From: "J. Andrew Lipscomb" <ewwa <at> CHATTANOOGA <dot> NET>
Date: 4 jun 2000
Subject: Re: Shogi World Championship-Tournament Time Table

I also support changing to a Swiss format, but for a different reason.

If you have 4 dan players in B class, then I'd imagine (ranks being
nowhere on the site) that there were probably a fair number of 1 dan or
2 dan players in C.  Where then is the incentive for (say) a 4 kyu to
come knowing he has no chance of winning even the least prize?  No major
chess tournament would fail to offer a prize for best under-1200
(players in the under-1200 range on the FESA/USSF list are generally 5-8 kyu).

That gets down to the fundamental issue:  if you do not use any
rankings, then there is no way to give lesser players (by which I mean
middle kyu) any hope of a prize, nor does even a 1 kyu have that much
hope.  That rule is IMO an insurmountable barrier to improving the format.