@Conanbatt, I know nothing at all about immigration law in your country. But in the US, it is not trivial at all to become a citizen; it takes years. Anyone obtaining citizenship in the US has shown a lot of commitment to the country. No one is going to come here from Asia and wait 15 years to become a citizen just so they can play in a tournament they weren't good enough to get into from their own country. Most people in this country are immigrants if you go back just a few generations. Thus, if I can make a generalization, birthplace is much less important to us than citizenship.

And so, for example, the European bruhaha over strong Koreans winning the European Open a year or two ago, seems a bit odd-- Some of the sentiments I recall hearing expressed would, in the US, be labeled by some as racist (edit: I'm not implying anything about anyone here!), which would make many of us hesitant to express them if we felt them at all.

Hopefully, this will make hyperpape's quite strongly worded post make a bit more sense.

If it is easy to become a citizen of your country (Argentina?), then your go association might indeed have to think about the issue. But here in the US, the thing we (or I, at least) worry about is, "is requiring citizenship TOO exclusive?"

Your broader point may not apply to this particular event, it seems, but perhaps it does to others. Has the AGA invited players from South America to qualifier tournaments in the past? I can't recall that having happened, but I've not been paying attention for more than the past few years. My expectation--perhaps naive--would be that South America is big enough to represent itself internationally; I wouldn't expect both continents to get lumped together. But maybe that's me being dumb, I don't know.

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Before this develops in the usual fights about representation between people who are likely too weak to contest anyway...

If it was possible to open the qualification to Canadians, at least offering the same to 2-3 token South Americans does not look impossible. Especially when the qualifier was played online (as I understand the AGA page).

I wouldn't outright discount a feeling of misrepresentation (of the Go community in the US, let alone in the Americas) as blatantly racist, when even all contestants for the US team (w/ the exception of a romanian ex-insei) have some sort of roots in CJK. Is that what internationalisation of Go was meant to be?

That is another criteria, which could be agood one. (the commitment thing) . I dont like the idea of making a contribution to the community to show you represent it. Pros are not required to do that. why would anyone else.

Andy liu is definitely a rare case. We have played many games and chatted, i know him. He is a specially skilled guy and if he learnt all the know sin the us there is no point in discussing if he is rep or not. I have said in this very thread that his is more representative than other players like Michael Redmond. Michael Chen, whom i met personally and played before, is closer to an edge case, he was already 3-4 dan when he moved to the US as i know. What is the limit? i dont know, is there a limit? i think there should be.

The professional case should be an easier debate. A professional player presents himself with the banner of the association that recognized him. It doesnt matter if he builds the largest go school in the world there, his contribution to any community does not make him representative of it. Donating money to Africa doesnt make you African.

So i have a question for you that you show so much emphasis. Do you think that Ming jiu would be a bad representative of China?

Lastly i repeat again. I dont care for AGAs representation rules, each community picks theirs. I discuss argentina's rep.
But for this tournament, a chinese immigrant was favoured over native Americans, there has to be a part of the chain that is wrong, whereas it was Sports Accord, IGF or ultimately the AGA if they had the power to decide. So if you believe Mingjiu is a better representative of America(the continent) than I am for learning and studying all my life in Argentina, i have to disagree with your criteria of what is representative. Do you think im less representative of the continent than him ?

Another special case to think about representations, a historically representative player is Eduardo Lopez Herrero, that after turning 20something he moved to japan and lived his whole life there. He still participates in the championships and has rights to participation, regardless of his current dual nationality. So even residency is not enough to decide.

I have participated in championships also where the USA/Canadian reps didnt speak english. AGain, i dont care, thats not my problem, but do you find that agreeable?



Argentina has very light immigration laws, but im not up to speed with them. The difficulty of achieving nationality i dont think should matter. Nationality doesnt express your representation of a Go community, something i argued earlier in this thread(with the college example). Its just the most common method used today.
Also if that were the point, why would US ever allow a canadian to play under their flag, they have no commitment to the country. So it shouldnt be about that, and it isnt.

Birthplace is the most irrelevant method, i think where you honed your skills and learned the game is most important, and of course its hard to measure such things systematically.

I dont know of any invitation from the AGA to anything, which i think its natural. AGA is for USA, and they shouldnt be in charge of what happens below. which is why i say that if the AGA decided that the reps were going to be USA or Canada, they didnt do the best but its Sports Accord's fault for allowing such scenario. AGA is not representative for whole America, only for USA.


AS a side note, one of the discussions i had here below on representatinos was for a continennt wide tournament (the student OZa championship, where i actually also met Jie Li). I was once denied by Argentina to participate and represent in the south-american level selection, which caused me great anguish (it was because iadnt been a club member in the past year, some silly local rule). WHy would the country tell me that im not fit to represent the continent? I was upset at that too. Fortunately, the tournament organizors changed the tournament method and made it absolutely open, and i went ahead, won the tournament and was representative, by-passing the local assocaition restriction.

So representation is difficult everywhere, not only in this case. Difficult cases happen all the time.

I don't think Daniel meant to say that Conanbatt's comments were racist. I don't think he meant to say that I perceived them as racist. And I don't.

And I do think that Tapir's point is on target. Even players who trained in the US but are second-generation are special in that regard. There's a difference between discovering Go because your parents play or your community is full of players, and discovering it as a player whose culture has no history for the game. It seems like second-generation Asians in the US are less likely to play than their parents.

So you can ask hypothetically, if Asian immigration to the US dried up, even if all the current players stayed here, would we still have top level amateurs in three generations?

I don't think there's anything wrong with asking that, and being sad if the answer is "no, we wouldn't."

I just think the answer has nothing to do with limiting who represents us.

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Let me clarify. I meant that they had made a commitment by making it their permanent home. Their commitment is to the US. Contributing to the go community is just extra.

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Correct, I did not intend that reading in any way. I don't see how anyone could read my sentence in that way, but I added a disclaimer.

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It's not clear to me that you have any issue at all with the AGA, is that correct?

Instead, your main points are:
* You think Sport Accord should do things differently.
* You don't think it's good for the US to have reps who learned their skills in other countries. More importantly, you don't want them to represent your country or continent. (edited)

Am I understanding you correctly?

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Good summary.
*Yes, i think the Sport Accord ordeal is mishandled.
*Right, i dont feel represented at all by any professional, and to certain degree by certain cases of immigrants. (those that dont speak the language of residency for example).

I'm not exactly sure who the culprit is, maybe everyone in the chain of decisions by Sports Accord. What i perceive is damage because i wasnt given the chance to fight for it, and i feel i deserve it. And even
if given a chance, i am not comfortable fighting a 7p from china to call my self representative of america. (i wouldnt mind at all to battle Andy Liu in this aspect).

I do believe its not good for the US that the pros represent them, but i also dont care, as long as the consequences affect the US (in the 99.9% of cases). But the pros end up representing me, or i have to fight them for it.

And i do believe that a player that has learned the majority of his knowledge in a different place with a different system is less representative of another community. Ming jiu is not 7p because he is Ming Jiu. He is 7p because he learnt go in china and trained for that tournament there, and qualified and competed in that environment and so forth. If he had learnt go in USA he would have never ever achieved 7p, simply because USA has no professional system.

So from an international point of view, i would make Ming Jiu or any other pro, play in the Asia group. Say you have Wbaduk's tournament, i think he should play in the Asia block, not the American. Thats another tournament where if pros were allowed to play, i would have to fight america representation against Feng Yun or Ming Jiu.

Conanbatt:
your criterions for choosing a representative are somewhat unusual, compared to other sports with the same issue. basing the decision on where you learned your skills and where you played more is not unreasonable but pretty unsystematic and hard to measure. as far as i know, citizenship is the criterion in all sports and although it may not be as logical as your solution, it is simple, exact, transparent and i would say fair

otherwise, as i already said, it is shame that South America didn't get a chance to play at the "World" games

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I might be wrong, but probably not.

I agree that my "ideal" is too hard to put in practice. it would require someone to make an active decision about it and make an interpretation.
I just feel confident in the case of professionals, and some other cases deserve some study.

There is an old saying, Be careful you don't get what you wish for. I think that sums up some of the angst in the western go world.

Some Europeans wished they didn't have to compete with Orientals or put up with Oriental ways, then they feign surprise if some Orientals start to feel unwelcomed and Oriental patronage starts to dry up.

Some Europeans wish to be treated as a separate corps of professionals or trainee professionals, then express disappointment when big prizes culled from amateur entry fees, or free tickets from sponsors, dry up and they are expected to pay for their own access to tournaments.

Maybe some Americans have had the same feelings, but few, I think. At any rate, hyperpape's "intemperate" adjective about Europeans - "whiney" - is often accurate.

When I went to southern South America I was astonished at how European it felt. FWIW Conanbatt's plaint (essentially, "I deserve a chance of a free ticket because I am South American" without telling us what he or South America has done to deserve it) also sounds European to me.

There is an alternative for all those fretting wannabe pros. They can try their luck in the Oriental open tournaments such as the Samsung.

What are you referring to? I think you are confusing the European Open Champion title with the European Champion title. There have been no or hardly any objections by Europeans about Koreans winning the European Open Champion title. Objections were related to the European Champion title. (There were, among Europeans, politically small minority opinions suggesting to abadon the European Champion title. This your statement does not seem to address though because, in it, you write "Open".)



Wasn't the SportsAccord American exclusion problem larger - Latin America and Carribean countries?

If someone is a US citizen, they can represent the US in anything they want as far as I'm concerned.

Mingjiu and Feng Yun are Americans. They are also Chinese. Why should we care who they want to represent? In fact, I think we should be happy that they live here and choose to compete with us.

Your country may handle things differently, but as far as I know, this is how we handle US representation in international events.

I have nothing to say about Europeans in this discussion, not only because i dont know much but they are not involved in my current dilemma.

I resent your comment about the free ticket, like if i participated for that. I have spent my fair share of money in Baduk schools in korea and i have payed for my own ticket for the international tournaments that didnt have sponsoring and to go to KBC. And i was about to go to the EGC paying my own ticket without asking anyone for anything. And bear in mind that a ticket from south america to korea costs over 2000 dollars, and our average salary is like a third or fourth of USA's average, so its like 6 times more expensive for us just to purchase a ticket. The first time i purchased my ticket i spent 3 full month salaries for it.

I have this representation issue regardless of the sponsoring, because its about representation, but even more when there is money involved. Just participating at this tournament earns you like 2k dollars (as i deduce from the prizes, i might be wrong).
If you think the FIG had to do more to earn a place, i can tell you that the argentinian go club, that barely gathers 400 dollars a month, has a limit to what they can do, and they still arranged a whole event with Enda Hideki to come and teach lots of people. I have personally hosted Vic1000 here in argentina and spent my fair share of time and money making the accomodations. I gave free courses, teachings all the time, and i have helped the few international activities i could ever assist, like KBC, recently BIBA, and other initiatives.

And even with all that, i think its irrelevant if the south american countries were absolutely selfish. I deserve a chance to participate because its a world tournament, and now my country was left unrepresented in favour of someone that represented china many many times.

And i also cannot agree with your "Samsung" comment.
Thats a totally different subject, the differenciation between amateurs and professionals. I dont know why you think euro players should devote their energies to open pro tournaments like samsung, and u wouldnt demand the same of the chinese pros that actually can play many more tournaments because of their title.

One last thing, awesome job on Kato's Attack and Kill, Direction of play and Appreciating famous games. Top notch books!




You are right, we should say Ibero-america with the correspondent FIG (Federacion Iberoamericana de Go). i have raised my complaints to them when the sports accord announcement was made. As i was told, it was too late to change anything and there was no will to do so.

That's right. The AGA and CGA usually work together when the sponsors are limiting the participants. And the AGA has tried to extend courtesy invitations to the Mexican Go Association (to be included in the "North Americian" representation). But at one point they've declined in favor of participating with the South Americians (primarily due to having a common language, as I've understood it).

I'm sure we would have been happy to extend the invitation to Argentina or even all of South America if we had known you guys wouldn't have a chance to represent otherwise. Mr Hsiang has already commented (post #14 above) that your IGF representative was already aware of the sponsor's restrictions.

But if you don't want to compete against our "US Pros", then we can't help you. We're not likely to change our position there any time soon. They are US citizens, and we're proud to have them represent us.


The AGA has similar rules such as these in place also, and there have been long discussions on this fourm both for and against such rules.

I, personally, have no sympathy for anyone who want to represent their region without being a member of and working with the acknowledged governing organization.

Your issue is really with the sponsor, SportAccord, and perhaps also with your country's IGF representative -- and maybe even with your national organization (where I'm sure your local club is a member).

http://www.eurogofed.org/calendar/sawmgec.htm
calls it "SportAccord World Mind Games". Therefore also Middle America, Africa, rest of Asia, Australia and Oceania (all oceans) were missing. This looks like a systematic mistake by SportsAccord (or possibly also the IGF?). I guess that SportsAccord refers itself to the IGF in matters of Go. Therefore at the very least it must allow direct (such as citizenship-like criteria) or indirect (such as, e.g., continent- or region-wide criteria) representatives of players from all IGF member countries.

Well, if you have been trained in Korea - doesn't that place your ability to represent Argentina in some doubt?

"some Europeans" and "they" need not be the same people.



The "free ticket" are not his words.



European? There are, as has been reported on rec.games.go, also Asian professionals spending most their time for studying and hardly any time for teaching. This possibility looks more like a world-wide phenomen.



It is a discussion about a World Minds event - not about a Professional Accociation Members Only World Mind event.



Sure. This does, however, NOT solve apparent great unfairness in the seeding of the SportAccord event in contrast to its event title.

@RobertJaseik, Yes, I'm probably conflating the two.



It seems clear enough that in this case, anyway, the team is specifically from the US, and so it is *not* representing you. I guess the ideal solution, for you, would be for a team from Argentina to also compete?

In a hypothetical future tournament where you compete with US players for a chance to represent both north and south america (has such a thing ever happened? could it?), then I guess you would feel our rules for who will represent us would be unfair. But I think it is hard for us to be sympathetic. Americans, for better or ill, in my experience usually do not appreciate it when they perceive foreigners to be telling them how they should be doing things-- I think you triggered that sentiment.

How does your own country/go association do things? If they use your criteria (which do make some sense, even if they are unconventional and perhaps hard to apply fairly), and that works well, then maybe you do have some grounds for wanting us to change.

But it seems to me that what is making you unhappy at the moment has little or nothing to do with the US. Am I missing anything?

The AGA has a VP of international relations--Hsiang, who started this thread!--who probably worked hard to see that the US was represented in this tournament. Do you have someone in Argentina doing the equivalent for your country?

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Are you sure? If it was created by SportsAccord or IGF, then also Europeans in those organizations contributed to making (or failing to contribute to making) the decision that hurts Argentina. I, as a European, would be interested in avoiding that situation (because a tournament called world tournament should be world-wide). I.e., I would support possibly other Go politicians, which would more actively avoid repetition of excluding too many countries.