Citation:

"
4 seats go to the most successful players at the preceding European Go Congress

1 seat goes to the current European Female Champion (5d or stronger)

CEGO is entitled to designate 1 player (it will be one of the kids who went through the training program in China)

EGF is entitled to designate 1 player

the remaining seats will be distributed according to the EGF rating by March
"

This is a mixture of reasonable and unreasonable criteria. Seeding a female player is a discrimination against male players. Allowing CEGO to determine one "kid" player is a discrimination against older players and means that Europe loses full control of this seeding place. Allowing the EGF to select one player without criteria means that politics overrides playing strength.

4 EGC players can be a reasonable criterion if it is specified well enough in advance in a reasonable manner, i.e., selects the top 4 eligible players. The rating seeding is pretty reasonable if seeding the top eligible players, because the EGF rating system is reasonable (only) near the top of the list WRT to ordering the players relatively to each other.

3 unreasonably chosen players of 16 players is 3 too many. Politics must never override playing strength!

If it is thought that certain players cannot play in the EGC or in EGF rated tournaments to qualify there, then enable them to play there, instead of letting politics override playing strength.

Citation:



This is a mixture of reasonable and unreasonable criteria. Seeding a female player is a discrimination against male players. Allowing CEGO to determine one "kid" player is a discrimination against older players and means that Europe loses full control of this seeding place. Allowing the EGF to select one player without criteria means that politics overrides playing strength.

Not that I disagree, but this is pretty much the standard I would say, in chess we see the same thing. Women have their own titles(which are equal to the mans, but with lower requirements) and the hosting organisation of most tournaments gets to do one or more wildcard picks.

I'm actually surprised that the CEGO is only getting one pick, aren't they funding the european pro system in some way?


Either wayas Monadology pointed out, its unlikely that those picks will get the pro spots unless they really deserve it.

On the other hand. Guo Juan satisfies all requirements, doesn't she (IIRC she has Belgian nationality)? She'd play anyway, no need to add a rule for that.

Dutch I thought. But she fails the currently being an amateur requirement.

How do they gauge that someone is an amateur, other than she is not an official pro?

Why need any other way? Whether or not you are an official pro seems a good way to decide if you are amateur or not. We've had this discussion many times, in Go professional by default means has a professional rank from one of the established professional associations, not that Go is your job (as it is for some of Europes top amateurs like Cornel Burzo 6d who teaches Go for his job).

3 unreasonably chosen players of 16 players is 3 too many. Politics must never override playing strength!

If it is thought that certain players cannot play in the EGC or in EGF rated tournaments to qualify there, then enable them to play there, instead of letting politics override playing strength.

hyperpape, please explain why you think that my opinion does not apply. I have been under the impression that candidates for European professionals must be Europeans, but maybe this is not so?

Is the distinction between European/non-European players any less arbitrary and/or political than the distinction between male/female players or the distinction between younger/older player? If it is acceptable to restrict entry based on nationality, why not based on age or gender?

We must have a tournament sometime: our pros vs your pros.

hyperpape, please explain why you think that my opinion does not apply. I have been under the impression that candidates for European professionals must be Europeans, but maybe this is not so?