European Professional Online Go League starts soon

[Liso]

Pandemic is here and many tournaments are canceled or postponed. But with good will, fair play and help from digital era we could still have opportunity to see interesting tournaments. Euro pros revived older idea about online league.

The first game (Ilya Shikshin vs Ali Jabarin) will be played tomorrow (March 21st, 18:00 CET).

link to announcement
link to league webpage
link to EGF twitch channel

Edit: it will be played on OGS

[explo]

I hope Tanguy can take some games, the time settings are good for him. More realistically, I voted for Ilya and Artem.

[SoDesuNe]

As always I root for Pavol. He the only EGF-pro I ever met and he's a cool guy!

I also like how he can complicate stuff - anyone remembers cheater on KGS? ^^

[Liso]

https://online-go.com/game/22494750

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/572045618

[SoDesuNe]

Ilya won both games against Ali. Both were heavily influenced by Ilya's playstyle, meaning mayhem over merit (:p). But since I don't know anything about Ali's playstyle, it could have suited him just as well - see game two where he initiated the mayhem.

First game was something along the lines of hunter turning prey. But some flaws in the finishing blow lead to a very sucessful sacrifice instead of a game-ending kill.



Second game I did not follow live. Browsing through the sgf, White's handling of the right side feels like handicap-play and determined the game.

Since I'm going through Shuei's games at the moment (via Fairbairn's new book) I wonder wether Shuei would approve of or if it is indeed too slow. Anyway you can admire the composure with this move. That is until attention shifted to the right side. After Black solidifying himself with White strategy to poke everywhere seemed strange to me.



I liked Andrii's commentary. It was on point, insightful and most of all not filled with useless variations. According to one in-game comment by Uberdude Andrii's comments also rang true for Lizzie.

Viewer presentation could be better. I.e. I don't understand why he replayed the game on a separate board and thus sometimes struggled to keep up and/or find the right sequence of moves. As far as I know you can follow along on OGS just as fine and enter variations.

But overall great initiative by the EGF - looking for more to come!

[RobertJasiek]

with good will, fair play and help from digital era

Is this based on trust not to use AI or is there a referee for each player at his home?

[SoDesuNe]

I guess trust. There are seven people playing, one pro is always commentating and the games are played to popularise go - no prize.

I'm a glass-half-full-guy so I think there is no incentive to cheat what so ever.

[Liso]

There are no referees at their homes.

I suppose that games are also too short to influence their rankings, so we could probably try to believe them.

https://online-go.com/game/22519291

https://www.twitch.tv/europeangofederation/

[Liso]

They are still working on format.

Actually changed byo from 3x20 to 3x30 to make game and commenting more interesting.

Next weekend they are planing to make interview with players after game too.

If you have some feedback or nice ideas you could write it here. They will for sure get attention. Thanks!

[SoDesuNe]

Artem and Andrii went 1:1 - both times White won.

First game: https://online-go.com/game/22519291

Second game: https://online-go.com/game/22521221

First game had White behind in the beginning (a trickplay might have been involved) and featured a big moyo by Black. But after a slight tactical skirmish White managed to get a lot of points while Black just ended up defending. It also seemed that Artem got the count wrong due to time troubles and played a bit of a timid endgame.

The second game had a couple of interesting ko-fights and ended by a trade between half the board with 32 dead stones vs quarter of the board with 19 dead stones. Turned out a the first was bigger.

Feedback/ideas:
- Face cam of the players
- Short highlight videos for Youtube (not just an edited vod but a separate rundown of the turning points etc - nothing too deep of course since it was blitz)
- showing the remaining time per player
- overlay of league standings once in a while
- if you do interviews, please prepare better questions than "how do you feel?" : D Stuff I find interesting is (on top of my head):
1) Did you prepare for your opponent (something special)?
2) Biggest regret and favourite move of the game?
3) Specific question about a position/a move the commentator would have played differently and if this was considered and why it was not played
4) How do you train/stay sharp right now with all the tournaments getting cancelled due to Coronoa?
5) Favourite pro?
6) Do you train with AI and how?

Looking forward to next weekend!

[SoDesuNe]

Constant aggression gave Pavol two wins.

Second game did not find much approval of Ilya, who was commentating along the lines of: "Of course Pavol will hane..." : D In the end all the complicated mischief Pavol initiated paid off in the final error by Tanguy, misreading a semeai.

Nontheless, entertaining stuff!

First game: https://online-go.com/game/22668514
Second game: https://online-go.com/game/22670451

[Ferran]

Sunday's Game1 and Game2. The official game reviews seem to be "unfinished" and can't be downloaded, though.

Take care

[Ferran]

Apr 4, Game 1
Apr 4, Game 2

Apr 5, Game 1
Apr 5, Game 2

Take care

[Liso]

@Ferran I was speaking about problem with Pavol but he doesn't know how to finish game. Could somebody hint?

But there is workaround. Choose "Link to review" instead of disabled "Download SGF" and there is url to sgf. (click small icon on the left)

https://online-go.com/api/v1/reviews/455281/sgf
https://online-go.com/api/v1/reviews/455235/sgf

[Ferran]

@Ferran I was speaking about problem with Pavol but he doesn't know how to finish game. Could somebody hint?

I don't have the foggiest idea. So far, typing "arimasen" has always worked for me, but I'm sure more experienced players have other options...

Sorry.

Take care.

Thanks a lot.