SportAccord Mind Games US and EU teams

[Laman]

First of all, it is not Americas' team, it is US team. SportAccord wanted six national teams, and IGF tried very hard to advocate the formation of an Americas' team, an European team, and an Asian-Pacific team to balance with C-J-K. This was denied on the technical difficulty of requiring one flag and one anthem for each team. If you have any clever ideas to get around that, I sure would like to know. EU was finally accepted by SportAccord, because there is an EU anthem and an EU flag. The guest players (Canadians in the US selection tournament, and other non-EU players in the EU tournament) all had to agree they would play under the US flag or the EU flag if selected.

i didn't noticed this before, but it is pretty unfortunate decision from organisers to invite EU and US team instead of European and American. in Europe it apparently worked ok, but i can understand why South Americans are angry about it

ad who to qualify: if they have citizenship, i think no one can argue, same rules apply for all sports. but i have to admit that for some reason i feel somewhat satisfied that Europe is represented by born Europeans

It actually gives me a bad ring on Taranu too, although he has the advantage of nationalization, he may not be able to participate in the Japanese elimination.

i am not sure i get this, Catalin Taranu is without doubt European (has citizenship, was born in Europe, resides in Europe, etc.), only he studied in Japan, became professional there and achieved his 5 dan. i see no reason for objections (or even for negative feelings)

[Conanbatt]

You are not from the USA, so perhaps you don't understand this, but there is no way that we would ever not let these players represent us. And if we're told otherwise, especially by someone who is not even one of us, we're gonna tell them where to shove it. I mean, the bleeping gall of you, whoever the bleep you are trying to call doubt on our decisions about who can represent us is appalling. We have decided that these people are fit to represent us, and that decision was not some whim.

What are you doing, standing up for the poor oppressed native American* players? The same ones who have basically never raised this issue or complained about it, even while listening to all the whining from across the Atlantic? The only time I ever hear comments about Asian players in US championships is from kibbitzers on KGS, and every time, they are told where they can shove it. To reiterate: it's not like we just noticed that we have players who came from Asia representing us. We've noticed that, and we're ok with it. In fact, we're proud of them.

Mingjiu, Feng Yun, and Jie Li are all permanent residents, in the literal sense. Although I am not a mindreader, I doubt that any of them will ever live outside of the US again. I am not sure which of them are citizens, though I believe Jie was seeking citizenship. I believe Andy Liu has lived a substantial majority of his life in the US, and it's where he got strong (he played as a 9kyu in the 2000 Congress http://agagd.usgo.org/Player_Card.php?key=9229).

First of all, i made my opinion with utmost respect and all the delicacy i could bring it, politeness you have not showed back in your intolerant answer, for which i believe i deserve an apology from you.

Second, i have said that the issue is delicate and difficult and im not advocate of having the solution. I am merely recognizing that the current situation has bad consequences.

Your criteria, or the AGA's criteria does not necesarily match that one that is best, which is what im looking for. If you cannot conceive the idea that there might be better options, your inclusion in the discussion is pointless. I believe something better can be achieved.

Regarding raising concerns, i am raising them right now, and have done so with the IGF when this tournament came to light. Im not a member of the AGA and i dont have a stake in whatever happens there, hence no voice nor vote. This is purely an international affair, that matters to the IGF the most.

Let me give you an example, figure the following scenario. Figure that because of this scenario, Argentina decides to change its rules so it can allow for other korean players to represent it. So we ask the next top 5 korean professionals to represent us, and compete with USA and CAnada for the position in the Sports accord.

So these top 5 koreans, wear the argentinian t-shirt, dont speak spanish and never even visited south america, and they take the place out of all Canadians and US'ers. would you be fine with that? I am sure i wouldn't, and I'm sure many places wouldn't either, as national championships and other tournaments have nationality rules, which i believe is not the perfect way to select players.

(i.e.US had this debate with Michael Redmond: as far as i know he is more representative for Japan than America. Regardless of his nationality, ethnicity or passport, his Go is not representative of the United states. The US ended up sending him instead of some other chinese immigrant professional, which i was told caused reasonable upsets.)

Above all, you have to see the consequences of the decisions that are made. You can pick the top 50 players from USA and you will rarely see a born/raised/trained player from the United states, and considering the number of players it has it should be. Countries with much much smaller populations have produced professionals and semi-professionals alike (Rumania, Hungary, Argentina with aguilar and i("semi-pros"), germany, etc etc).

Specially with the pros, you must see the strategic balance of power that is decided. If china suddently had no professional players, then Ming jiu and Feng Yun would probably represent that country because they surely can. They are in a position to decide where to participate and hence pick where there is no competition. It's only logical. Just look at their title. They present themselves as chinese professionals, not as AGA players.

First of all, it is not Americas' team, it is US team. SportAccord wanted six national teams, and IGF tried very hard to advocate the formation of an Americas' team, an European team, and an Asian-Pacific team to balance with C-J-K. This was denied on the technical difficulty of requiring one flag and one anthem for each team. If you have any clever ideas to get around that, I sure would like to know. EU was finally accepted by SportAccord, because there is an EU anthem and an EU flag. The guest players (Canadians in the US selection tournament, and other non-EU players in the EU tournament) all had to agree they would play under the US flag or the EU flag if selected.

On your second point, please note that representations are based on nationality, not birth place. Jiang and Feng are US citizens, why should they play for Chinese team? Are you suggesting we discriminate some nationals because they were not born in their citizenship countries? I know at least one very strong Japanese player who was born in Taiwan. So he cannot represent Japan by your logic?

I did not know all that anthem ordeal. The information i always got was "the Americas". But however, why would that have been a problem in including the south american team? i wasnt given the option to play under US flag. I might have said no to that option only to make a stand but why would Canada be more likely to say yes?

As i said right at the beginning, its very difficult to define a single representational criteria. I can give you a hard example of why any consideration fails.

If you have no restrictions at all, things like the example i gave above (of allowing other pros to rep ur country) would happen, and i would expect the majority to agree that is a bad thing.

I think birth-place is not useful at all. You have examples like Andy liu and michael redmond. Andy is better rep than Michael. So name, ethnics and birth place dont really matter.

But im still not satisfied with nationality. Someone without nationality could have learnt go in your country. Say i had gone to college in the US without knowing Go at all. In college i learn, and play tournaments there and become strong. I still dont have a nationality, but i would be representative of the US (all my go comes from there!).
On the other hand, i could get a job today on the USA (a real option for me) and get a visa, and stay there, and eventually get a nationality as i have relatives living up there. Its possible. And i think i wouldnt be representative of the US, i would still represent Argentina.

But because its difficult to make a decision, that doesnt mean we have to make a bad one. The question is, what does representation actually mean?

As i repeat this is not an AGA thing, AGA can choose racoons to represent them if they want. This is an international level representation and has to be looked with those eyes. If the AGA had the power to decide if south-america was given a chance, then i have to doubt Sports Accords decision of giving that power.

[xed_over]

I think the debate of immigrant players is a delicate and difficult one, and its hard to draw the line. It happened to the EGF with Koreans sweeping up all the prizes, and as far as i know there isn't much effort by the AGA to differenciate locals for foreigners. I believe this is an issue that really discourages american players to become strong, because its actually impossible to get stronger than any of these on any study regime in the west.

On the contrary, we believe this actually encourages our players to become stronger -- and in fact we now have several young players who have been consistently beating our local pros.

Both Mingjiu Jiang and Feng Yun (and others) have dedicated themselves to not only promoting Go in the West, but also for teaching our youth to become stronger.

[hyperpape]

In fact, political nationalism is a curse. There would be no technical difficulty about flags amd anthems if you just ignored them. Non-political national pride can be fine, but I still found hyperpape's jingoistic defence of US non-nationalistic attitudes to immigrants rather eye-popping (and couldn't help wondering, if it was really like that, what the Obama birth issue is all about, why California needed Chavez, and why some Americans worry about having a name that ends in a vowel).

A few thoughts:

1. I think there is an important place for commentary that identifies ideals of a particular country, and criticizes current attitudes or policies in light of them. You have to see comments like "The United States is a nation of laws" in that same light. We have had many presidential shenanigans, and the law hasn't already won out. But it is still true that the rule of law has been an important ideal, as well as an important feature of American politics. So you say "this is a nation of laws" to remind people of what they normally believe and hold them to it in a particular case where they would like to do otherwise (that's not a partisan point).

2. Still, I think even contemporary American attitudes are, whatever I wish they were, still relatively immigrant friendly compared to many places in the world. The attitudes of a vocal minority are present, but I still do not think that they represent the mainstream of American opinion. On that point, we might also note that the native born requirement for the presidency is unique in American law and culture. Also one might note that under different circumstances, members of the American right talked about abolishing it for the sake of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For all the talk about illegal immigration, there are still very many immigrants who come to the US through official channels, and that is just an accepted reality for the vast majority of Americans. For that reason, I really do think that most Americans would find it goofy to say these players can't represent us. And perhaps someone from another country might not understand how weird that idea would sound to us. Hence saying "you're not from the US."

We might also look to history and the fact that some things are easily seen in hindsight. No one thinks "Irish need not apply" was a high-point of our nation. Perhaps that's related to the point about ideals.

3. I do think I expressed myself intemperately, but let me say that I do think there's a big difference between jingoism and thinking that an affirmative decision that "this person represents our country" is not really open to criticism by outsiders. If I say "this man is my brother", that really is something that I am entitled to say without outside interference.

4. Even if you think I'm deluded about what the US is like, I'm not deluded about the US go community. This really has been a nonissue for us, at least for the past several years.

[hyperpape]

First of all, i made my opinion with utmost respect and all the delicacy i could bring it, politeness you have not showed back in your intolerant answer, for which i believe i deserve an apology from you.

I beg to differ. I raised my voice and you didn't. I responded intemperately, which is unwise, and for which I apologize. I think that my anger was far beyond what was proper.

However, let me be clear: I think that your opinion was the intolerant one--no amount of politeness can change the content of what is said. It ignored the clear opinion of the go community here in the US, tried to tell us who we can count as one of our own, and it is offensive to particular people who have given a tremendous amount to go in the US. If I shouldn't have responded the way I did, I still should have told you that you were wrong and offensive. I don't intend to give an inch on that.

Let me give you an example, figure the following scenario. Figure that because of this scenario, Argentina decides to change its rules so it can allow for other korean players to represent it. So we ask the next top 5 korean professionals to represent us, and compete with USA and CAnada for the position in the Sports accord.

So these top 5 koreans, wear the argentinian t-shirt, dont speak spanish and never even visited south america, and they take the place out of all Canadians and US'ers. would you be fine with that? I am sure i wouldn't, and I'm sure many places wouldn't either, as national championships and other tournaments have nationality rules, which i believe is not the perfect way to select players.

(i.e.US had this debate with Michael Redmond: as far as i know he is more representative for Japan than America. Regardless of his nationality, ethnicity or passport, his Go is not representative of the United states. The US ended up sending him instead of some other chinese immigrant professional, which i was told caused reasonable upsets.)

Above all, you have to see the consequences of the decisions that are made. You can pick the top 50 players from USA and you will rarely see a born/raised/trained player from the United states, and considering the number of players it has it should be. Countries with much much smaller populations have produced professionals and semi-professionals alike (Rumania, Hungary, Argentina with aguilar and i("semi-pros"), germany, etc etc).

Half of what you say is a strawman, the other half is false.

Of course non-nationals should be residents of the countries they represent. Or more informally, they should have made a commitment to their country, when it comes to these international competitions. But Mingjiu and Feng Yun and Jie Li have all done so. They are not tourists, taking advantage of the US.

As for players who were trained since young ages in the US, surely you have to add Eric Lui, Zhaonian (Michael) Chen, Calvin Sun and Curtis Tang to Andy Liu. Those are just the players who I can name off the top of my head. That's not "rare", even if it's not a majority.

Not that I think it matters. I feel a certain pride to know that players who have learned Go in the US are as strong as those players, but I do not think that they represent us better than players like Mingjiu.

[daniel_the_smith]

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

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

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

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

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

[tapir]

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

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

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

[Conanbatt]

Half of what you say is a strawman, the other half is false.

Of course non-nationals should be residents of the countries they represent. Or more informally, they should have made a commitment to their country, when it comes to these international competitions. But Mingjiu and Feng Yun and Jie Li have all done so. They are not tourists, taking advantage of the US.

As for players who were trained since young ages in the US, surely you have to add Eric Lui, Zhaonian (Michael) Chen, Calvin Sun and Curtis Tang to Andy Liu. Those are just the players who I can name off the top of my head. That's not "rare", even if it's not a majority.

Not that I think it matters. I feel a certain pride to know that players who have learned Go in the US are as strong as those players, but I do not think that they represent us better than players like Mingjiu.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

[hyperpape]

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

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

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

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

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

[hyperpape]

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

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

[daniel_the_smith]

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

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

[daniel_the_smith]

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

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

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

Am I understanding you correctly?

[Conanbatt]

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

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

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


Am I understanding you correctly?

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

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

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

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

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

[Laman]

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

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

[Conanbatt]

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

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

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