Well, all I can say is that you are the one that claimed to have facts behind your opinions. You told me that you back up your opinions with sources, and I'd like to point out that this is a just another example of a time where that is not true.

You are the one that called out "smelly play", but your response is evidence that you don't really have any logical basis for coming to this conclusion - at least not one that you've shared so far.

By the way, saying that a topic regarding Korean "brings out a certain protectiveness" in me is no different than if I say that Korean topics "bring out a certain aggressiveness" in you, so I'm not sure if delving into those types of scarecrow arguments is that beneficial.

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be immersed

i like tournaments as fair as possible, but this looks ok to me. first, for Chinese it sucks to have to travel to Korea to play another Chinese, lose the game and return home. second, having a random draw is not more fair because everyone would have the pairing same difficult, it is only more fair because everyone has the same chance to get an easy (unfair) pairing

i think i would be content even if organisers went step further and pair players from winners brackets against players from losers brackets (supposedly protect players that already showed better results) or used national rankings and tried sort of fold pairing - pair strongest Korean against weakest Chinese, 2nd best against 2nd worst and so on (with Japanese players included, it would be more difficult but there would be surely some algorithm to achieve something close)


i don't really understand this. current Samsung is the exact opposite, strictly mixing Koreans against Chinese, only thing common is that neither solution is random

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

This is a prime example of why I get irritated. I made no such claim here. I asked two questions and added a statement that further indicated I was questioning, viz. "How did they get 8 Koreans playing 8 Chinese? A sponsor's fix? This smells."

Likewise:



I did not use the quote "smelly play" (which is meaningless to me incidentally - maybe smelly means something different to Americans, just like "mean"), and I didn't come to any conclusion. That was the point of the questions. I'm suspicious, that's all. That's what "this smells" means. It's fishy. If there is a stale kipper at the bottom of this, then I'll be disappointed because I'd prefer to see tournaments pre-arranged as little as possible, especially when a world title is at stake.

Your attachment to Korea is well known. My equally well known dislike of Mickey Mouse time limits is no more than a dislike of Mickey Mouse time limits wherever they occur. It is you who have tried to paint me as anti-Korean because of this opinion. You should be ashamed.

I doubt the paring was fixed. At (http://gogameguru.com/16th-samsung-cup- ... concludes/) we can see that the parings was made through lottery with the players present. Or it might have been so that Korean players can only draw Chinese, we have no clue however if that is the case, the players were probably informed about it.

However, if we want to try and find logical explanations for this I guess the key lies in the group system. Normally the winner of an group can only be paried against a "second" from another group. This might have narrowed down the different outcomes of the paring which made the Korea vs China match possible from a statistic point of view.

Even if it was fixed*, I would not mind at all. I think the beauty with international events competition between countries as those games are rare to see and the players feel more pressure, which in return leads to more exciting games. (The rivarly between Gu Li and Lee Sedol is in particular exciting.)

Additionally, if the Samsung Cup had some devious plans to support the Korean players with this paring, they are probably doing a big mistake. They are facing a huge risk as it could be possible that all Chinese participants knock-out the Koreans. Especially, Korea can lose two of their top players as Lee Sedol face Kong Jie and Lee Changho face Gu Li. The proper way to fix this kind of paring would in my opinion be that Lee Sedol played a Korean instead and that Kong Jie played Gu Li to knock one of them out

Perhaps I should contact Samsung and ask if they are in need for a devious schemer?

(Would just like to add a cliffnote. Even though I personally wouldn't mind if Samsung Cup had made some "forced parings" in this case I can understand John's concern about fixing in general. It might be possible to make parings great beneficial to the country you are rooting for. The next step might be, "Oh Kong Jies best player but his winning percentage vs Park Younghoon is just 35%, lets pair them together." In this sense, it's best that all competitions constantly is kept fair. Lets hope this was the case with Samsung

The pairing was done by draw as you can see in the link below.

http://www.cyberoro.com/news/news_view. ... e=&cmt_n=0

There is no fixing to match up any specific players.

Organizer have Korean player draw from odd numbers and rest of players draw from even numbers. I can see this in the picture.

This is to draw more excitement.

Why shoul I be ashamed when you are blatently unobjective?

The pairings are 8 Korean players vs. 8 Chinese players. You attempt to suggest that this is an attempt to bring in more domestic prize money.

1.) If they want to keep prize money domestic, they can have domestic tournaments.

2.) Assuming players of equal strength, there is no difference in chances for domestic advancement in any arrangement. Given 50% chance of win for each pro, the expected number of korean advancers is 4 of the 8. Any other arrangement is the same. The only way this arrangement increases korean advancement odds is if there is greater than 50% chance for korean pros to beat chinese pros when randomly matched.

Again, if you want domestic prize retention, have domestic tournaments.

I feel no reason to be ashamed when I feel information is not being presented objectively. I know you like the phrase "Mickey Mouse" time limits, and you know just as well that it offends me.

But this is a separate issue here. We are not discussing time limits.

P.S. You did claim to have sources behind your comments in an earlier discussion. Again, this is not true.

Anyway, I am totally confident in the points I have brought up, so I am going to bow out of this conversation, as I do not have time to pursue it further.

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be immersed

Na Hyun's marching continues.

Lee Youngkku defeated Tan Xiao by 3.5.
Chen Yaoe defeated Kim Junghyun by resign.
Won Sungjin defeated Li Xuanhao by resign.
Na Hyun defeated Peng Liyao by resign.
Park Younghun won over Guo Wenchao by resign.
Kong Jie defeated Lee SeDol by resign.
Kim Jiseok defeated Li Zhe by resign.

As of 3:15am NY,
Lee Changho vs Gu Li still playing.

Watch the Samsung Cup live here... http://lifein19x19.com/L19TV.php

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I'm thinking...

Apparently the games were broadcast on Tygem. It would be great if someone could let us know beforehand when and on which server games can be watched.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Most of the time you can catch the games on wbaduk on their corresponding countries server.

Many of the Korean games you can now catch on L19TV.

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I'm thinking...

It seems Gu Li won by 1/2 point.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Next round(11am 10/05/11 Korea) draw.

Lee Youngkku vs Chen Yaoe
Won Sungjin vs Park Younghun
Na Hyun vs Kong Jie
Kim Jiseok vs Gu Li

Gu Li defeated Kim Jiseok by resign.
Chen Yaoe defeated Lee Youngkgu by resign.
Na Hyun defeated Kong Jie by 1.5.
Won Sungjin defeated Park Younghun by resign.



Semi final(Next round) will be held 10/31/11, 11/2/11-11/3/11.

The final will be held 12/5/11-12/7/11.

See you at the end of October!!!!!!!!!!!

Samsung cup games will be on L19TV (http://lifein19x19.com/L19TV.php) starting at 5:00pm korean time... about an hour an a half from this post...

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I'm thinking...

Could you, in the future, use a sensible date format? This is just unreadable to me. Something like "Dec 5, 2011" or "2011-12-05" should be readable to everyone.

Yes. It may not be common knowledge, but some European countries use a different order in their dates, for example Germans read 12/5/11 as the 12th of May 2011, so when mentioning dates in an international context, it's less ambiguous if you write the month as a word.

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Patience, grasshopper.

M/D/Y is fundamentally illogical (2nd/3rd/1st, medium/small/large)

Does that make an iota of difference? Logic is pretty irrelevant to customs or traditions - or do you appreciate rants about yards and ounces? As long as we're not in the business of correcting national standards, doesn't it make sense to do our best to make ourselves understood?

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Patience, grasshopper.

Why should one order be more logical than another? Why should order matter more than size or importance? E.g. On a Bell curve, the typical "medium" part may be much larger/important than the large or small tails, which ultimately is why most restaurants serve medium-size meals, and shops sell medium-size clothes.

It's like the silly idea that units of 10 or somehow more logical than units of 12.

And even if you do believe that sort of thing, why should logic always determine what we choose to do for our own pleasure or convenience?

(My own date usage is normally of the type 5 October 2011 = 5-10-2011, but in GoGoD we use ISO, i.e. 2011-10-05).

I prefer ISO, because it is internationally unambiguous and has the added benefit of sorting correctly on a computer (e.g. my GoGoD files are sorted in chronological order automatically).

I guess most date formats are primarily based on their pronunciation. When you're used to saying "December 5th, 2011", then 12/5/11 reads naturally. If you're used to say "5 december 2011" (default in Dutch), then 5/12/11 reads naturally.

The issue is avoided entirely by abbreviating your months, instead of using a numerical representation. "Dec 5, 2011" or "5 Dec, 2011" are both easily understood. The only issue with it would be people that do not speak English very well, and do not know the names of the months.