What do you think of the tournament system used this year to decide the next EGF professional?

There are 16 qualifiers, who play in a kind of double elimination tournament for 1 final spot.
As there is only 1 pro spot available this I thought that single elimination ( a straight knockout) would have been a more obvious choice. Does anyone agree?

In the chosen system, it looks like some people just get 1 extra life for no obvious reason.

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North Lecale

KO would make obvious sense.

Double KO to qualify one player makes sense in a more complicated manner. It presumes that the "Loser" does not get any advantage other than losing his game earlier. The "Winner" has to prove that he can continue winning. The "Loser" is given a second chance because nobody can always win, so the tournament system models top professional reality that even the best players cannot always win and that winning more decisive games is more important than winning less important games.

I don't think KO is very good for finding the absolute best player (1 loss and your out, more luck involved)-- RR is of course theoretically the best possible method, however knowledge of wins/losses may change outcomes, and it takes a while to complete. KO is good for finding the best "half" of players, maybe. DE has the advantage of removing half the uncertainty of an "upset" loss from the best player affecting the winner of the tournament. Also, there are more match-ups between the players, making for a better test. I like it.

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Between two players the best player is more likely to win a best-of-three rather than a single game. He is even more likely to win the best of five.

So in a tournament of this importance it is more desirable to have the best two players play one another more often. A double elimination achieves this without unduly lengthening the tournament.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

The tournament didn't use double elimination throughout though.

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North Lecale

Could you explain where it deviates from that? On eurogofed.org i found only the information that it is double elimination.

BTW:

You can look at the chart they made: http://eurogofed.org/proqualification/index_2016.html
From the quarter finals it is just single elimination.

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North Lecale

Thank you!
It took me some time, but finally i could see it.
(those charts and sheets really make my brain hurt )

Intereting to note that Thomas Debarre beat Andrii Kravets in the first round, for Andrii to get a second chance, and finally to come back in the semifinals and take his revenge on Thomas.

No second chance for Thomas though.

I don't really see how this system makes sense except that they wanted to play exactly 6 rounds for 16 players and thought it was the easiest way. Even though I supported Thomas, I won't call it unfair since the same rules apply to all players.

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La victoire est un hasard, la défaite une nécessité.

If tow players have played with each other, they should only meet in the final next time. However I have not worked out, if this can be achieved, when the pairing chart is fixed in advance until to the finish.

Another way would be to have three rounds of knock out and then tow remaining players play best of three, but then there is a risk that the tournament finishes in five rounds.