European Championship Rules

[Matti]

Surely minor should be defined?

It is given implicitly:

1) motions at the AGM

2) election of a new committee

If motions don't change and the same committee is re-elected, then the rules change was "minor" in the AGM delegates' judgement.

The committee members who where against the current system are no more members.

[tapir]

It is an absolute vanity affair to decide places #5 to #8 by the k.o. system, those places have absolutely no meaning afaik. If a player who lost the relegation game for the top 8 is able to beat one of the visiting powerhouses the top 8 should not shy away from the challenge.

I personally would be rather disappointed, if the top 8 players that I cheered for are among those who asked for this change.

[RobertJasiek]

the only reason for it is that those European players in the top 8 do not like to play against Asian players.

This is a possible reason some of the Europeans might consider an advantage. I do not know at all for which reasons the EGF Committee set the new rule. E.g., it might have had the reason of "better media coverage", as one can guess from earlier arguments heard of the Committee. It is also possible that those in the Committee in favour of the new rule have had different reasons.

[palapiku]

How can four quarter-finals losers determine places 5-8 in just two rounds? Don't you need three? How do you distinguish between places 7 and 8?

[Javaness2]

magic

[Laman]

How can four quarter-finals losers determine places 5-8 in just two rounds? Don't you need three? How do you distinguish between places 7 and 8?

four losers (5-8) play among themselves, which leaves 2 losers-winners (5-6) and 2 losers-losers (7-8). these pairs play the last remaining round to determine the final place for everyone.

This system goes against everything we know about sensible tournament organization. And the only reason for it is that those European players in the top 8 do not like to play against Asian players. It is an absolute disgrace.

i 100% agree that this system is inferior to either playing 8 players swiss or kicking the eliminated players back to open.

on the other hand, i don't find players' general preference in pairing to be an irrelevant criterion for devicing a tournament system. if the strong Europeans didn't wish to play Asians at all and voted for the EC as a separated 10 player round-robin spanning two weeks, i don't think i would mind much. sure, i wouldn't celebrate their courage to face a stronger opposition, and i wouldn't get a chance to celebrate their occasional win against Asians, but otherwise it would seem a legitimate system to me.

only if the current system can get better placement for the Europeans in the Open, then it is wrong to take their preference into account. i think this effect is possible, but not significant, so (hopefully) no issue here.

by the way, one could say that it is incorrect that Europeans don't want to play Asians, only that they want more to play among themselves. however, judging from other discussion, they are indeed not too eager to get regularly bashed.

there are way too many constraints put on the Congress tournaments: reliably choose the European Champion from strong Europeans (without influence of games outside of this group), reliably choose the Open Champion from strong Europeans and strong Asians, let strong Asians play strong Europeans (the more the better), fit this all to two week, or preferably less, with long time allowance and no more than 1 game a day. i don't see a way to satisfy all of these goals, even if i haven't forgotten some