Life In 19x19

One thing that has always made me wonder about the viability of being a professional go player in the US is the cost of healthcare. The US system is private and I gather is quite expensive. Is it actually possible for a pro to support themselves through full-time teaching activities if health insurance is not provided by another employer?

Elom0 wrote:John Fairbairn number crazy guys

Er... Uh? Not my image of him at all. I mean... you recall old home computers? "Type mismatch. Division by zero. Redo from start"? That kind of "not my image of him". I agree with the rest, mind you.

Instead of having a weekend speed tournament separate from the main tournament[...]

I like that idea. EGF has sort of a second track to promotion through tournaments, which I like but I'm not sure how actually feasible it is. Also, since you brought up Mr. Fairbairn, we might get the chance to have players more used to... Col. Hathi times? As opposed to Mickey Mouse, I mean.

, have a fast tournament with many games and transfer the McMahon scores to the beginning of a slow tournament with maybe just six or seven games, like the London Open, or perhaps even less. By definition doing well in fast go is as much a sign of strength and so is perfectly valid to transfer it's Mchahon scores to the slow main tournament, but that way all the problems go away and with 20 or so games fit into two days at the beginning it's a start on shrinking the congress to one week and coordinating it with the American Congresses (which perhaps should be north and south instead of American and Latin American).I can extend. Given, this is an opportunity to pay more attention to quality rather than size.

0) So, no special female pro qualification, all female pros qualify the normal way

I'm not sure about this. I distrust... what was the English term...? Positive discrimination? Affirmative action? I don't think they work as well as they're supposed to, specially after the initial run; and no one wants to shut the system down once it's served its purpose... which is difficult to measure anyhow.

BUT, I can't fail to notice that of the 13 professionals qualified by NAGO/EGF, not one is a woman. However, 5 out of also 13 Western Pros qualified in Asian orgs *are* female. I seem to recall some rumblings about discrimination against female pros in Asia, maybe some echoes through Mrs. Missingham (not her words, and I couldn't find the root of it all). So, let's see... we can have 7p European female players... but only in the East. Or imported. I think there are half a dozen more Eastern-born female professionals in "the West" (SL doesn't list Hajin Lee... Should she be listed or am I missing something?).

So, my question is... how come we don't have women qualified through the Western systems?

1) But I'll relax restrictions on pros being allowed to play in non-pro events in the case of female pros, and unlike open tournaments, Women's pro tournaments would be open to amateurs, really the distinction between women's pro and amateur events would be a lot more relaxed than in the open events.

I don't follow that logic. They have to go through the same qualification system, yet you merge women pro events with ama... Also, when you mention Ama events... are they Ama-open or Ama-women only?

2) Unlike in open tournaments, I'll design the women's ones, pro and amateur although in women's only the distinction would be less, to focus on making baduk as a career viable to as many women as possible, spreading out the prize money, instead of having it near the top. The point is to get as many women able to focus only on studying baduk if they want to. This would then lead to having more women pros, the right way. Haha, I guess No backhanded support, "yes, I help you in and like you doing this profession as long as you do it as a side thing!". It goes without saying that the combined funding of youth baduk and women's baduk should be equal to that of open baduk[/hide]

I like that part of spreading the dough. But I don't see why it should be restricted to women events. Apropos professionally living from Go... I don't know to what extent it's currently a viable option in the urban West. I', almost certain not with prize money, but I don't know how much you can get with classes, online courses... I kind of doubt books are a significant source of income.

Also, Sr. Aguilar seems to be alive and well, teaching through polgote, among others. Him, and others, should get some sort of recognition by Western Pro organizations by the effort they've put in promoting Go in the West. Oh, and BTW, we should raze Carthage.

Take care

schrody wrote:One of the main problems is that the pros themselves don't care. I don't know how familiar you are with their situations, I certainly am not, but I heard that several of them don't even play go anymore. The only one who's still as active as his European counterparts is Ryan Li. That's 1 out of 6. To make matters worse, Kevin Yang, one of the current favourites for the pro title has said on one of the EGF streams something along the lines that he's not certain if he'll still play go in the future.

Ouch.

Ryan Li has a dojo, in many meanings of the word. He has a school (NYIG) and another pro at home. That must help. I'm not sure if I'm mixing names (*really* bad with names), but I seem to recall he'd finished an education stage recently? Plus, of course, a child. I wonder how that'll work. I knew a Karate instructor in SW Canada, with a good dojo and membership and all that, who switched to the Mounties because he'd had a child, and the revenue was simply too chaotic. And I think the safety net in Canada is much better than in the States.

If strong players only join pro qualifications for the fun of it and/or money (assuming there is a cash prize), then what's the point?

Yep. I was kind of surprised the qualification had a money prize. That felt weird. And yet, not a single report on the event. I don't share the priorities, but I might be uninformed.

This is such a stark contrast to the European pros who all still very much enjoy go. Some are more into competing, others teaching, promoting go or running their go businesses but all 8 of them are still very active in the go world.

Hmm... yes. But. Most of them are from places where prices are cheaper. Using a TL;DR version, a Big Mac in Ukraine (2020) cost less than 2$ (2.5 in 2022, but...). 3.4 in Poland... A 50$ online class goes much farther there.

I don't think such a lethargic pro system will do much for the promotion of go in the USA nor will such a poorly promoted and organised pro qualification tournament.

I'm kind of upset beyond caring about this. Not quite, but almost. I know this is supposed to be NAGO's problem, now. But NAGO doesn't keep the venue it's being held in, does it? Also, I really don't much care: can you imagine, say, FIFA saying... "No, no. This is X's country responsibility, now. Don't ask us"? Yeah.

What was the most disappointing for me is the lack of a proper Twitch/Youtube/KGS/OGS commentary.

AGA's video channels are a mess. No, don't ask me to volunteer. I haven't been in the Americas in the last 6 years, and only as a tourist before that. I'll notice that Michael Redmond set up his own channel from scratch to continue a program he had on AGA's site. I think there are programs that do this automatically, but in any case, getting your own video from Twitch and uploading it to YouTube does not take weeks, much less months.

That the NAGF allowed this to happen is even more mind-boggling if you glance at their board of directors which boasts such illustrious names as Hajin Lee, Michael Redmond and Ryan Li, all of whom are very strong players and excellent commentators.

Yes. I have my doubts on the actual link between those names and NAGF. OTOH, something similar happened back when the Transatlantic. Remember that one (and only)?

Well, we'll see.

Take care.

If they weren't able to awaken the other pro players from their sleep, couldn't they themselves have commented a few games?

I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records. There are hundreds of commentaries out there already, even in English. What more is a western pro going to be able to teach you that has not been said hundreds of times? What entertainment value is a western game going to give you that might equal, say, a ten-game match by Go Seigen, or a winning streak by Sumire?

From long experience I'm convinced that what amateurs would value above all that they don't already get is the chance to ask a very strong player questions such as: How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move? And so on: questions that make human contact between pro and ama.

The forum? Easy. National go journals. Rather than point the finger at the pros themselves, I think the people who are central to the debate are the editors of go magazines (and, nowadays, videos), and those who appoint them. Over the years, western go magazines that I have seen have been journalistically abysmal, and most current videos just make the **** Sensurround. I haven't actually seen the EGF journal that is often advertised here, but from the contents lists I have a feeling they may be on the right lines, but nothing else comes close.

And there's no excuse nowadays. You have emails, so no costs; you have a vast array of reference material online; and you have tame western pros who speak your language, know where you're coming from, and (I guess) would happily type out a few replies for a measly $100 and a plug for their teaching classes. Forget AI. Put the humans in touch.

schrody wrote:One of the main problems is that the pros themselves don't care. I don't know how familiar you are with their situations, I certainly am not, but I heard that several of them don't even play go anymore.

I don't think that NA pros don't care but the current reality is that they can't quit their day job or school and there is limited opportunity for them to play. Take a look at the longest running Go professional association. Most of their pros don't play matches as their day job. They run a dojo, play teaching games, referee at amateur tournaments, teach online, run a variety show, do makeup advertisements, and so on. So it's no surprise that NA Go pros have short lived careers. Most competitors have short lived careers.

If anything, it seems like there is a good amount of interest in the NAGF pros and that means we might see better promotion next year.

John Fairbairn wrote: I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records.

Well what I understood by that was that they wanted to have what is now standard for every big chess event - a bunch of intelligent people live-streaming commentary on the game, allowing you to have some deeper understanding of the tactics and strategy at play. The cerebral warm and fuzzies, as it were, or is it highbrow social media?

The NAGF has a board of directors, and a list of certified pros. It doesn't have an event organiser, or indeed any other practical, job orientated posts to speak of.
Not that you'd label anyone on the board, or label any of the players, as useless people. They've all done things for the game. IT's just that this organisation does strike you as being not organised.

pwaldron wrote:One thing that has always made me wonder about the viability of being a professional go player in the US is the cost of healthcare. The US system is private and I gather is quite expensive. Is it actually possible for a pro to support themselves through full-time teaching activities if health insurance is not provided by another employer?

In my view, the teenagers who are strong enough to win a pro qualification tournament:
a) are not giving any thought at all to health insurance, and
b) do not envision becoming a pro so they can teach go full time.

Instead, they want to be Ryan Li, the anomaly who has success at international tournaments. But even Ryan is Ivy League educated and will have substantial opportunities elsewhere in life. And that's the unfortunate rub: if you are smart enough to be a North American go pro, you are smart enough to be even more successful (financially, at least) at something else.

John Fairbairn wrote:

If they weren't able to awaken the other pro players from their sleep, couldn't they themselves have commented a few games?

I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records. There are hundreds of commentaries out there already, even in English. What more is a western pro going to be able to teach you that has not been said hundreds of times? What entertainment value is a western game going to give you that might equal, say, a ten-game match by Go Seigen, or a winning streak by Sumire?

There are three aspects that provide me a significant level of entertainment:
1. The games are played live. There is something exciting about an unfinished result, knowing that the players themselves are thinking about the game at the same time that you are. Nobody in the world knows what the result will be for sure.

2. There is a social aspect to chatting with other folks watching the game, as well as with the commentators when that's possible through an Internet stream. Everyone is gathered together at the same time, all unaware of what the result will be. Everyone can give their thoughts and think about the game as it is happening. It's a lot of fun.

3. I know some of the people competing from past congresses and go tournaments. Of course there are folks who I don't know that well, or who I haven't chat with in person. But the games are a lot more fun when I know - or in some cases, when I have actually played the people who are competing. I know some personalities, and have eaten or had drinks with some of the folks who are competing.

The go content is nice. But you're right - Asian go has higher quality content.

The social relationships are where it's at. And that's the biggest value that I see in the AGA as an organization.

Ferran wrote:

Elom0 wrote:John Fairbairn number crazy guys

Er... Uh? Not my image of him at all. I mean... you recall old home computers? "Type mismatch. Division by zero. Redo from start"? That kind of "not my image of him". I agree with the rest, mind you.

Lol, my bad, I mean Professor Fairburn made the scientific discovery at least in case of western go, and put it in the pokedex, so the discovery is his namesake. Wild numbers guy appears, as discovered by Mr. Fairburn

Ferran wrote:

Instead of having a weekend speed tournament separate from the main tournament, have a fast tournament with many games and transfer the McMahon scores to the beginning of a slow tournament with maybe just six or seven games, like the London Open, or perhaps even less. By definition doing well in fast go is as much a sign of strength and so is perfectly valid to transfer it's Mchahon scores to the slow main tournament, but that way all the problems go away and with 20 or so games fit into two days at the beginning it's a start on shrinking the congress to one week and coordinating it with the American Congresses (which perhaps should be north and south instead of American and Latin American).I can extend. Given, this is an opportunity to pay more attention to quality rather than size[...]

I like that idea. EGF has sort of a second track to promotion through tournaments, which I like but I'm not sure how actually feasible it is. Also, since you brought up Mr. Fairbairn, we might get the chance to have players more used to... Col. Hathi times? As opposed to Mickey Mouse, I mean.

Haha, I guess so! It's unrealistic to have enough slow games to get fair pairings based on performance on the day without using up a considerable amount of time. Performance on the day has to be determined by speed tournament, and then I mean in Japanese tournaments the length of the games get longer the higher up you go. Qualification games or league games are not as long as the games of the actual title match in the Kisei, Meijin and Honinbo

McMahon by rating -> Speed Qualification tournament Mon, Tue, Wed-> McMahon after speed qualification tournament -> Actual few games of slow tournament Wed, Thu, Fri

So to win the European go congress, first you have to get a high score in the speed tournament to 'qualify' as one of the candidates with a realistic chance of winning for a higher place in the main tournament. Like formula one, perhaps.

And this can apply to all western baduk congresses. Think of how exciting it will be if time limits got longer and longer each day? The weighting of each game increasing proportionally to their time? Initially there will be a lot of games that individually would not be so consequential. But as the days go by, each game becomes more and more important, until a final game worth as important as all the games on day one combined!

Sunday Opening Ceremony
Monday 12 1 hour hayago games
Tuesday 6 3-hour games
Thursday 3 4-hour games
Friday 1 12-hour 'final' game
Saturday Closing Ceremony

Ferran wrote:

0) So, no special female pro qualification, all female pros qualify the normal way

I'm not sure about this. I distrust... what was the English term...? Positive discrimination? Affirmative action? I don't think they work as well as they're supposed to, specially after the initial run; and no one wants to shut the system down once it's served its purpose... which is difficult to measure anyhow.

BUT, I can't fail to notice that of the 13 professionals qualified by NAGO/EGF, not one is a woman. However, 5 out of also 13 Western Pros qualified in Asian orgs *are* female. I seem to recall some rumblings about discrimination against female pros in Asia, maybe some echoes through Mrs. Missingham (not her words, and I couldn't find the root of it all). So, let's see... we can have 7p European female players... but only in the East. Or imported. I think there are half a dozen more Eastern-born female professionals in "the West" (SL doesn't list Hajin Lee... Should she be listed or am I missing something?).

So, my question is... how come we don't have women qualified through the Western systems?

It's very easy. It's because they are not strong enough. Why are they not strong enough?

In my view the answer is easy. Deliberate neglect. When people start phony discussions claiming their interested in finding out why one gender doesn't appear to perferm as well as another, but then give the impression that, thereby giving the impression that it's just the way it is, they're are backhandedly subconsciously saying that women are inherently less able while pretending to be this goodie twosheos who genuinely cares. Be part of the problem and then present yourself as the solution. "But, we can't waste time focusing on Women's, youth, disabled, people-who-live-in-large-countries-away-from-major-population-hubs, (I'm extremely luck to live in a small country near the capital which also houses it's go centre), we have to focus on real go" Whaaa . . . Just what in the world do you think "real" go is, apart from training and making go accessible to youth, the number one priorty. It's a literal competitive sport not a tea party club conglomeration. I wish I could just sit and say and do nothing but the level of incompetence here over the more than a decade I've seen is astounding, and it's based likely on the false belief that doing every single thing exactly as they've been done before, in the exact way it's been done before, is the safest way to avoid failing. Unless of course it's setting yourself to the same standards as the Asian organisations, yes, we won't do that, of all things those are the things we decide not to follow even when claiming to make a 'pro' organisation. It's crazy!

In the Chinese Weiqi congress, Women have to choose between playing in the main weiqi league or the . Not the case in the heavily publicised WKBL. In 2016 I was compelled to want to report on it when I saw it didn't have an english one on Kin's site. Korea could have easily decides to only let Rui Naiwei play in open tournaments--at least that's I would have done. I think that's what the Kansaii Kiin did. That's what the Nihon Kiin probably should have done but it's up to them who they allow and don't allow, although of course they ended up learning the hard way the results of that attitude in the 2000's. But the Hanguk Kiwon did one better and the Legend Rui Naiwei help raise the level of Women's baduk, shutting Cho Hyeyeon out of loads of titles. Korea deserves to be the strongest in women's Baduk. I would say that Japan's success in women's can also be traced to some deliberate efforts. Maybe it will be them Japan would rely to trounce all the other men after all.

And until most societies become socially advanced, it is still the case that Women's and youth are inherently interlinked, because in most cases even in America and Europe seeing to children is still women's task assignment a bit more than men's (I'll avoid any language like 'done mostly' which gives a It's not my fault! It's just the way it is! Vibes people who bring up the issue subconsciously to make themselves look innocent do). All of this can be done while I get other people to do the work and hide in a closet to avoid interacting with people. So they can't claim it's because the leadership aren't the 'real-life social type', per probability for go players. Well I'll happily hide under my bed and get these done by the people best equipped to do these. That's what delegation is for. Know how to delegate. Don't randomly prop up leaders of a tiny village to run transport. There's no excuse.

Ferran wrote:

1) But I'll relax restrictions on pros being allowed to play in non-pro events in the case of female pros, and unlike open tournaments, Women's pro tournaments would be open to amateurs, really the distinction between women's pro and amateur events would be a lot more relaxed than in the open events.

I don't follow that logic. They have to go through the same qualification system, yet you merge women pro events with ama... Also, when you mention Ama events... are they Ama-open or Ama-women only?

Ferran wrote:

2) Unlike in open tournaments, I'll design the women's ones, pro and amateur although in women's only the distinction would be less, to focus on making baduk as a career viable to as many women as possible, spreading out the prize money, instead of having it near the top. The point is to get as many women able to focus only on studying baduk if they want to. This would then lead to having more women pros, the right way. Haha, I guess No backhanded support, "yes, I help you in and like you doing this profession as long as you do it as a side thing!". It goes without saying that the combined funding of youth baduk and women's baduk should be equal to that of open baduk[/hide]

I like that part of spreading the dough. But I don't see why it should be restricted to women events. Apropos professionally living from Go... I don't know to what extent it's currently a viable option in the urban West. I', almost certain not with prize money, but I don't know how much you can get with classes, online courses... I kind of doubt books are a significant source of income.

Also, Sr. Aguilar seems to be alive and well, teaching through polgote, among others. Him, and others, should get some sort of recognition by Western Pro organizations by the effort they've put in promoting Go in the West. Oh, and BTW, we should raze Carthage.

Take care

It's a bit unrealistic for Open tournaments to lay the dough pizza flat because of course if you want best players . . . On the other other hand in a mindsport or sport like billiards/snooker/pool, or table tennis, unlike in other strength-dependant sports, it may actually be a bad idea to accumulate prize money at the top since you want to give the best women players incentive to beat the men. On the other hand, what you do want is to encourage as many women as possible to be able to make a living or side income from playing baduk competitively. In any case, what I mean is that proportionally, speaking, I'd have the women's tournament's more socialist by a factor of e. Some pro tournaments allow more amateurs. Some pro tournaments are for Women. I'd personally have it so that pro tournaments for women are also generally more accepting of amateurs specifically for the sake of women amateurs. Generally speaking, I dislike it when Americans treat the rest of the continent as something separate from them, and in most cases it's politically, securitarily, yes I made that up, and organisationally illogical and counterproductive. In the case of the AGA it especially makes no sense to me, like a waste of potential. That being said, sending the few pros they have to directly to area with high levels of violent crime is the opposite of what I'd do. Instead of trying to get a South American seven-dan directly like a kyu player greedy to get territory NOW no matter the external circumstance, in Latin American cities with high levels of violence the AGA should focus on a grassroots movement to focus on simply spreading awareness of go and use it as a mean to divert children away from gang life and perhaps even help protect civilians from gang mercenaries.

John Fairbairn wrote:

If they weren't able to awaken the other pro players from their sleep, couldn't they themselves have commented a few games?

I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records. There are hundreds of commentaries out there already, even in English. What more is a western pro going to be able to teach you that has not been said hundreds of times? What entertainment value is a western game going to give you that might equal, say, a ten-game match by Go Seigen, or a winning streak by Sumire?

From long experience I'm convinced that what amateurs would value above all that they don't already get is the chance to ask a very strong player questions such as: How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move? And so on: questions that make human contact between pro and ama.

The forum? Easy. National go journals. Rather than point the finger at the pros themselves, I think the people who are central to the debate are the editors of go magazines (and, nowadays, videos), and those who appoint them. Over the years, western go magazines that I have seen have been journalistically abysmal, and most current videos just make the **** Sensurround. I haven't actually seen the EGF journal that is often advertised here, but from the contents lists I have a feeling they may be on the right lines, but nothing else comes close.

And there's no excuse nowadays. You have emails, so no costs; you have a vast array of reference material online; and you have tame western pros who speak your language, know where you're coming from, and (I guess) would happily type out a few replies for a measly $100 and a plug for their teaching classes. Forget AI. Put the humans in touch.

Actually, this does seem to be exactly on the money. In terms of materil from the offical western organisations themselves, it's a major improvement to 12 years ago when I started go where you had to rely on charitable pros and blogs of the strongest Europeans. However, I think what was being referred to was that in an event as important as this one, there not being commentary sends the wrong messsage, even if we don't need the games and their commentaries themselves.

CDavis7M wrote:

schrody wrote:One of the main problems is that the pros themselves don't care. I don't know how familiar you are with their situations, I certainly am not, but I heard that several of them don't even play go anymore.

I don't think that NA pros don't care but the current reality is that they can't quit their day job or school and there is limited opportunity for them to play. Take a look at the longest running Go professional association. Most of their pros don't play matches as their day job. They run a dojo, play teaching games, referee at amateur tournaments, teach online, run a variety show, do makeup advertisements, and so on. So it's no surprise that NA Go pros have short lived careers. Most competitors have short lived careers.

If anything, it seems like there is a good amount of interest in the NAGF pros and that means we might see better promotion next year.

Well this is why the Number one priorities for the AGA right now should be to integrate with Latin America and then incorporate their pros heavily into the European Systems, and vice versa. There are not enough strong western players--if they are any--for the AGA and the EGF to be picky about this. What message are we sending to the Asian organisations? Pretty much every western pro would get nowhere in a Japanese female tournament so we should switch from a mentality focusing on how special we are to focusing on how weak we are.

Elom0 wrote: Haha, I guess so! It's unrealistic to have enough slow games to get fair pairings based on performance on the day without using up a considerable amount of time. Performance on the day has to be determined by speed tournament, and then I mean in Japanese tournaments the length of the games get longer the higher up you go. Qualification games or league games are not as long as the games of the actual title match in the Kisei, Meijin and Honinbo

I've toyed with the idea of doing some sort of prelims during the year, using other matches as grounds (maybe even recycling the games themselves), then a final during EGC or similar. I can only play with it mentally because I don't have the foggiest idea how these events actually _are_, but... Also, I don't really much care for competitions. A bit, sure, but... meh. The game itself is a contest, sure, but I'm not wired for competing, and prized, and...

And this can apply to all western baduk congresses. Think of how exciting it will be if time limits got longer and longer each day?

_I_ like it, I'm not sure everyone would. Also... I find EGF's Pro League telling. First we had the Transatlantic... with 1hr +5x60. Then we got the early Leagues, 10m +3*20 (I'd have sworn there was another one with longer time allowance, but I can't find it). We're now at 5m +3*20. Back when I tried to post the games here, people insisted it was better this way, easier to follow. Now, I don't have the data, just memory and anecdotal glimpses, but I'd say viewership has dropped. Like a Wiley E. Coyote.

So, I'm not sure. I'd like to see longer times. Among other things, to prepare for Eastern tournaments. But also... I think we need some "photo ops". There's a difference between a pic like those from the current NAGO qualification (or, worse, the online league) and, imagine, a full day match on the grounds of Coventry cathedral (or Canterbury's, or Rochester's castle...). I don't know which US landmarks would work. I do think something similar would allow a lot of people to take Go more seriously.

...including ourselves.

In my view the answer is easy. Deliberate neglect. When people start phony discussions claiming their, but then give the impression it's they're.

I'm not sure if that's trying to link to modern gender pronouns or not. EFL: I get confused.

That said... I simply don't know. My experience with the local Go scene's outreach is... not good. If all goes well, I'm going to try something different in a month. My outreach has been mostly towards women, but the success has been... quirky. Sure, they like it. Two of my introduced people do have a board. Do they play? Nope. I really can't tell people how to do that. My experience with other minority pursuits is that the parable of the sower was... wildly optimistic. I'll note that most, by far, of the NAGO pros and candidates likely knew Go through their immediate circles. At least a few EGF pros also did, even if it's somehow at a distance.

Just what in the world do you think "real" go is, apart from training and making go accessible to youth, the number one priorty. It's a literal competitive sport not a tea party club conglomeration.

I've been in similar discussions in martial arts. It... depends. But I do agree the many ways of competition (from friendly one shots to high stakes leagues) are a part of Go, and must be... explored? Exposed? As I said, not much for competition myself.

[...] it's based likely on the false belief that doing every single thing exactly as they've been done before, in the exact way it's been done before, is the safest way to avoid failing.

Einstein had an opinion about that.

Unless of course it's setting yourself to the same standards as the Asian organisations, yes, we won't do that, of all things those are the things we decide not to follow even when claiming to make a 'pro' organisation. It's crazy!

I don't know what the thought processes were, or how (and why) it was set up. I often feel like they're pointing one way and pushing another. And I really fail to see why existing Pros were not incorporated? Why are Ilya and Svetlana not playing against each other officially?

Damn it, do it as a promotion match, if need be.

In the Chinese Weiqi congress, Women have to choose between playing in the main weiqi league or the .

Or the general one? Every year or once?

In 2016 I was compelled to want to report on it when I saw it didn't have an english one on Kin's site.

The NK's?

Korea could have easily decides to only let Rui Naiwei play in open tournaments--at least that's I would have done. I think that's what the Kansaii Kiin did. That's what the Nihon Kiin probably should have done but it's up to them who they allow and don't allow, although of course they ended up learning the hard way the results of that attitude in the 2000's.

I'm getting a bit lost. I don't recall enough of the context, but I'll try to check it out.

It's apparently difficult to decide what to do with immigrant pros. I've mentioned the EGF side of it, but, well, Go Seigen.

I would say that Japan's success in women's can also be traced to some deliberate efforts.

I don't know how Japanese female pros have fared internationally, I'm afraid.

All of this can be done while I get other people to do the work and hide in a closet to avoid interacting with people. So they can't claim it's because the leadership aren't the 'real-life social type', per probability for go players. Well I'll happily hide under my bed and get these done by the people best equipped to do these. That's what delegation is for. Know how to delegate. Don't randomly prop up leaders of a tiny village to run transport. There's no excuse.

I don't know how EGF or BGO leadership is proposed, what the poll of volunteers is. I used to know the Spanish SF guys, and it was a nightmare. And I said "it was", not "they were".

I'm leaning more and more towards the opinion that it would be good (in this as in many other things) to set "private" events up and let similar minded people join. That doesn't guarantee any sort of continuity, but it allows exploration of new ideas. I mean, Mr. Fairbairn doesn't ask BGO to publish his books (neither does Mr. Törmänen [*] ask the NK, I'd guess), I'd say. There are private tournaments in the States (there used to be a content creator invitational, and I vaguely recall others in their website). Several [paying] Go academies in Europe...

And I really like the idea of the content creator prize. Frankly, they're quite akin to professionals, IMO.

It's a bit unrealistic for Open tournaments to lay the dough pizza flat because of course if you want best players . . . On the other other hand in a mindsport or sport like billiards/snooker/pool, or table tennis, unlike in other strength-dependant sports, it may actually be a bad idea to accumulate prize money at the top

I don't like doing it, certainly. I don't have the data for the game fees in Japan at non-final levels, but that would seem a starting point. At the very least, there should be some compensation for the lodging & travel costs.

Generally speaking, I dislike it when Americans treat the rest of the continent as something separate from them, and in most cases it's politically, securitarily, yes I made that up, and organisationally illogical and counterproductive. In the case of the AGA it especially makes no sense to me, like a waste of potential. That being said, sending the few pros they have to directly to area with high levels of violent crime is the opposite of what I'd do. Instead of trying to get a South American seven-dan directly like a kyu player greedy to get territory NOW no matter the external circumstance, in Latin American cities with high levels of violence the AGA should focus on a grassroots movement to focus on simply spreading awareness of go and use it as a mean to divert children away from gang life and perhaps even help protect civilians from gang mercenaries.

Americans meaning US citizens?

I see two issues. One, is that northern South America is about as far from NY as Dublin. The other is that if you want to protect players from there, you have to extend the protection to their extended family. Ask soccer players. Also, Hans Pietsch. OTOH, you might get some help from diplomatic sources and law enforcement.

Actually, this does seem to be exactly on the money. In terms of materil from the offical western organisations themselves, it's a major improvement to 12 years ago when I started go where you had to rely on charitable pros and blogs of the strongest Europeans. However, I think what was being referred to was that in an event as important as this one, there not being commentary sends the wrong messsage, even if we don't need the games and their commentaries themselves.

Do you want fans invested in their pros or only an income source?

Well this is why the Number one priorities for the AGA right now should be to integrate with Latin America and then incorporate their pros heavily into the European Systems, and vice versa. There are not enough strong western players--if they are any--for the AGA and the EGF to be picky about this. What message are we sending to the Asian organisations? Pretty much every western pro would get nowhere in a Japanese female tournament so we should switch from a mentality focusing on how special we are to focusing on how weak we are.

I like the possibilities of this. Right now, however, the main transatlantic point of contact seems to be an online tournament that thinks Mickey Mouse settings are glacial.

Take care.

[*] I hope I punctuated that properly.

I agree that it's difficult to be a full-time pro, in the USA even more so than in Europe but there's plenty of other degrees between being a full-time pro and quitting go altogether. Of course, motivation may be a problem, but European pros haven't exactly had it easy either. The epidemic made the situation even worse and several of them are affected by the war. As far as I know, Tanguy lives in France, which isn't exactly a cheap country and Ali doesn't even live in Europe. I think four of them also have young children. I assume there's plenty of us here who have full-time jobs and other obligations yet we're still here, still playing, still studying, still enjoying the game. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Ferran wrote: Ryan Li has a dojo, in many meanings of the word. He has a school (NYIG) and another pro at home. That must help. I'm not sure if I'm mixing names (*really* bad with names), but I seem to recall he'd finished an education stage recently?

He may or may not have mentioned a PhD. Either way, he's certainly very accomplished in many regards.

John Fairbairn wrote:
I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records. There are hundreds of commentaries out there already, even in English. What more is a western pro going to be able to teach you that has not been said hundreds of times? What entertainment value is a western game going to give you that might equal, say, a ten-game match by Go Seigen, or a winning streak by Sumire?

From long experience I'm convinced that what amateurs would value above all that they don't already get is the chance to ask a very strong player questions such as: How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move? And so on: questions that make human contact between pro and ama.

The forum? Easy. National go journals. Rather than point the finger at the pros themselves, I think the people who are central to the debate are the editors of go magazines (and, nowadays, videos), and those who appoint them. Over the years, western go magazines that I have seen have been journalistically abysmal, and most current videos just make the **** Sensurround. I haven't actually seen the EGF journal that is often advertised here, but from the contents lists I have a feeling they may be on the right lines, but nothing else comes close.

And there's no excuse nowadays. You have emails, so no costs; you have a vast array of reference material online; and you have tame western pros who speak your language, know where you're coming from, and (I guess) would happily type out a few replies for a measly $100 and a plug for their teaching classes. Forget AI. Put the humans in touch.

Would you mind it terribly if I said your ideas are a bit anachronistic? People don't read anymore, especially young people. But they do spend inordinate amounts of time watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams. There's pros and cons, as always, but as Kirby has pointed out there's much more to live commentaries than just their educational value.

What's better than to get a written answer to these questions: "How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move?" Receiving an answer live on a stream while seeing the pro's reaction and being able to ask follow-up questions.

The EGF is doing a pretty good job with their Twitch channel. There's the occasional AI review at the end of the game but mostly it's just human commentary. There's usually two pro hosts, who also answer questions from the chat (for free) and discuss various go news during slower parts of the game so you really get a sense that you're part of a larger community as opposed to just being an isolated addressee. You can even bet virtual points on the outcome of a game or pay for a monthly subscription to help support the pros so there's plenty of ways to be as involved as you want to and the more involved you are the more likely you are to remain a member of this community. This is also beneficial for the pros since it keeps them active and they get paid for the commentary. Every now and then a non-go player will stumble upon the stream so it's free promotion as well. If the AGA and NAGF said that money is preventing them from having an active Twitch and/or Youtube channel then fine but since an increasingly broke EGF is able to maintain one... I'm with you on the no excusses part.

schrody wrote:The epidemic made the situation even worse

Worse than before or worse than other countries?

[...] and several of them are affected by the war.

In one degree or another, I'd say most of them. The Ukranians, for obvious reasons; Ilya is under sanction; Polish players are in a country in a crossroads, ditto Pavol...

As far as I know, Tanguy lives in France, which isn't exactly a cheap country and Ali doesn't even live in Europe.

Tanguy, indeed. Ali... that's quirky. Israel is that non-European Europe... There are many international bodies that consider Israel one of them without even blinking. OTOH, *IF* I understand some bits here and there, his immediate neighborhood is complex.

I think four of them also have young children. I assume there's plenty of us here who have full-time jobs and other obligations yet we're still here, still playing, still studying, still enjoying the game. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Sure. BUT there's a difference between a hobby and a profession.

He may or may not have mentioned a PhD. Either way, he's certainly very accomplished in many regards.

I don't doubt it. My point is that if he's got a PhD he'll probably want to put it to use. That might mean less time for Go. Mind you, if he's *been getting* that PhD with a newborn WHILE ALSO playing and teaching Go... maybe we shouldn't worry.

The EGF is doing a pretty good job with their Twitch channel. There's the occasional AI review at the end of the game but mostly it's just human commentary. There's usually two pro hosts, who also answer questions from the chat (for free) and discuss various go news during slower parts of the game so you really get a sense that you're part of a larger community as opposed to just being an isolated addressee. You can even bet virtual points on the outcome of a game or pay for a monthly subscription to help support the pros so there's plenty of ways to be as involved as you want to and the more involved you are the more likely you are to remain a member of this community. This is also beneficial for the pros since it keeps them active and they get paid for the commentary. Every now and then a non-go player will stumble upon the stream so it's free promotion as well. If the AGA and NAGF said that money is preventing them from having an active Twitch and/or Youtube channel then fine but since an increasingly broke EGF is able to maintain one... I'm with you on the no excusses part.

I mostly agree. I still think "we" (they; no one actually wants me on a YT channel, nor should they) need more practice with public speaking, but... Well, practice.

I think one of the... maybe strengths is too strong a word (sorry for the alliteration), but anyhow... One of the strengths of European Go is how amateur and pro merge together. GoMagic... led by an amateur, with strong amas and pros. Jena Go school. Nordic Go Dojo. Tanguy's videos with the FFG. Danie Hu, maybe, even (haven't seen him in a while). I don't see much of that connection in the States. I hardly ever see Nick Sibicky on AGA events (and, damn, do I miss his real life videos). Dwyrin. The list goes on and on. I can't remember which of the classic European amateurs (Cornel Burzo?) said something in an interview a while ago on the lines of "nah, I'm good. Let the young ones be pros." And he's kept at Go, pro-am. For the country that coined the term, I don't feel the US scene is quite as permeable.

Take care

schrody wrote:I agree that it's difficult to be a full-time pro, in the USA even more so than in Europe but there's plenty of other degrees between being a full-time pro and quitting go altogether. Of course, motivation may be a problem, but European pros haven't exactly had it easy either. The epidemic made the situation even worse and several of them are affected by the war. As far as I know, Tanguy lives in France, which isn't exactly a cheap country and Ali doesn't even live in Europe. I think four of them also have young children. I assume there's plenty of us here who have full-time jobs and other obligations yet we're still here, still playing, still studying, still enjoying the game. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Ferran wrote: Ryan Li has a dojo, in many meanings of the word. He has a school (NYIG) and another pro at home. That must help. I'm not sure if I'm mixing names (*really* bad with names), but I seem to recall he'd finished an education stage recently?

He may or may not have mentioned a PhD. Either way, he's certainly very accomplished in many regards.

John Fairbairn wrote:
I don't understand the repeated calls for commentaries or even just game records. There are hundreds of commentaries out there already, even in English. What more is a western pro going to be able to teach you that has not been said hundreds of times? What entertainment value is a western game going to give you that might equal, say, a ten-game match by Go Seigen, or a winning streak by Sumire?

From long experience I'm convinced that what amateurs would value above all that they don't already get is the chance to ask a very strong player questions such as: How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move? And so on: questions that make human contact between pro and ama.

The forum? Easy. National go journals. Rather than point the finger at the pros themselves, I think the people who are central to the debate are the editors of go magazines (and, nowadays, videos), and those who appoint them. Over the years, western go magazines that I have seen have been journalistically abysmal, and most current videos just make the **** Sensurround. I haven't actually seen the EGF journal that is often advertised here, but from the contents lists I have a feeling they may be on the right lines, but nothing else comes close.

And there's no excuse nowadays. You have emails, so no costs; you have a vast array of reference material online; and you have tame western pros who speak your language, know where you're coming from, and (I guess) would happily type out a few replies for a measly $100 and a plug for their teaching classes. Forget AI. Put the humans in touch.

Would you mind it terribly if I said your ideas are a bit anachronistic? People don't read anymore, especially young people. But they do spend inordinate amounts of time watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams. There's pros and cons, as always, but as Kirby has pointed out there's much more to live commentaries than just their educational value.

What's better than to get a written answer to these questions: "How do YOU count the endgame? How do YOU think AI has changed the game? How many hours a day do YOU study go? How do YOU discipline yourself to think before you move?" Receiving an answer live on a stream while seeing the pro's reaction and being able to ask follow-up questions.

There is a benefit to a direct human interaction with a pro that youngies might not know until they get it, perhaps.

The EGF is doing a pretty good job with their Twitch channel. There's the occasional AI review at the end of the game but mostly it's just human commentary. There's usually two pro hosts, who also answer questions from the chat (for free) and discuss various go news during slower parts of the game so you really get a sense that you're part of a larger community as opposed to just being an isolated addressee. You can even bet virtual points on the outcome of a game or pay for a monthly subscription to help support the pros so there's plenty of ways to be as involved as you want to and the more involved you are the more likely you are to remain a member of this community. This is also beneficial for the pros since it keeps them active and they get paid for the commentary. Every now and then a non-go player will stumble upon the stream so it's free promotion as well. If the AGA and NAGF said that money is preventing them from having an active Twitch and/or Youtube channel then fine but since an increasingly broke EGF is able to maintain one... I'm with you on the no excusses part.

I agree.

I would also add that some people say things like "we need to purchase within our community", but it often obviously feels fake because they don't add the part about net selling outside of your community. Likewise Mindsports federations should find ways of making money from people who are not into Mindsports at all. That would be priority number 2 for the AGA, in my book. Then of course, the second you claim to have a "professional" system, pretty much half the funding has to go into women's go and youth go and pro go. Because their isn't any pro go without youth go and in society worldwide it's still the case that youth go is a joke without women's go, duh.

In fact, as shocked as I would be if that were the case, that the AGA didn't have even a strong idea of what they meant by pros. Ironically, you'd initially be forgiven fore thinking that it's the EGF who are guilty of this, creating pros just two years after the US. How convenient it is that according to the EGF conditions. Apart from just copying the EGF, I'd say defining it as Women&Youth -> Pro funnel is the safe way to go for now.

Ferran wrote:

Elom0 wrote: Haha, I guess so! It's unrealistic to have enough slow games to get fair pairings based on performance on the day without using up a considerable amount of time. Performance on the day has to be determined by speed tournament, and then I mean in Japanese tournaments the length of the games get longer the higher up you go. Qualification games or league games are not as long as the games of the actual title match in the Kisei, Meijin and Honinbo

I've toyed with the idea of doing some sort of prelims during the year, using other matches as grounds (maybe even recycling the games themselves), then a final during EGC or similar. I can only play with it mentally because I don't have the foggiest idea how these events actually _are_, but... Also, I don't really much care for competitions. A bit, sure, but... meh. The game itself is a contest, sure, but I'm not wired for competing, and prized, and...

And this can apply to all western baduk congresses. Think of how exciting it will be if time limits got longer and longer each day?

_I_ like it, I'm not sure everyone would. Also... I find EGF's Pro League telling. First we had the Transatlantic... with 1hr +5x60. Then we got the early Leagues, 10m +3*20 (I'd have sworn there was another one with longer time allowance, but I can't find it). We're now at 5m +3*20. Back when I tried to post the games here, people insisted it was better this way, easier to follow. Now, I don't have the data, just memory and anecdotal glimpses, but I'd say viewership has dropped. Like a Wiley E. Coyote.

So, I'm not sure. I'd like to see longer times. Among other things, to prepare for Eastern tournaments. But also... I think we need some "photo ops". There's a difference between a pic like those from the current NAGO qualification (or, worse, the online league) and, imagine, a full day match on the grounds of Coventry cathedral (or Canterbury's, or Rochester's castle...). I don't know which US landmarks would work. I do think something similar would allow a lot of people to take Go more seriously.

...including ourselves.

I'm not quite sure what you mean I guess, if the last day is a 12 hour final, and the day before were two 6 hour games, to me those are serious long games, no?

I like. I wish there were more people

Ferran wrote:

In my view the answer is easy. Deliberate neglect. When people start phony discussions claiming their, but then give the impression it's they're.

I'm not sure if that's trying to link to modern gender pronouns or not. EFL: I get confused.

That said... I simply don't know. My experience with the local Go scene's outreach is... not good. If all goes well, I'm going to try something different in a month. My outreach has been mostly towards women, but the success has been... quirky. Sure, they like it. Two of my introduced people do have a board. Do they play? Nope. I really can't tell people how to do that. My experience with other minority pursuits is that the parable of the sower was... wildly optimistic. I'll note that most, by far, of the NAGO pros and candidates likely knew Go through their immediate circles. At least a few EGF pros also did, even if it's somehow at a distance.

Just what in the world do you think "real" go is, apart from training and making go accessible to youth, the number one priorty. It's a literal competitive sport not a tea party club conglomeration.

I've been in similar discussions in martial arts. It... depends. But I do agree the many ways of competition (from friendly one shots to high stakes leagues) are a part of Go, and must be... explored? Exposed? As I said, not much for competition myself.

Sorry, that's my bad! I actually didn't finish typing my post, so there are holes in some places. The line was intending to read something like, When people start phony discussions claiming they 're interested in finding out why women don't perform as well in a mindsport, but then give the impression it's they're, that it's 'just the way it is', or say something like 'it's just because women don't play it', taking advantage of the popular interpretaion to me all they're doing is deliberately in a backhanded fashion, try to give the impression that it's just the way it is or that women are inherently not as capable. Look if it was true that women inherently weren't as capable then I won't have a problem, but when something this false is pushed, usually while pretending to convey the opposite, then those are the times I wonder why who I would expect are somewhat smart people can sometimes do or say or believe in such ridiculously dumb things. And it's very belief they're somehow being 'feminist', men and women, that blinds them to their obviously unnecessarily sexist practices, unnecessary because you will literally lose nothing and probably gain something by doing them (for example, allowing top women's foot (actual foot) ball team to play in in lower divisions of men's leagues, and yes if necessary because you failed to professionalise the women's game make amateur exceptions, don't use technicalities as an excuse (or backhanded form of opposition), or the top women's national teams with the weakest men's teams, I mean Japan women's team thrashing north Korea men's team would be funny and satisfying to watch but we're probably never gonna get to see that.

Their is a small difference in areas of the brain in proportion to the whole brain such as the limbic system. The fact that their is no IQ difference between men and women (Actually, here is a quip I have against people who believe in eugenics and, as Langlan cleverly puts it, anti-disgenics, to increase IQ. The problem is that they don't pay attention to what I call the intelligence of the intelligence, or IQ^2. Two people can have the same IQ, for example, but one person has a smaller brain. This mean that that person has a higher IQ density per cubic unit. The other person is only smarter because their brain is big. Well that's a clearly outdated-tech way with obvious drawbacks. But what if the majority of geniuses get most of their IQ through the dumb way? You'll end up lowering the proportion of people. Just another thing to think about before anyone practises medical arrogance, a pet peeve of mine, and a great come to 'those' unique people) to me confirm to me the fact that these are small, otherwise it would be a miraculous coincidence for IQ to remain the same. However, society encourages people to amplify these differences.

When I was young, and still now, I was all about games with two players instead being multiplayer, and Chess and Go were no exception. Four player go is likely far more amenable to women in our current society, because we live in a society. On the other hand direct confrontation would more likely be interpreted in a manner more amenable to characteristics more commly performed by brain region statistically more correlated with more men than women in size terms(I don't use idiotic phrases like 'female brain', 'male brain', etc. Really I would like to know the moron who came up with that so I can have a word with that person). Of course there're ways to enable direct confrontation being interpreted differently, but that's more nuanced and complicated and I haven't got all day nor the mental acuity to spam the board writing an entire book, I'll do that at the end of this year. However if you're really wondering why it's not much a problem in other physical sports like tennis but it is in minds sports, remember that for a greater proportion of men the physical world is the aggressive domain while the mental world is defensive domain. However for women the mind is the (even the order I type theses things might subconsciously trigger biases that will halt learning. I have to be careful) In my view the real problem is adults and how adults think, adultism. It uses success, or even perceived success, in very narrow domains to encourage complacency in everything else. Then when things don't work out well, instead of looking at the things they dismissed due to their narrow adult thinking they just throw their hands up and think that's how it is. That's what's going on with AGA, perhaps. Pretty much everything with the qualifier adult is poison to society, in my view, the older I get, the more it seems to be the case.

Another example would be this. If I was in charge of a go organisation and one of the leadership came up to me talking about making go as popular as chess, getting giddy over making go as popular as chess--well to me that would be grounds for firing that person. If they do it again after a warning I'll fire them. Because that kind of attitude is slow death, and I find it insulting. Chess is not popular. Football is popular worldwide, and somewhat in the states, I'm not sure from across the pond. Handegg (Jaoz Banbeck's legendary term) is popular in the US, UK, some pacific nations, and to some degree in Europe, across the puddle. Baseball of course is major (I won't use the term 'big' because it's simplicity encourages in adults-not children--an attitude of 'we put our hands up, there's nothing we could do except moan and feel sorry for ourselves, since it's just the way it is') in the US, Korea, and Japan, although I don't for the life of me understand why they don't have a champion's league type event between the top baseball teams in Korea, Japan and America. In fact on that note why doesn't football have an event between the top teams from the Champions league and the Americas cup? To me it's crazy. Instead of creating something as obvious as that, they're looking into holding euros and world cups every two years. weird. Anyway these are the sports we should also be referencing, not just chess and shogi while occasionally remembering elephant chess exists. Because in terms of popularisation and popularisation goals, compare go with them, set your standards to them. Duh. Of course kids are more likely to embrace this type of thinking than adults like us (although I'm just about not quite a biological grown up according to my definition--24 years from fertilisation. Although it doesn't matter since as far as I am concerned, I am going to completely fail in the emotional and psychological standards I think should be required of that age anyway, just like 99% of the world population) .

Look I think most of the time they're not aware their subconsciously deliberately being sexist or ageist with no good reason (at least if there was a good reason, it wouldn't seem as ridiculous, but there isn't so it should be ridiculed to death as the joke it deserves to be treated as) because as children they're taught to go against common sense and their intuition, because of course a child's assumptions in some cases could get them killed and then they're trained to believe these things are good, then the very belief that these things are good is itself good, sort of like a religion. Maybe we should find another to protect children from they're own lack of knowledge that doesn't doesn't rely on crushing their natural sense and intuition
Anyway don't know why I waste time on something this obvious since it's other peoples fault--leadership mainly--for being deliberately dumb, not mine, and I don't want to condone them by making it look like I'm telling them a big revelation.

Ferran wrote:

[...] it's based likely on the false belief that doing every single thing exactly as they've been done before, in the exact way it's been done before, is the safest way to avoid failing.

Einstein had an opinion about that.

Unless of course it's setting yourself to the same standards as the Asian organisations, yes, we won't do that, of all things those are the things we decide not to follow even when claiming to make a 'pro' organisation. It's crazy!

I don't know what the thought processes were, or how (and why) it was set up. I often feel like they're pointing one way and pushing another. And I really fail to see why existing Pros were not incorporated? Why are Ilya and Svetlana not playing against each other officially?

Damn it, do it as a promotion match, if need be.

In the Chinese Weiqi congress, Women have to choose between playing in the main weiqi league or the .

Or the general one? Every year or once?

In 2016 I was compelled to want to report on it when I saw it didn't have an english one on Kin's site.

The NK's?

Korea could have easily decides to only let Rui Naiwei play in open tournaments--at least that's I would have done. I think that's what the Kansaii Kiin did. That's what the Nihon Kiin probably should have done but it's up to them who they allow and don't allow, although of course they ended up learning the hard way the results of that attitude in the 2000's.

I'm getting a bit lost. I don't recall enough of the context, but I'll try to check it out.

It's apparently difficult to decide what to do with immigrant pros. I've mentioned the EGF side of it, but, well, Go Seigen.

I would say that Japan's success in women's can also be traced to some deliberate efforts.

I don't know how Japanese female pros have fared internationally, I'm afraid.

My fault, I left many holes. 'In the Chinese Weiqi congress, Women have to choose between playing in the main weiqi league or the women's weiqi league' which is ridiculous (sorry qiyuan) and not the policy in south Korea with the stronger female baduk players. I meant reporting on the Women's Korean Baduk League.'

Ferran wrote:

All of this can be done while I get other people to do the work and hide in a closet to avoid interacting with people. So they can't claim it's because the leadership aren't the 'real-life social type', per probability for go players. Well I'll happily hide under my bed and get these done by the people best equipped to do these. That's what delegation is for. Know how to delegate. Don't randomly prop up leaders of a tiny village to run transport. There's no excuse.

I don't know how EGF or BGO leadership is proposed, what the poll of volunteers is. I used to know the Spanish SF guys, and it was a nightmare. And I said "it was", not "they were".

I'm leaning more and more towards the opinion that it would be good (in this as in many other things) to set "private" events up and let similar minded people join. That doesn't guarantee any sort of continuity, but it allows exploration of new ideas. I mean, Mr. Fairbairn doesn't ask BGO to publish his books (neither does Mr. Törmänen [*] ask the NK, I'd guess), I'd say. There are private tournaments in the States (there used to be a content creator invitational, and I vaguely recall others in their website). Several [paying] Go academies in Europe...

And I really like the idea of the content creator prize. Frankly, they're quite akin to professionals, IMO.

In my view, professionalness is playing ability times teaching ability. So if a player rubbish at teaching qualifies as number through the pro qualifiers, they should become pro, but if another player who's not as strong but has a popular youtube channel and high teaching skill, and there go level is strong enough, say EGF 6 dan or AGA 7 dan, that most of what they say is correct enough, then they should also be allowed to become pro through another route in my own opinion.

Isn't the Spanish go scene in dire straights?

Ferren wrote:

It's a bit unrealistic for Open tournaments to lay the dough pizza flat because of course if you want best players . . . On the other other hand in a mindsport or sport like billiards/snooker/pool, or table tennis, unlike in other strength-dependant sports, it may actually be a bad idea to accumulate prize money at the top

I don't like doing it, certainly. I don't have the data for the game fees in Japan at non-final levels, but that would seem a starting point. At the very least, there should be some compensation for the lodging & travel costs.

Sorry, I didn't complete my sentence. It was supposed to read, 'On the other other hand in a mindsport or sport like billiards/snooker/pool, or table tennis, unlike in other strength-dependant sports, it may actually be a bad idea to accumulate prize money at the top in female tournaments'. Because in these sports women should be expected to perform as well as the men, no excuses, and prize money equality for the best performers in women's tournaments might harm that goal. They're not Tennis or competitive wrestling, for go board's sake. You perhaps don't necessarily even want the strongest women players playing in all the women's tournament's, preferring instead for them to play in the open tournaments, unless you're backhandedly being sexist and doing so through something wrongly percieved as inherently pro-women, 'where increasing the winners prize in a women's tournament! So there's no reason to incentivise them with a large winners prize. Although I strongly believe that the total prize money for women's tournaments should be equal, just by proportion more spread out than in open tournaments. And maybe youth tournaments should follow similar rules, given they should inherently be interlinked. I should add that even though I agree with winners prize money equality in tennis and golf, the concept of men's tournaments or men's professionals is stupid. It's not foot (actual foot) ball. I mean it should be expected that women play professionally against the men directly.

Ferran wrote:

Generally speaking, I dislike it when Americans treat the rest of the continent as something separate from them, and in most cases it's politically, securitarily, yes I made that up, and organisationally illogical and counterproductive. In the case of the AGA it especially makes no sense to me, like a waste of potential. That being said, sending the few pros they have to directly to area with high levels of violent crime is the opposite of what I'd do. Instead of trying to get a South American seven-dan directly like a kyu player greedy to get territory NOW no matter the external circumstance, in Latin American cities with high levels of violence the AGA should focus on a grassroots movement to focus on simply spreading awareness of go and use it as a mean to divert children away from gang life and perhaps even help protect civilians from gang mercenaries.

Americans meaning US citizens?

I see two issues. One, is that northern South America is about as far from NY as Dublin. The other is that if you want to protect players from there, you have to extend the protection to their extended family. Ask soccer players. Also, Hans Pietsch. OTOH, you might get some help from diplomatic sources and law enforcement.

Yes, sorry I specifically meant US Americans. What I mean is that I don't really want pros to be sent to dangerous locations--yes Hans Pietch was on my mind. Instead I want lots of grassroots support in those areas. Of course not every country in the Americas is dangerous, and so in those places it's fine to send pros. I mean the US isn't exactly a safe country, that fact is quite public to the world who until very recently was under the hegemony of a country with only 4% of the world's population. Also, Ben Lockhart passing that way . . . This also makes sense from a kindness perspective, but perhaps protecting the few top players should be considered, including, given that it is a mindsport organisation, threats from their own mind . . .

And also, because the focus is on grassroots, the point isn't really sending strong players so long distances don't matter.

Another ideas. The Americas Go Championship. So the congresses are held each year, the US and latin, however the Americas championships alternate between the congresses. In one years it's held in the US congress and another in the Latin.

Ferran wrote:

Actually, this does seem to be exactly on the money. In terms of material from the offical western organisations themselves, it's a major improvement to 12 years ago when I started go where you had to rely on charitable pros and blogs of the strongest Europeans. However, I think what was being referred to was that in an event as important as this one, there not being commentary sends the wrong messsage, even if we don't need the games and their commentaries themselves.

Do you want fans invested in their pros or only an income source?

Well this is why the Number one priorities for the AGA right now should be to integrate with Latin America and then incorporate their pros heavily into the European Systems, and vice versa. There are not enough strong western players--if they are any--for the AGA and the EGF to be picky about this. What message are we sending to the Asian organisations? Pretty much every western pro would get nowhere in a Japanese female tournament so we should switch from a mentality focusing on how special we are to focusing on how weak we are.

I like the possibilities of this. Right now, however, the main transatlantic point of contact seems to be an online tournament that thinks Mickey Mouse settings are glacial.

Take care.

[*] I hope I punctuated that properly.

As pros or only an income source, I'm not quite sure, do you mean . . . hmm, by on the money, I mean as in correct,

Yes, that is true. I think it was designed as a speed tournament so that each game can easily be fit into the pros schedule, but at least the semi-finals and finals should have considerably longer time limits at least. They could increase the limits and do away with the third decider game since that's not necessary in a league.

Elom0 wrote:There is a benefit to a direct human interaction with a pro that youngies might not know until they get it, perhaps.

There's a benefit to direct interaction with an instructor. By your later definition, that's almost the same. I don't think many people share that view without caveats.

Because their isn't any pro go without youth go and in society worldwide it's still the case that youth go is a joke without women's go, duh.

I don't know how that matches Go, but in the circles I know, 99% (and over) of children introduced to a minority interest don't continue it. In part, because it's often a disguised kindergarten. I have the suspicion that this is considered a failure and, as such, drains the energy. 99% is not a failure. 1% is a success. It won't change unless you get much better exposure and you manage to trim down the share of kindergarten-lite kids.

Ironically, you'd initially be forgiven fore thinking that it's the EGF who are guilty of this, creating pros just two years after the US.

Although I wasn't there, I do not doubt EGF was inspired by AGA. I don't know if the KBA helped push things a bit. I'm not worried about that. After all, we're all copying the Hoensha. But circumstances in Meiji Japan and XXIst century urban West are not the same. For all mirages pointing otherwise, urban US and urban Europe are not similar enough; not to mention more rural areas.

I'm not quite sure what you mean I guess, if the last day is a 12 hour final, and the day before were two 6 hour games, to me those are serious long games, no?

I like. I wish there were more people

There were several items in that piece you quoted. Two points:

Eastern competitions last for months, even years. We can't hope to match that, right now. A possible "shortcut", with all the dangers of such, would be to use something similar to the Grand Prix. Use grade A or Grand Slam events for longish matches (3hr/player?) and then a separate event for the final, fully orchestrated.

That's the second point. By fully orchestrated I don't mean a small room in a hotel, or a convention center, or... I mean something you can make posters of, put on TV. Adapt the Japanese presentation of events. And I don't mean the press conference. I mean the room with views to Mt. Fuji, the temple, the big stadium... It wouldn't be easy, but I think it should be doable. Surely, once a year, there's someone, somewhere, who know someone who knows... a way to place a game in Pompei, Delphos, Coventry... There are countries in Europe (and you can certainly add in Israel, here) where you can't sneeze without moistening history. Do a photo op. If politicians have taught us nothing these past 20 years is the power of photo ops, even with people on your own side who do know all the issues.

Look if it was true that women inherently weren't as capable then I won't have a problem, but when something this false is pushed[...]

Hmm... I don't know if women are as proficient in this kind of events as men. But I don't think that's actually relevant.

Cho Chikun is not as proficient, any longer, as the top pros, male OR female. There are 300+ professionals consistently better than him. And yet, he still inspires. Will he win the Meijin again? Unlikely. Do people watch his games? Undoubtedly.

Can women win the Japanese top7? I don't know. Would it be interesting to test, and watch, and test again? Sure.

In physical sports, I often find female players more inspiring than males. Often, more technical, less reliant in muscle mass. This does not apply to Go, but I'm pretty sure there are interesting characteristics to many women's own Go.

Sadly, I'm not aware of a SINGLE book on any female player in a Western language. No books on Kita Fumiko, or Rui Naiwei, or any of the other 9p, or Joanne Missingham... The WWTC is barely mentioned. And so on. No information, no recruitment, no critical mass.

Then, again, the only female pros we have in Europe have qualified abroad, so they're "foreign" as far as EGF accounts for this things. So, they can only use the plebe's cookie jar.

In fact on that note why doesn't football have an event between the top teams from the Champions league and the Americas cup?

It's a minor... "correction"? but there's a competition with the best clubs from every continent, FIFA Club World Cup. I don't know how popular it is.

Maybe we should find another to protect children from they're own lack of knowledge that doesn't doesn't rely on crushing their natural sense and intuition

I don't think we should protect them from their lack of knowledge. I think we should run like crazy when it catches them by the unmentionables. Mind you, it makes me terribly unpopular with grandmas. Parents tend to agree... and then scold the kid for jumping off... wherever.

[...]if another player who's not as strong but has a popular youtube channel and high teaching skill, and there go level is strong enough, say EGF 6 dan or AGA 7 dan, that most of what they say is correct enough, then they should also be allowed to become pro through another route in my own opinion.

I'd second that. Then, again, do they need that? Does someone who's actually good at his job need the EGF pro badge? I don't think so. I think it doesn't benefit the player (besides the moral boost, which is something). It would benefit the EGF, though.

Isn't the Spanish go scene in dire straights?

I wouldn't know. I've tried time and time again, since the mid 90s, to contact my city's clubs. To sign up to newsletters. From FIDONet to Twitter. I tried for the last time during the pandemic. I'm not going to try again for A WHILE.

OTOH, I have a couple of contacts I want to try this summer, outside my city. We'll see what happens.

By and large, Spain is not good at steady amateur pursuits. Actively hostile, in fact. People who follow them, ANY of them (including sports), regularly, are weird, nerdish. Go to the gym a couple times a week? Sure. Practice *the same sport*, twice a week (Hell, even once, and even football), for years? After high school or, really, if you must, college? Weirdos. Don't get me started on music groups, collectors, nature pursuits (entomology, astronomy...)...

Of course not every country in the Americas is dangerous, and so in those places it's fine to send pros.

If you want to use go to get people out of dangerous lifestyles, the 'hood is not going to be vanilla.

Also, Ben Lockhart passing that way . . . This also makes sense from a kindness perspective, but perhaps protecting the few top players should be considered, including, given that it is a mindsport organisation, threats from their own mind . . .

I think he passed away from cancer, but I don't know the details. Nor do I have any right to them. The rest looks like you're suggesting some sort of psychological/psychiatric support.

And also, because the focus is on grassroots, the point isn't really sending strong players so long distances don't matter.

I see this, but I also don't. South American citizens are perfectly able to organize themselves; impressively so, often. Both for good and for bad. So, if you want something else, since the ability to organize they already have, you have to send it their way. And it's far.

Another ideas. The Americas Go Championship. So the congresses are held each year, the US and latin, however the Americas championships alternate between the congresses. In one years it's held in the US congress and another in the Latin.

I don't know enough to see if it would be feasible or not.

As pros or only an income source, I'm not quite sure, do you mean . . . hmm, by on the money, I mean as in correct,

I meant, are Go fans going to be allowed to set a parasocial relationship with their preferred Go player (follow him on Twitter or Patreon, buy his books, follow his matches, get visits at events, eve, maybe public matches) or are they only allowed to pay for the privilege or funding a YouTube video of an annual event?

Yes, that is true. I think it was designed as a speed tournament so that each game can easily be fit into the pros schedule, but at least the semi-finals and finals should have considerably longer time limits at least. They could increase the limits and do away with the third decider game since that's not necessary in a league.

Back when we had threads on this competition, short time limits were justified on attention span of viewers. I don't see it working that way. Personally, I wouldn't even do the second one, precisely because it's a League. It's not even done in the Pro Qualifiers, where there's more at stake. Artem vs Kevin, June 19, 1st game started at 6. Last finished just before 10. Same with Artem vs. Ali, on the 26th. That's four hours of screen time. I think you could reduce that a bit, if you wanted, Say, NHK time limits for the league, then something bigger for the semi-finals and over. But they're already using 4 hours of evening time.

Dunno, not my business after all. But I don't see it, as is.

Take care.

[BTW, OGS was fast. Kevin Yang's profile is already Pro]

Just because it hasn't been posted here.

The NAGF is planning to hold the 2023 pro qualifier in August.

https://news.nagofed.org/2023/02/16/202 ... ions-open/