In today's e-journal there was a comment



I do not remember seeing what happened to the Tygem sponsorship. Does anyone know? or is this another time where we are to be in the dark

I know nothing about this. Also not sure why they are in a rush to find the next pros. Is anybody actually good enough?

To give credit where it's due, at least Europe seems to have secured a multi-year sponsorship.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

I thought America had too!

Link for the full news.

http://www.usgo.org/news/2013/07/aga-bo ... ournament/

Yes, there is more... but this was just a discussion on what happened to the sponsorship. All that was mentioned in the article was that they were no longer sponsoring it. There was a one line sentence in the board meeting minutes. you think there would have been some discussion on this. Maybe it was and it is in the "missing" minutes.

I don't know anything about boardroom discussions, but I do recall hearing about the loss of sponsorship some time ago (but I don't recall from whom), Maybe it was even before the end of the year.

But I'm not surprised either. The event never drew large crowds. Not even medium or even small crowds. No crowds at all. (I don't think there was ever more than 20 people logged on watching a game at any one time throughout the week, and most of those were probably at the event already). I think Tygem was hoping for a little bit larger turnout.

I would be interested in understanding what their metrics were in deciding whether to continue or not. Were they looking at the number of new Tygem accounts from the U.S.? The number of players on the AGA server at some time? The results of the individuals selected as the first U.S. pros? Or maybe it was just normal budgetary constraints. It just tempts speculation too much.

Sadly, transparency is still not a strength of the AGA. Anyone who is not in the meetings is in about the same position as Cold War era Kremlinologists.

There is always the option of contacting your regional representative before throwing out cold war references.

Or better yet... why can't our regional representatives communicate with the chapter reps in their region, who in turn would then communicate with members?

There is that too, but I'm not going to start throwing out cold war references until everyone in the aga area starts denying everything.

Board of Directors
Paul Celmer Eastern pcelmer@earthlink.net
Gurujeet Khalsa Eastern gurujeet@live.com
Lisa Scott Central lisa.scott@usgo.org
Robert Gilman Central rdgilman@centurylink.net
Steve Burrall Western sburrall@comcast.net
Chris Kirschner Western chrisk.aga@comcast.net
Edward Zhang At large agatd1@gmail.com

This is applicable for the next week until they change. It can be fond when updated @ http://www.usgo.org/who-aga#board

That was part 1. Part 2:

Things happen in "back room aga dealings". This has happened for the decades that the AGA has existed for. Get over it. Want to know what really went down? Stop bitching and ask one of the very nice people above. If they cant answer they will ask the president, if he doesn't know he will know the right person. That being said here is what I know of the "back room deals":

The fault here is not with the AGA but with Tygem. They were the ones to drop out of the deal. The AGA admins has been working to secure a new sponsor for the event. This is not an easy task. The money they spent on the first tournament was a lot and they have a different view of how it went after the fact. The president has explained that if he could do it again he would do it differently.

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Decisions are made by those who show up.
and possibly those willing to attend secret meetings in ancient basements

Perhaps such statements/attitudes contribute to the public sentiment

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be immersed

I apologize for my earlier comment. It is not the kind of thing I should have said, since I know how hard it is for volunteer organizations.

The announcement said they will run this year's tournament. Anyone have information and when will be? Last year it was held during the week before US Go Congress. That would be right about now this year.

I assume later. Last year, there were lengthy qualifiers.

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Occupy Babel!

I don't watch live games frequently, but I was one of these 20 apparently. And to be fair, most people would rather look at and comment on SGFs after the event.

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Sincerely, Chad R. Sobodash

I enjoy watching games live, and I've certainly seen games attract 600 live viewers on KGS. I'm sure Tygem have the potential for even more.

Perhaps, but if this is true, it might mean that the sponsor was ill-suited for the event (and would explain their discontinued sponsorship). Presumably the reason Tygem was willing to sponsor the AGA pro league is because they thought it would bring a large number of AGA players into their server (allowing them to recoup their sponsorship). I wouldn't be surprised if someone ran those numbers and decided it wasn't cost-effective for them to continue.