Life In 19x19

France has its second pro award after a long wait. Mid game, I really suspected that Lukan's influence was going to be too strong, but somehow Tanguy managed to hang in there. Nobody here voted got him but maybe that helped him.

I wonder if they will have a pro qualifier next year, and if they do, will it be reduced to just a straight knockout.

France has its second pro award after a long wait.

Who was the first one?

Javaness2 wrote:I wonder if they will have a pro qualifier next year, and if they do, will it be reduced to just a straight knockout.

as Ali said near the end of the twitch stream, the next quali is scheduled at 2021. and it is the last one currently scheduled, before reevaluation when Europe is going to be ready for another pro

Who was the first one?

Fan Hui (FR, 2p China)

I thought of somebody else actually. The exact status of his might be offered and not taken, I really don't know.

In the KGS chat someone said the first french pro was Benmalek.

https://senseis.xmp.net/?FaridBenMalek wrote: French amateur 6 dan player, who was French Champion in 1993, 1998 and 2002. Trained as insei in Japan in 1990-1991. Winner of the 1998 Obayashi Cup. Technically he is also a professional player, having obtained a 1 shidoin certificate from the Nihon Kiin.

I don't understand what the last sentence means exactly.

His page on the European Go Database (http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Pl ... y=10313391) shows that he hasn't been very active since 2004.

Apparently an upset.

It really should be a round robin for such an important tournament.

Knotwilg wrote:Apparently an upset.
It really should be a round robin for such an important tournament.

Yes, the contrast with the British championship format is quite stark. The first stage is the Candidates tournament, which this year only had 15 players around 1d average and only 1 3d+ (former 4d): http://britgo.org/results/2019/cand. The next stage is the Challenger's league, an 8 player round robin event over 4 days with last year's champion and (since this year) runner up (me) plus top 6 from the Candidates. But a bunch of those top 6 declined their places so the Challengers will dip into the 1d/1k players. And then the top 2 of that play a best-of 3-or-5 title match. That's likely to be between myself and Andrew Kay, two 4 dans. Yet the EGF pro qualifier is a battle of 6 and 7 dans for a pro title and comes down to single-elimination (after first 2 rounds).

[Edit but too slow for Java] Having double elimination down to 8 players and then a round robin league would take rather a lot of games/time though, so I'm not sure that's viable. You could use more selection down to just the 8 players from grand prix points and other events throughout the year. But in the end although Stanislaw and Lukan were the favourites and highest rated, they aren't so far ahead of the others that it feels like an injustice that Tanguy won. If Ilya had entered I'm pretty sure he would have won. Any format will come down to a bit of a lottery of who played well on the day vs not, rather than who has had the best performance over the last year. So well done to Tanguy.

Uberdude wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:Apparently an upset.
It really should be a round robin for such an important tournament.

Yes, the contrast with the British championship format is quite stark. The first stage is the Candidates tournament, which this year only had 15 players around 1d average and only 1 3d+ (former 4d): http://britgo.org/results/2019/cand. The next stage is the Challenger's league, an 8 player round robin event over 4 days with last year's champion and (since this year) runner up (me) plus top 6 from the Candidates. But a bunch of those top 6 declined their places so the Challengers will dip into the 1d/1k players. And then the top 2 of that play a best-of 3-or-5 title match. That's likely to be between myself and Andrew Kay, two 4 dans. Yet the EGF pro qualifier is a battle of 6 and 7 dans and comes down to single-elimination (after first 2 rounds).

I think we would all like to watch a Round Robin tournament, but it would be a pretty expensive format for the players. In an 8 player round robin, you can have a 3 way tie at the top that would be unbreakable under face-to-face tiebreakers - or is my memory faulty? A straight knockout seems nice for a long weekend event.

In an 8-player Round Robin tournament, it is possible that 7 players tie:

Player 8 loses against everyone. In addition,

Player 1 wins against 2,3,4.
Player 2 wins against 3,4,5.
Player 3 wins against 4,5,6.
Player 4 wins against 5,6,7.
Player 5 wins against 6,7,1.
Player 6 wins against 7,1,2.
Player 7 wins against 1,2,3.

Technically he is also a professional player, having obtained a 1 shidoin certificate from the Nihon Kiin.

Very technically. A shidoin diploma denotes a chief instructor in a dojo, so if he makes some money from teaching he can claim to be a pro. That's not what most go people count as a kishi or proper pro, and Farid has never been listed as such as far as I can see. Even Japanese players who properly make the cut but who then can't make it in the tournament world tend to be downgraded to "lesson pro" rather than kishi.

But shidoin is still a worthy achievement, and Farid is one of the nicest top amateurs I've met.

Knotwilg wrote:Apparently an upset.

It really should be a round robin for such an important tournament.

a round robin has its share of issues. namely frequent not easy to break ties and early losers performing weaker in later rounds (this is of lesser importance). but yes, the current double-single elimination seems quite harsh. perhaps a full double elimination would be optimal. or some kind of two stage tournament. i am afraid a limiting factor here is time (AKA money)

PS: i've asked two strong players before the tournament and they both listed Stanislaw and Tanguy as favourites. so the result is not such a big upset in this regard

John Fairbairn wrote:

Technically he is also a professional player, having obtained a 1 shidoin certificate from the Nihon Kiin.

Very technically. A shidoin diploma denotes a chief instructor in a dojo, so if he makes some money from teaching he can claim to be a pro. That's not what most go people count as a kishi or proper pro, and Farid has never been listed as such as far as I can see. Even Japanese players who properly make the cut but who then can't make it in the tournament world tend to be downgraded to "lesson pro" rather than kishi.

But shidoin is still a worthy achievement, and Farid is one of the nicest top amateurs I've met.

Thank you for that enlightenment. Is this shidion certificate the same certification that Ion Florescu obtained?

The German Championship Finals use a system that could also be used for the EGF Pro Qualifiers:

1. Round-robin.

2. Direct comparison (in the case of the German Championship, without iteration; EGF style would be with iteration).

3. KO with short thinking times (German Championship: 20' SD; could be chosen longer) to split a multiple tie on place 1 (typically, a 3-players tie). The KO uses a pairing favouring earlier achievements, with free wins for the top KO-seeded players unless their number is a power of 2 (i.e., 4 or 8).

***

Before the tournament, I could not predict the winner because I considered several players to have roughly equal strength, among them Tanguy. I would not say that his qualification has been an upset.

Some say Lukas would have deserved it more. No, I say. A player not having a complete set of skill does not deserve it as much as another player having a more complete set. Lukas knows that his own endgame might be improved, he feared to win on endgame and therefore discarded the strategy of making the game a 0.5 / 1.5 points contest. Instead he transformed the late game into a killing / be killed game. If(!) his endgame skill was better and he had more confidence in his endgame, he should have won the game.

Some say Cornel would have deserved it more. No. If somebody makes it close to the top several times but not to the top, then he lacks the ability of winning the decisive tournament so far. His lost game this year indicates some knowledge gaps and his opponent deserves to have won that game for exhibiting them.

Tanguy is not the perfect player but his knowledge or skill gaps have had the least impact. He approaches the ideal of a complete player among the qualifiers the closest. Deserved qualification!

Fewer new pro players than 1 every 2 years? That would be hilarious. The only reason for greater restriction would be even greater protection of commercial interest of already existing pro players in an environment of limited finanfical sources.