Life In 19x19

I haven't participated yet in any online EGF tournament. For Coronacup 3 I did consider participating, but when I read about the requirement that dan players need to film themselves, I changed my mind. It's not that I have something to hide, but setting up equipment to film myself is a lot of hassle and I think I would even feel uncomfortable while playing.

I understand that organisers are forced to takes measures like this to discourage cheating in online EGF rated tournaments with prize money. But I'm not going to win any prize, so I would participate just for fun. There would be little difference to playing online casually and I can just do that without having to jump through hoops. Participating is just not worth it to me, so I don't.

All Dan players must use a webcam or smart phone to film themselves and their computer screen during the game. For example you can make a video call with your opponent via Skype and save it to a file. Referees might ask you for this file in case of suspicion and it might prove your innocence.

Okay, so they are going for the 360° kind of view then, which would make blur pretty damn hard to get right. For hardened cheaters it is still very possible to hide something offscreen refer to though, since they are effectively suggesting 180°.

That does all sound like a headache to set up, but I still don't think it normal to have rules which apply to only half the players the tournament.

Another reason is that the anti-cheating committee has no time to examine hundreds of games, so I guess they will mostly examine games from players who are eligible for a prize, and also when cheating suspicions are reported. Only dan players can pretend to get a prize, or at least may disrupt the top of the tournament ranking if they win too many games.