SportAccord Mind Games US and EU teams

[Hsiang]

The US team is made up of:
Jie Li, 7d
Andy Liu, 7d
Mingjiu Jiang, 7p
Ke Huang, 7d
Yun Feng (F), 9p
Yun Feng and Jie Li will play pair go.

The EU team is made up of:
Catalin Taranu, 5p
Christian Pop, 7d
Cornel Burzo, 6d
Ilya Shikshin (EU guest), 7d
Vanessa Wong (F), 6d
Vanessa and Catalin will play pair go.

The event will be held December 8-17, 2011 in Beijing. The US and EU teams will meet in the team tournament. My prediction: US wins, 4-1.

[RobertJasiek]

My prediction: US wins, 4-1.

If they play in the order above, then my prediction is:

Jie Li - Catalin Taranu 0:1
Andy Liu - Christian Pop ?:?
Mingjiu Jiang - Cornel Burzo 1:0
Ke Huang - Ilya Shikshin 0:1
Yun Feng - Vanessa Wong 1:0

[shapenaji]

Jie Li has had some iffy results since he was in law school, I'm not sure if his progression into actually practicing law has left him more time to practice....

But, If he's IN practice though, both Mingjiu and Feng Yun have a very difficult time with him, I'd change the 1-0 there to ?-?

[daal]

Just by chance, I saw a few of the games of the European qualification because they were relayed on KGS. It would be nice if these sorts of events - those broadcast live on some server - could be announced here on L19 in advance by those privy to the schedules.

The results by the way, and some of the SGFs are availible here.

[hyperpape]

Jie Li has had some iffy results since he was in law school, I'm not sure if his progression into actually practicing law has left him more time to practice....

But, If he's IN practice though, both Mingjiu and Feng Yun have a very difficult time with him, I'd change the 1-0 there to ?-?

You know, I have the same impression, but it really just seems that he had one bad result in 2006 and then slightly less amazing results since then. http://agagd.usgo.org/Player_Card.php?key=9229

But his game and Andy Liu's do seem like the most interesting and unpredictable.

[Hsiang]

All teams have now been formed:

China:

Gu Li, 9p
Kong Jie, 9p
Piao Wenyao, 9p
Xie He, 7p
Li He (F), 3p

Japan:
Yamashita Keigo, 9p
Yamashiro Hiroshi, 9p
Ogata Masaki, 9p
Sakai Hideaki, 8p
Mukai Chiaki (F), 4p

Korea:
Lee Sedol, 9p
Choi Cheolhan, 9p
Park Junghwan, 9p
Lee Yeongkyu, 8p
Kim Hyemin (F), 6p

Chinese Taipei:
Zhou Junxun, 9p
Chen Shiyuan, 9p
Xiao Zhenghao, 7p
Wang Yuanjun, 4p
Hei Jiajia (F), 5p

Notably absent among the male players are Lee Changho, Iyama Yuta, Hane Naoki, and the gold medalist of the First WMSG, Kang Dongyun; among the female, Xie Yimin and Rui Naiwei. An interesting addition is Wang Yuanjun: he is only 15 but has recently won against some of the top Taiwanese players.

(Edit note: added Chinese team)
(Edit note 2: Zhang Xu [Cho U] will not play and is replaced by Wang Yuanjun)

[Conanbatt]

The US team is made up of:
Jie Li, 7d
Andy Liu, 7d
Mingjiu Jiang, 7p
Ke Huang, 7d
Yun Feng (F), 9p
Yun Feng and Jie Li will play pair go.

I must admit i am fairly angry at this tournament. First of all its not US team, but Americas.

Second of all, how representative are these players to America, specially the professional players. Why can't Mingjiu Jiang and Yun Feng play in the chinese team instead?

I think the debate of immigrant players is a delicate and difficult one, and its hard to draw the line. It happened to the EGF with Koreans sweeping up all the prizes, and as far as i know there isn't much effort by the AGA to differenciate locals for foreigners. I believe this is an issue that really discourages american players to become strong, because its actually impossible to get stronger than any of these on any study regime in the west.

But it didnt affect me personally in anyway until this tournament. For some reason, and i assume because a team like this one would be made , the whole representation for the Americas was USA and Canada, and south-america was left without a chance to fight(not invited to play the america elimination), even though we have a player that has beaten professionals in tournaments and i'm at par with him.

This is something that goes to the core meaning of the tournament. If the goal of the tournament would be to pick the strongest players in the world period, then there is no need to invite the Americas or Europe, as top 40 in China Korea or Japan would be stronger than any team America or Europe can build.

But if you want to make each continent have a team, then the participants should be representative of the correspondent Go community. Signing up in the tournament as "7p from the chinese association" gives a bad ring to it. It actually gives me a bad ring on Taranu too, although he has the advantage of nationalization, he may not be able to participate in the Japanese elimination.

The consequence of immigrants that have been trained in Asian countries representing like this is obvious: for 20 or more years at least(until a change of scenery happens), there wont be any born/raised/trained in America player in the tournament.

In conclusion, i don't like the fact that south-america couldn't participate, and even if we had had a participation i wouldn't have been happy to fight representing america against any professional.

[Redundant]

I don't know exactly when he came to the U.S, but it seems to me that Mingjiu is as American as apple pie or General Tso's chicken by now.

[hyperpape]

Second of all, how representative are these players to America, specially the professional players. Why can't Mingjiu Jiang and Yun Feng play in the chinese team instead?

I think the debate of immigrant players is a delicate and difficult one, and its hard to draw the line. It happened to the EGF with Koreans sweeping up all the prizes, and as far as i know there isn't much effort by the AGA to differenciate locals for foreigners. I believe this is an issue that really discourages american players to become strong

You are not from the USA, so perhaps you don't understand this, but there is no way that we would ever not let these players represent us. And if we're told otherwise, especially by someone who is not even one of us, we're gonna tell them where to shove it. I mean, the bleeping gall of you, whoever the bleep you are trying to call doubt on our decisions about who can represent us is appalling. We have decided that these people are fit to represent us, and that decision was not some whim.

What are you doing, standing up for the poor oppressed native American* players? The same ones who have basically never raised this issue or complained about it, even while listening to all the whining from across the Atlantic? The only time I ever hear comments about Asian players in US championships is from kibbitzers on KGS, and every time, they are told where they can shove it. To reiterate: it's not like we just noticed that we have players who came from Asia representing us. We've noticed that, and we're ok with it. In fact, we're proud of them.

Mingjiu, Feng Yun, and Jie Li are all permanent residents, in the literal sense. Although I am not a mindreader, I doubt that any of them will ever live outside of the US again. I am not sure which of them are citizens, though I believe Jie was seeking citizenship. I believe Andy Liu has lived a substantial majority of his life in the US, and it's where he got strong (he played as a 9kyu in the 2000 Congress http://agagd.usgo.org/Player_Card.php?key=9229).

But it didnt affect me personally in anyway until this tournament. For some reason, and i assume because a team like this one would be made , the whole representation for the Americas was USA and Canada, and south-america was left without a chance to fight(not invited to play the america elimination), even though we have a player that has beaten professionals in tournaments and i'm at par with him.

This sounds like it could be a reasonable complaint, and I'd like to hear what Mr. Hsiang can tell us about player selection. Shame that it was hitched to such ignorance.

* That is, players from the US. I don't typically call the US "America", for all the reasons that term is obnoxious to everyone else in this hemisphere. But we just don't have another adjective.

[Hsiang]

First of all its not US team, but Americas....

Second of all .... Why can't Mingjiu Jiang and Yun Feng play in the chinese team instead?

First of all, it is not Americas' team, it is US team. SportAccord wanted six national teams, and IGF tried very hard to advocate the formation of an Americas' team, an European team, and an Asian-Pacific team to balance with C-J-K. This was denied on the technical difficulty of requiring one flag and one anthem for each team. If you have any clever ideas to get around that, I sure would like to know. EU was finally accepted by SportAccord, because there is an EU anthem and an EU flag. The guest players (Canadians in the US selection tournament, and other non-EU players in the EU tournament) all had to agree they would play under the US flag or the EU flag if selected.

On your second point, please note that representations are based on nationality, not birth place. Jiang and Feng are US citizens, why should they play for Chinese team? Are you suggesting we discriminate some nationals because they were not born in their citizenship countries? I know at least one very strong Japanese player who was born in Taiwan. So he cannot represent Japan by your logic?

[daal]

First of all, it is not Americas' team, it is US team. SportAccord wanted six national teams, and IGF tried very hard to advocate the formation of an Americas' team, an European team, and an Asian-Pacific team to balance with C-J-K. This was denied on the technical difficulty of requiring one flag and one anthem for each team.

I guess SportAccord is sponsoring the "world" mind games, so it's of course ultimately up to them, but that indeed seems a trivial and regrettable objection.

The guest players (Canadians in the US selection tournament, and other non-EU players in the EU tournament) all had to agree they would play under the US flag or the EU flag if selected.

Was this option not offered to the South Americans?

[tapir]

This was denied on the technical difficulty of requiring one flag and one anthem for each team. If you have any clever ideas to get around that, I sure would like to know.

Really? They decide an issue like this on mere technicalities? Make a flag up, choose a song. (Side note: EU has a flag and an anthem, but neither Russia, Ukraine or Israel are members, but all those federations are EGF members and did compete. And the team could have ended w/ a majority of non-EU players just as well.)

[John Fairbairn]

It's all very well to say nationality is the basis, but that doesn't of itself produce transparency. Here, we have a player who could be classed as an immigrant to Japan playing for his country of birth (Cho U for Taiwan), a player born in Australia but playing for Taiwan (Joanne Missingham), and of course both are playing for a country that the host country (China) strictly doesn't believe even exists.

We just don't know every player's nationality, and there are some countries that allow dual nationality and some that don't. That makes it hard to judge fairness.

In fact, political nationalism is a curse. There would be no technical difficulty about flags amd anthems if you just ignored them. Non-political national pride can be fine, but I still found hyperpape's jingoistic defence of US non-nationalistic attitudes to immigrants rather eye-popping (and couldn't help wondering, if it was really like that, what the Obama birth issue is all about, why California needed Chavez, and why some Americans worry about having a name that ends in a vowel).

[Hsiang]

Was this option not offered to the South Americans?

I do not know if the option was offered to South Americans. AGA and EGF decided on whom to invite to the selection tournaments; not IGF. But the IGF Director from South America certainly was well aware of all negotiations with SportAccord.

[RobertJasiek]

EU flag and anthem somehow symbolize the EU but they do not function in a state-like manner, especially after Great Britain had objected in 2004. As a result, flag and anthem did not make it into the Lisbon Treaty. The spirit of the German Federal Constitutional Court decision on that treaty also emphasised that the EU was not and (unless the peoples of the member states do it) might not have the status and structure of a state.

Therefore SportsAccords's criteria are a weak excuse for a very doubtful political decision of theirs (some continent represented continent-wide, other continents not and some even ignored entirely).