual new posts search.

EDIT: In fact, there is not a Who's Going thread for 2015, as far as I can see....

Hi. Yes, I have seen all that, except twitter etc.
Maybe my expectations are just too high.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

Nope, do not subscribe.

And I know that there are materials out there for all events, if you look. The issue is, for me, that you have to look. For great events like that, they should be in your face, not for those who subscribe.

To me USGC and EGC age great festivals of Go, the largest events in the western Go community. I guess I just miss the festive feel to it.

And yes, there were announcements and posts. As I said, my expectations are probably unrealistic. Entirely my falut, please ignore.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I don't watch the news, so I can't understand why I'm not hearing anything about recent world events.

I should hear about these if though I refuse to turn on my TV or read a newspaper.

We would need to know your address to get in your face...

One important comment was, essentially, that all the publicity was aimed at the go community. That's understandable because the Congresses are self supporting so job number one is to get a lot of people to attend (and pay). Publicity to the general public won't bring people in. Beginners at go aren't going to give up one or two weeks of vacation time to attend a Congress. Some 2000 people viewed videos and it struck me that that is close to the size of the AGA membership. The biggest problem facing Go in the West is to increase the number of fans significantly. Yes I know it's pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps but that's how it has to happen.

As for the fledgling Western pros, they all received significant support from one or another of the CJK pro organizations. They've been pushed out of the nest, so to speak, and now it's mostly up to them to fly. Making tours of go clubs for teaching or building up a regular list of online
paying students take a lot of time and, for these young people, might conflict with important activities such as jobs or school. It's interesting that Mateusz Surma has decided to postpone going to university for one year. The new American pros did not especially distinguish themselves in the US Congress Masters tournament. One of the new American pros announced when the pro development program was announced that he thought he didn't want to be a pro. He did qualify in the second wave. Committing fully to being a go pro is a very difficult decision for a late teen or early twenties person. It may mean giving up education and future job prospects in order to take up something with unclear prospects.

The best way to make your expectations a reality is to make them happen yourself.

Please pursue your ideas if you actually have something actionable.

Otherwise, we are just complaining.

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be immersed

Bantari, if you give me your email address I can send you 100 emails to announce the start of the EGC and USGC 2016. Send me some stamped-addressed envelopes and I'll send you some glitterbombs too for that truly festive feel!

*mode ramble on*

The more I reflect on it, the less I understand this "pro" system we got now in Europe. I went to the EGF website and downloaded the CEGO contract. It seems the pros do not receive any salary (at least not from CEGO), all the money is for the Grand Slam Tournament, the Academy, etc.

So now I understand better why university and the like where mentioned. But then I do not understand anymore why is this called a "pro" system. In my understanding the point of having a pro system is to enable talented players to devote themselves 100% to the game.

Sure, I'm aware that even in CJK, not all pros can make a decent living with their salary and that they complement it by various kind of teaching. But these activities help making the game more visible and popular, so it benefits the go playing population.

How will it be possible in Europe? One of the new pros is postponing university for a year, but what then? Does it mean that after that he'll resume his studies and get a job? If so, what does it mean to be a "pro" in Europe?
And it's been, what, two years since the first pros were selected and there is not much sign of any activity on their part*. What will it be when they'll have a "real" job?

I can't help but have the feeling that either I'm missing something obvious here either this "pro" system is close to being meaningless.

* Not meaning to be disrespectful to anyone here and maybe I'm not very well informed. But every anouncement I see for go related events (courses, camps, stages) or almost every commented games I can get my hands on is done by others. Being EGF pros I would expect something like them playing a round robin every month or so and then posting their commented games on the EGF website for instance. Their is literally nothing on the EGF website to even advertise that there are pro players in Europe, that people interested in courses, workshops and the like can contact them at such and such adress, no price list is given for their various teaching activities, etc.

The meaning of the world professional used to be one who makes his living from the activity. I assume it still is. Someone who has a full time job but makes money on the side from an activity used to be called semi-professional. When I was growing up in UK (50 years ago) soccer players were professional, rugby league players were semi-professional, rugby union players were amateurs. I think the same terminology is still in use.

It seems that this distinction should be used in the case of western go players. There are very few full time professionals in the western (and many of them are oriental) and it seems that most of the new "pros" would not even qualify as semi-professional.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Whenever I use the word professional in this meaning, some are crying I would be deceiving people and abusing the word because such would not be part of its meaning. An EGF professional is a player having qualified for this guild-like title but we see no evidence that EGF professionals make their living (only or mainly) from being an EGF professional, neither from go playing nor from non-playing income. If they are income professionals, this, related tournaments, prizes and non-playing activities (for which they would just be criticised by some as abusing the word professional anyway) are very well hidden. How indeed can we care about so very well hidden (or non-existent?) activities? European non-EGF professionals and European income professionals appear to have more visible income activities than EGF professionals. Not to mention that the latter have to pay part of any income to the EGF / CEGO, making a living even more difficult.

Your assumption is false in the context of Go, and long has been, though I thought you would know that so are maybe just being obtuse?. The usual meaning of professional in go is a person with a professional rank from some recognised organisation, like the Nihon Ki-in. I could call myself a 1p from Mars but no one recognises the Martian Go Association I just invented. These new EGF/CEGO and AGA/KBA pro ranks seem to be recognised by most but obviously are not of the same standing as Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Taiwanese. There are plenty of people with such pro ranks who don't make their living from Go, Jimmy Cha comes to mind as one famous example. Or Liu Yuanbo 2p aka Milanmilan 9d on KGS. Or the numerous young low dan Chinese pros who travel to the west for higher education (quite a few at the recent US Go Congress, or Zi Wang 1p who won the London open whilst studying here a few years ago, last I heard he was in Toronto) and pursue a non-Go career. And as Robert Jasiek said there are the other side too, non-professionally ranked players who make their living from Go such as himself, Cornel Burzo (6d Roamanian Go teacher), Hwang Inseong (7d Korean ex-insei and now Go teacher) and maybe even other weaker players like Shawn Ray who I think is crowdfunding his career as a Go teacher and video maker/translator etc.

I was referring to the word in the English sense and pointing out its misuse in the world of Go. Though I thought that was obvious, so maybe you are just being obtuse.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Am I a professional mathematician?

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Do you make a living doing mathematics? If so, then yes.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

I don't, but my training as mathematician is what enables me to, though.

Of course I'm a "pro" in the sense that I have a degree, and I'm even published. Go, and sports in general are weird when talking about pro's.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

If I work at a fast food place for a living and work the fry station, am I a professional fry cook?