What benefits will European pros have? Do they get to participate in particular tournaments? Do they get financial benefit? Is it just a title?

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be immersed

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.

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

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I think that giving underrepresented groups a minimum of guaranteed representation at tournament like this does far more good than harm. Let's suppose that for the remaining 13 players, playing strength is all that matters. Do you really think that having the top 13 players in Europe duke it out for the title of professional would be insufficient for a fair determination of the first two pros? Suppose it was a 12 player tournament. Well, players who aren't quite strong enough to be in the top 12 would be excluded anyway, but it would still be a perfectly fine tournament. If the 12 strongest players is enough, then what's the harm of throwing in four more determined by other criteria? The odds that the two real strongest players have somehow been excluded by such a system are pretty low. So I don't see how there is any substantial detriment.

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.

The thing is (and I think this is Robert's point) that at that high level (6-8d EGF) the differences between players are minimal. The 14th best EGF positioned player may be left out, and instead may mount a good challenge for the title, even win, if given the chance.

In chess (and most other individual sports, for example tennis) the organisation has a "wild card pick." But this tournament is in some sense the definitive European Champion title for the year, there are no wild picks in the Challengers Tournament (or at least there wasn't when I followed chess). This is a disrespect for the play quality of such a tournament.

As for the women part, I think equality and all that are very good and should be enforced in cases when it is needed, but it shouldn't be a de facto requirement in any competition. 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.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

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? Because if teaching go is her primary source of income, I guess most high EGF dans may fall into it, too (counting foreign-born nationalised players or university students making a side income from go teaching but without any other proper job)

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

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).

Oh, I think I didn't explain it clearly, since there is a gap in my knowledge then: is Guo Juan a pro in some association? I thought no, and since you said she doesn't satisfy the amateur part it conflicted with my knowledge.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Yes, she is Chinese 5p.

It's pretty simple work to find out that Guo Juan is currently Dutch, was originally Chinese, and holds the rank of 5 dan professional from the Zhongguo Qiyuan. I think that CEGO selecting 1 player from the 6 people "studying to be pro" in China makes sense, else why are we sending them there, and why are they sponsoring European Go? Picking 1 female player (provided they are above 5d) to play seems sensible enough to me in terms of the overall promotion of the game. Not sure why the EGF executive wants to have a wildcard place, but that's hardly unreasonable. We should probably note that the mechanism outlined on this page might not be finalised yet, especially as it isn't published on the EGF website.

From my perspective, it is surprising that there are 3 stages to the tournament, because I would worry that this puts a financial strain on the participants. Additionally, somebody like Artem could be shafted on the visa front.

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North Lecale

Of course, this whole project is about letting politics override strength. Most of the competitors would face long odds to qualify as professionals in Taiwan or Japan, perhaps none (or just Ilja?) would have a chance in China or Korea.

This project isn't solely about identifying the best of the best and giving them what they deserve. It's partly also an attempt to grow go culture and high level play in Europe.

Your scruples are selectively applied in an ugly way. Your logic indicts the whole project, not just selecting a woman or a student, but that is what you're focusing on.

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Current EGF ratings: http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/cr ... dgob=false

I see at least 6 non-qualifying players at top 10, so picking 13 players means up to including place 19. A couple should be not interested in becoming pro, a couple should be non-european citizen. At the moment 21 to 24th place is Silt Ondrej, Jabarin Ali, Balogh Pal, and Simara Jan. I expect these players to be super interested. So at current rating I am guessing they will be in the tournament. That gives 2610 GoR as the entry limit. Any good 6d should be not far from that line. In a quick glance I notice some young guys such as Victor, Fredrick and Dusan - so I expect them to attend as many tournaments as possible in these two months, hunting for GoR. Good season to organize a tournament

Current female champion is Natalia Kovaleva. She is listed as 5d but her GoR is 2 points short - so based on GoR she would be 4d. I wonder if this is a problem for her participation.

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?

I agree with the sentiment that distinction between European/non-European players is somewhat arbitrary. OTOH, as we are referring to European Pro Qualifications, I think that the distinction is a necessary one.

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be immersed

Battle of the Atlantic!

While not an official web page...

"Only amateur players holding a citizenship of an EGF country are allowed to participate."

This seems fairly clear.

To be honest (and this is the same with the american system) I have no issue with non-citizens or non-residents becoming professionals. You will note that the Asian pro associations don't have any similar restrictions, and I doubt that there would be a huge influx of Asians coming over to Europe to attain a professional certification, and then returning to Asia with no attempt to use that certification in any manner. Why not try for a more local one, which will certainly carry more prestige in Asia? Furthermore, if people come from Asia, attain a European or American professional certification, and use it locally, the European and American go communities would win by having the strongest players as professionals teaching in their areas.

As much as I like the idea of professional systems in the west, there is no purpose to them if they don't help further the strength of local players and the appreciation of the game in the west. I see the best way to do that to be to have the strongest possible selection tournaments with candidates who expect to actually work in go, and I'd rather there be a commitment to work in go locally afterwards than a prerequisite of residency with no other expectations.