Nice story from mef, who had the burden of being made my guide when I first arrived at Santa Barbara.

But to be fair to the girl, when I was there, on Day 1, all I saw were beaming faces, even though around half of them must have been the faces of players who lost games. Being a professional cynic (= journalist) I did wonder at the time how many of those beams would disappear as the week wore on - even losing one game and winning five can be cause for a glum face if you miss out on a prize. Or losing three and winning four can bring the disappointment of a missed promotion.

Nevertheless, the location, the numbers, the organisation and the range of activities all gave me the impression that the beams were probably independent of the results, and I in turn vastly enjoyed meeting for the first time the small handful of L19 and other go acquaintances I had time to meet. I also learned something about Keith Arnold for the first time that makes him a National Treasure (even if he is an Everton supporter)!

The week went by far far too quickly! I didn't really arrive until Midnight Sunday (see my post in the SC2 thread ), then Monday morning is the Open of course, then I was immediately trying to iron out details about the Die Hard tournament, so the whole beginning of the week felt rather rushed. Sorry to those I met briefly but didn't have much time to talk with.

Even though I was there I'm relying on others for pictures so I'm anxiously awaiting those! Here is one Bart took of me, my 5th round game with Kaoru Kato. Before the game he gave me a gift, a miniature ceramic pot.

ETA: I'm trying to get sponsored by Dr.Pepper. 95% of the pictures of me playing Go have a DP in them!


Ok I'll bite, what did you learn?

Fair speculation. I believe I was among the "beaming" the entire week--even having lost my first three US Open games (I was happy to win my last three).

Unfortunately, we did not get to meet, but I spoke to T Mark a few times and learned a little something about you: despite living outside the U.S., you have seen more baseball games in more parks that I probably ever will (even though I'm a baseball fan). Hats off to you, sir.

That's even better than Andrew's "Now I'll turn you over to the TD for the Open and I hope you all win." closing to the daily announcements.

They got a chuckle out of this the first few times.

By the way--I enjoyed playing the teaching game alongside you the last day. I'm up for it again anytime.

I'm not sure, but I think they're still looking for a calligrapher

I met RedBeard for the first time. Mef and xed_over i'd met a number of times before. Maybe next year the organizers can have a L19 meeting time set aside.

in saying that i will touch my nose announcing "not it"

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

Yeah, when Karoline said it Sunday, it made me laugh, so I used it a couple times too.

As the Open co-TD, here are my main "lessons learned":
Getting it right at Registration is probably the most important (and the most difficult) part of the whole process.
Kids SDK or stronger who want to self-promote are probably right; adults who want to self-promote are probably wrong.
Go players have low expectations of their TDs. If the pairings aren't blatantly absurd and you start on time, 99% of the players will think you're doing a miraculously wonderful job.
The other 3 players have run a lot of large tournaments, and they can see through the facade. They have good advice. Listen to them, so that next time, the 99% will be right.
If someone tries to take a bye 15 minutes before you post the pairings (i.e., hours after your deadline), just assign a forfeit and apologize to the player who has nobody to play. That's better than keeping 300 players waiting while you feverishly redo the pairings; and theres a very good chance that the player with no opponent is happy to accept a win by forfeit and a chance to do his laundry before the afternoon lectures.
Tie break statistics (SOS, SODOS, etc.) are going to cause unhappiness for someone. But if you take the time to speak sympathetically with the disappointed parties, and walk them through the calculations, they probably won't feel like the TDs cheated them.
Anything you can do in the days before the banquet, that will save time in the few hours between the end of Round 6 and the start of the banquet, is worth doing. (I.e., if you know you're going to give away paper certificates in addition to the trophies, get them designed and get your mail merge file set up before the Congress starts, if possible. Doing it Tuesday night is acceptable, and much much better than Saturday afternoon.)
The times you can eat at the dining hall are not TD-friendly. Meals will be missed. Plan accordingly.
Other Congress staff and volunteers are going to ask you to do things that aren't really your job. It's not their fault; they're crazy busy trying to please the paying customers, just like you are. Still, learning to say "No" firmly yet kindly is a really good idea, so you don't find yourself stretched too thin to do your primary job properly.

_________________
AGA membership customer service rep -- database@usgo.org
AGA Members Area: https://usgo.org/members

I'm convinced everyone under the age of 13 is sandbagging whether they are trying to or not. (=



I liked Andy Okun's line at the banquet (quoting Keith Arnold?) to the effect of: "They're go players, as long as you have enough boards for everyone to play, they will play each other."


Really though, you both did a fantastic job with the open! I think things went as smoothly as they could (considering there are so many aspects outside of your control).

I'm actually a little curious about how this works, since I believe I won my division on SOS. (and subsequently got the evil eye from the kid I beat out for 1st place and his parents) But yeah, you and Karoline did a great job. It's a shame your TD responsibilities prevented us from playing our match in the club team tournament, I would have liked a game with you at some point.

Oh, I met you, too.

I think quite a number of you appear somewhere in my photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/1070908531 ... gress2011#

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

It was great fun meeting many of you at congress this year. Interestingly enough, I keep getting automatched on KGS with people that I know from this congress. It adds an interesting dynamic to the whole thing.

_________________
Ko is the best solution.
With Ko, I can keep eating and drinking until I am full.

Visit >>>Koosh's Study Journal<<<

Thanks Mef; nice meeting you, Daniel, and others too.

Sorry about our game, Linden. At that moment, I was jiggering a spreadsheet to make sure the multi-kyu prize bands would have their results calculated correctly. It turned out to be unnecessary, because the pairing software programmer came up with a workaround; but at the time I didn't know that, and I was pretty busy. Another time, I hope.

Yes, you won your division on SOS; and the kid who came in 2nd had actually defeated you over the board, if I recall correctly. I'm sure it's always a mess when that happens. Unfortunately, the player he was paired with in Round 1 was a no-show at the Congress (getting things right at Registration is important, and we could have done a bit better with a few things). He got credit for the forfeit, and he got an averaged credit toward his SOMS and SODOMS; but it didn't help his scores enough to beat your scores, and you won the division and the KABA dan certificate. Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.

_________________
AGA membership customer service rep -- database@usgo.org
AGA Members Area: https://usgo.org/members

Great photos, Daniel!

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Patience, grasshopper.

This looks like such a wonderful event and one day, when I am back in North America, I hope to have a chance to participate in a congress.

The closest experience I have had was participating in the 2001 Canadian Chess Open. Wonderful experience. 4 word not family friendly unforgettable moment from that trip in hide tags.

Ahh, it is a mess with every score-based tournament-type system. Check out the BCS . You could have a head-to-head exception, but meh.

Thanks for clarifying the situation, Mike.


I think that would've made deciding the winner of the Open section pretty complicated, what with the top three players beating each other. Ziyang Hu > Zhaonian Chen > Yongfei Ge > Ziyang Hu

I didn't meet as many forum members as I would've liked, but I hung out with Shaddy some, ran into EdLee (who I'd already met at Cotsen), met daniel_the_smith in the last days and Redbeard at the awards banquet. Shaddy and I were wondering why Joaz and Kirby weren't there, although I know Kirby probably has more pressing obligations at present. Posted some of my day to day thoughts about Congress here: http://eachmovematters.blogspot.com/ (No pictures, unfortunately, too lazy)

Oh, I wasn't advocating for a change. There is no way around complications in tournaments like this (a lot of participants and a short amount of time).

me neither... I even tried to arrange a meetup, but then couldn't make it myself

game recorders often don't get meal breaks either, and top players games can last 5-6 hours

I'm glad I didn't have to buy(waste) a meal plan

Yeah, I didn't see about your posted meetup until it was too late. Maybe next year we can try and arrange something in advance.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com