congrats to Canada, placing 4th

what happened to USA?! Defeated by Costa Rica?

Juan Vargas from COsta Rica is playing around 2k-3k and his style is very "honte". It is not impossible he could beat the USA player

Certainly since the US didn't send a strong player. It was odd.

Maybe the Koreans invited him, deciding that if he's actually teaching go to a lot of people in the U.S., then maybe helping him get stronger is a more efficient way to promote the game than inviting someome who is strong, but does nothing for the community. (Of course, some of the strong reps in the past, like Yuan Zhou, also teach.)

Still, I expect the answer will be really bizarre.

I can't imagine that Korea intervened in the US selection process. The most logical story I can come up with was that there was a last minute problem with the selected representatives and they turned to someone with a strong record of contributing to the AGA community.

If true, that's probably defensible, but it reflects poorly on the AGA that we're left in the dark about it. I sent an email to the e-journal folks saying that I'd appreciate announcements of who is representing us in advance. They may not be directly responsible for doing anything more than publishing what they're given, but I figured they know who (if anyone) is responsible for providing them with that information.

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Occupy Babel!

I don't know much. I'm trying to figure out if I'm allowed to quote minutes before they are officially accepted. If so I'll say everything I know, if not (and for the moment)-- well, your guess is pretty close.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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Jie Li wanted to make some corrections, so those minutes were not approved last night, you'll have to wait a bit more. However, I can spare you the wait-- this issue was not discussed at that meeting.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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I don't have an issue with that, personally -- and congrats to Balwit for having an opportunity to represent. But I suspect that other strong players might resent not having an opportunity to represent, as it does go against the published selection methods: http://www.usgo.org/tournaments/KPMC/

I just don't like being in the dark

Quoting is probably frowned upon, but a general summary that catches the spirit of the discussion is no doubt acceptable. Ditto for last night's board meeting.

Here I was looking forward to Monday morning reading, and now I have to wait for a whole month! Dunno if I can stand it.

Well, since no one is answering my emails, that sounds good to me.

We were told that there had been some sort of administrative screw-up; the exact nature and perpetrator was left unclear (mainly due to the fact that most of the board had just expressed a strong confirmation of the policy to not enter an executive session discussing personnel without having notified the person beforehand). But we were told it was definitely entirely the AGA's fault, not that of the player or anyone else. An attempt will be made to compensate the player. Balwit was already attending the event, but not as a player. The mix up was discovered too late to find a better solution than to have him play, apparently-- and I got the impression that we were fortunate that it worked out as well as it did. We were assured that whatever happened would never happen again. Hopefully I don't have to express how embarrassing the situation is for the AGA. It was thought that the Koreans believed us when we said the late switch was due to an administrative mistake on our part, but the timing is particularly poor considering the ongoing discussions of working with them to start an american pro system.

So, that's all I know. In particular, I don't know what exactly the mistake was, who made it, or what has been done to prevent it from occurring again. Also, as I hadn't been following the tournament, that was a pretty unexpected bit of bad news...

Any inaccuracies in the above are entirely my own, of course. Also, I'll have more to say about the board meeting in other threads, later.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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People make mistakes, I am not piling on...whoever it was.

My question is about this policy. I am not suggesting the policy was the problem here, sounds like this was after the fact.

But, please, let me get this straight. The Board of Directors gets wind that someone is dropping the ball. In a way most embarrassing to the AGA. They would like to address the issue in private so as not to embarrass the person or the organization. In this hypothetical, there might be time to fix the problem. But...they can't because they have to wait 15 days, let the ball drop further so they can notify the person that they will be discussing the issue?

This is ridiculous. First of all, I wish the Board of Directors was not even involved at this level. Second, if they have to be knee deep (sounds more like neck deep) in the day to day running of the organization then they have to be able act more decisively than this.

A nice guideline, I suppose, for routine business - but the need to go to executive session in a crisis is NEVER routine, and Board meets once a month - and 15 days, when passport photos need to be sent and travel arrangements must be made is the difference between a 1 kyu and a 7 dan

(The emphasis is mine)

Thank you Daniel! I was getting already a little bit sick with all the unfounded speculations. For the record, the 2011 KPMC organization was pristine in trying to get everything done correctly, as for Frederick, he didn't even know he was going to play beforehand ¿How do I know? Well, I am Juan Vargas. I approached him even before our game, and we made very good friends from that moment on; he's one of the nicest fellows out there. For what he told me about how he got selected, he was not aware of it until the very event, and it didn't seem there was anyone else to blame but the AGA (mind you, he didn't explicitly say it).

By the way @dankenzon, thank you for defending my "playing style" (if you may call it that way), but really you needn't have, as I think it should speak by itself (however badly, in many cases). For others to make cocky remarks about games they didn't even watch, between players they don't even know, is, should I say, absurd.

True, I defeated him, but I still think he is stronger, as evidenced by the many games we played afterwards. Even during the tournament game he controlled most of it, and I ended up winning with a (sorta) lucky cut that was worth about 50 points.

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I was looking at the results for the tournament...

Since I started at the bottom of the list, I first thought USA somehow managed to beat the Korean rep. No, then I realized that korea seemed to have two player: Byung Yong YOU got second and Kyeong Sook HONG got sixty-seventh.

Then I realized that Kyeong Sook HONG was not listed on the original player list.

The only thing I can think of is this: there seemed to be an odd number of players registered for the tournament. Was Kyeong Sook HONG added to the player list to avoid an odd number of players? Does anyone know anything about that or Kyeong Sook HONG? Was he perhaps a youth representative, or anything like that?

I assume the above facepalm relates to the revelation of concealed motives. Chances are low perhaps that Korean administrators care about forum talk but the coming out privately doesn't really help the cause, I'm afraid.

Why can't the AGA come up with an official statement and let their board stick to it? What's the value of L19 that you should put a professional cooperation at stake?

What concealed motives? I think you might be misreading something.

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Occupy Babel!

Is this a reference to what I said? It's not a secret, it will appear in the minutes of the last board meeting if nowhere else, and we were told at the board meeting that it's already been explained to those who ran the tournament.

As for an official statement, who do you think should make it, and where do you want it to appear? I'm not saying you're wrong, it's quite possible that an official statement should have been/be made. I'm intending to say everything I'm allowed to in public, because I don't think the board has done a very good job of communicating with members. I'm trying to change that in a way that doesn't depend on me personally blabbing in the forums, but until then, I think me babbling in forums is still an improvement...

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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The board meeting minutes are so slow to appear nowadays
I'd have expected the E-Journal to have covered the story by now to be honest.

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North Lecale

The Armenian player couldn't make it to the tournament, and that's why they added a second Korean player to fill in.

She, however, wasn't intended to be a heavy competitor or anything, just a casual amateur player from the city the tournament was held in (Pohang-si). I don't really know how exactly they chose that lady to play, but in the end it didn't affect the results in any relevant way.

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