From: "'Shigeki Masui'" <smasui <at> BANET <dot> NET>
Date: 4 jun 2000
Subject: Re: Shogi World Championship-Tournament Time Table

Dear Larry,
Please show us better format to the tournament on the same condition. We like to
know whether better format was available.
Look at the winners of A,B,C classes of the Shogi World Championship in New York,
there was none who intentionally lost. Even if someone intentionally lose still
there is no guarantee that he can win in the B Class. There were many strong
players in B class too. I do not think it is realistic that ill person comes long
way paying travel expenses and entry fees and try to lose for the prize money.
There is no guarantee whether he win in B Class.  If he is very strong enough to
win B Class, he will have a good chance to go up to semi final in A Class.
Although you may still chose different way afraid of an ill person, I will
organize a tournament trusting shogi friends.
We are anxious to see better format on the same conditions.
Please show it to us.
Regards,
Shigeki Masui

Larry Kaufman wrote:

> At 02:32 PM 6/4/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Dear Larry,
> >Yes, we like to see if there were any better format for the tournament on the
> >exactly same condition.
> >The main reasons why the tournament set prizes for B and C classes was to
> >encourage weaker players to participate the tournament and give a chance
> to win
> >money and play seriously even if they are classified to B and C.
> >If there is not in Western players to intentionally lose games to go down to
> >lower level than their real level, don't worry about it. There is no one in
> >Japanese to do such embarrassment.
>
>      I don't know of any player (Western or Japanese) who lost on purpose.
> I don't even suspect anyone.  But I also can't say that it didn't happen.
> No one can.
>      The real problem is not players losing on purpose, but simply that
> players know that they might be better off to lose, and so (perhaps
> subconsciously) they don't try their hardest.  This can never be detected;
> even the player himself might not know it!  I think it is not nice to put a
> person in a position where winning will probably cost him all chances for a
> big prize.
>      That is why I think that if you want to award prizes to the weaker
> players, they should be based on the player's rank.  You have said that you
> didn't want to consider rank in the tournament pairings; but perhaps you
> would consider it for prize purposes.  Then you wouldn't need these
> separate sections, and the prizes would go to genuinely weaker players, not
> to strong 4 Dans who happened to get relegated to "B" class by bad luck (or
> by not trying hard).  But if you still want the proposals to specify A,B,
> and C groups based on prelim results, I'll conform to your requirement.
>
> >Best Regards,
> >Shigeki Masui
>
>      Larry