From: "'Shigeki Masui'" BANET NET> Date: 5 jun 2000 Subject: Re: Shogi World Championship-Tournament Time Table Dear Mr. Lipscomb, Please do not misunderstand. The Shogi World Championship actually used swiss system for about 48 players except 19 seeded players to classify A,B,C. where 1-2 players went to B class and 0-2 players went to C-Class. Indeed among C-Class players many of them were 1Dan to 4 Dan according to their own declaration. The tournament prepared D-Class for beginners who do not want to go to classification tournament due to low skill but no one wanted to go to D-Class. You may well understand how high the level of the tournament was. Although several beginners visited the tournament but they did not register to save registration fees and enjoyed at Pro's Teaching corner and Shogi Dojo at free of charge. Some of them sent us a letter of appreciation that they really enjoyed and learned a lot from Pros without costing money at all. Shigeki Masui "J. Andrew Lipscomb" wrote: > 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.