Yes, it should be B+2.5, not W+2.5, Nikola won the game.

Fixed this ISSUE

# Main Event Round 1-5

Timur Sankin, contributed his games
http://gokifu.com/player/Timur%20Sankin

Inredible how Catalin won today, everyone on kgs counted him out in the midgame. So impressive.

Korean on the first board won by .5 and Korean on the second board lost by .5

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By the way, is it correct that after seven rounds the top eight Europeans will play a knockout for the title? Strangely, I don't see mention of such a knockout anywhere, though I do recall it being announced here.

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

yes, you are correct. spectators discussed it in one of kgs broadcasts today. rules are for example at egf page and also somewhere at egc2011.eu

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

Some more details, based on the current standings:

Players will need at least 39 McMahon points (i.e. at least 5 wins out of 7 games) to qualify for the knock-out, which means that anyone in place 19 or lower (i.e. those top players with at least 3 losses already) is out of the running for the title. All other players have their placement in their own hands.

At the top there are three European players that already have 39 points: Ondrej Silt, Ilja Shikshin and Catalin Taranu. From the group in places 5-18, the fourteen players with with 38 points, an additional six or seven players will reach 39 points (six if Jeon Sang Youn wins his game, seven if he loses). In total, there will therefore be nine or ten players on at least 39 points.

If there are nine such players, the highest seven (based on SOS, then rating) are qualified automatically, while the lowest two will play a relegation game on Wednesday to determine which one of them also enters the knock-out. If there are ten such players, the highest six are qualified automatically, while the lowest four will play in a relegation game on Wednesday for the remaining two places.

The pairing at the top for the next round is obvious: Ondrej will play Catalin, while Ilja plays against Kim. The winner of the first game will have 40 points and run no risk of a relegation game on Wednesday. If Ilja wins against Kim, he will also avoid the risk of a relegation game.

For the next group, those in places 5-18, the pairing is not clear yet, it depends on how the pairing program is set.

Wow. Good luck to the one who gets to play Jeon. This is a moment where you do NOT want to be paired against a Korean 7-dan...

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

I don't think non europeans can go into the knockout group even with sufficient points. Or can they?

no, they can't (for obvious reasons, to decide a European champion). and i don't think that anything in HermanHiddema's post implies that non-Europeans could qualify

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

How are prizes being assigned this year?

BTW, in my opinion this knock-out seems to be working out quite well. Some thoughts:

No European player seems to be particularly disadvantaged. There will be one or two players who would have had a one point head start under the old system (Catalin or Ondrej, and potentially Ilja), but even under the old system they would have needed to win the remaining three games to be sure of the title (With 2/3 they would have entered the SOS lottery that was so common in recent years). Those with 5/7 would definitely have needed to win the remaining three games. Given that, the KO looks very fair. With the KO, you also need to win the remaining three games, but there will never be a SOS lottery.

As to the non-European players, it seems quite fair to them too. They have had 7 rounds to play against the best that Europe has to offer, and even in the remaining three rounds there will be sufficient interesting opponents. For round 7, Kim would normally have been paired with a player on 39 points (as he's already played Catalin, Ilja and Ondrej). Given the fact that there will be at least on relegation game between players with 39 points, there is a good chance that the loser of that game will face Kim, so Kim's pairing is unaffected. As to Jeon's pairing, it still depends on his current round result, but he too will probably be paired against a sufficiently strong player (players like Svetlana Shikshina or Mero Csaba are close behind, as are those from the top 18 who lose this round).

All in all, it seems to be working out fine, at least for this year. I'm very interested to hear the opinions of the top players about this.

Anyone know the result of the game between Kachanovskyi and Balogh? It is the only result missing from the top, and one of these two players will join the other eight already on 39 points and be in the running to win the title.

Other than that, the following eight players are still in the runnning:

Taranu, Silt, Shikshin, Mitic, Debarre, Dinerchtein, Burzo and Surin.

Surin has very low SOS, and will have to play a play-off on Wednesday. Either against Burzo, if Kachanovskyi won the game I asked about, or against Balogh, if Balogh won it.

Will they be using blood tests or craniometry to determine which players are European?

Artem won :

no, passport will do the job. and i don't think it is any more unreasonable (as one could feel from your tone) than not allowing Brazil to participate in European football championship

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

Isn't it more like allowing Brazil to participate but then saying that they aren't allowed to win?

I'd guess they'll use something more conventional such as 'have they lived in Europe for X years?', or 'do they have citizenship of a European country'. I don't see why this would be a problem.

Thanks!

So, if I read the rules correctly, that means that we will see a relegation game between Surin and Burzo on Wednesday.

I ran my program to determine optimal pairings (according to the new EGC rules) for the quarter finals, and the result is:

Kachanovskyi - Silt
Taranu - Burzo/Surin
Mitic - Dinerchtein
Shikshin - Debarre