From: "'Shigeki Masui'" BANET NET> Date: 7 jun 2000 Subject: Re: SWC-Tournament Time Table/proposal/my experience at the SWC Dear George, Many thanks for your compliment to the Shogi World Championship. I personally agree most of your proposal as the wish lists. The committee will highly appreciate if you give us your proposal with detailed format satisfying all of your wishes. Best Regards Shigeki Masui "George I. Fernandez" wrote: > Greetings, > > First, I want to say that, in my opinion, the Shogi World Championship was an excellent event and a great promotional effort by my fellow NY Shogi Club members. Clearly, any shogi event that involves the participation of close to 300 players from over twenty countries and over 10,000 "spectators", via the web sites can and should be considered an overwhelming and undeniable success. It was run beautifully from start to finish and tremendous amounts of planning and execution went into making it the great success that it was. > Mr. Masui was relentless from the start in assembling a great (professional whenever possible) and sufficient crew to oversee every single detail of the event and kept everyone motivated and on top of their duties. I attended most of the planning meetings and was delighted and proud to have been a part of the team. Truthfully, I personally did much less for the event than I would normally have to do for such a large-scale event because there were so many talented and willing participants, but I did my best in the few tasks that I undertook. > Messrs. Minoru Hayashi, Wajima, Fujiwara, Ogihara, Inoue, Shigemitsu Hayashi, Hirota, Ishida, Suzuki, as well as a few of the NYSC player's wives, and a couple of other individuals that I can't remember now, all deserve high praise for their efforts in making the SWC event a great success. > Once the event started, I was so happy not to have much organizational responsibility and to truly be able to enjoy and focus on my games. Surviving the first day was not an easy task as I drew a very tough 4-player preliminaries group [three 4Dans and a 2Dan]. After winning against the NY 2Dan in a game in which I almost lost my Rook (and the game) I had to play the champion from Mexico, who has a Shogi Dojo rating over 200 points higher than mine and is really closer to a 5Dan than a 4Dan. I was lucky to narrowly win a close ending in which we both kept attacking and he made the final and decisive mistake. In the round of 16, my luck ended against European Champion Arend Van Oosteen when I blew a big opening advantage and succumbed to a nicely played and powerful counter-attack. > There was great comraderie among the many shogi lovers, from many countries, at the WSC and it was a great opportunity to exchange ideas and tell our stories about shogi and many other things. I hope to see many of you again soon and, for those of you that missed it, please be sure to come next time! > > George > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > At 11:38 PM 6/4/00 -0400, "J. Andrew Lipscomb" CHATTANOOGA NET> > 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. > > > > Finally, I've found two issues that motivate me to write and get involved in this long and extremely detailed discussion regarding the future format of the WSC (specifically) and large tournaments in general. Firstly, is the need, or desire, to make the tournament more appealing for kyu players. Secondly, is the fair distribution of prizes, based on the total number of entrants and the number of players in each category [each Dan group and higher and lower Kyu groups], thereby rewarding a player for a good performance against his own class rivals. > > Generally, in past major US Shogi tournaments, the policy has been to award prizes as follows, [example]:1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Top 4Dan (only used in the largest of tournaments), Top 3Dan, Top 2Dan, Top Shodan, 2nd Shodan, Top Kyu, 2nd Kyu. > > In the 1997 US Shogi Championship (held in Washington, DC), in my opinion, an efficient way to combine the Elimination format with the Swiss System was used. The Elimination format was used for the "A" Group after the 4-player round-robins were held to complete the "A" field, same as this year's WSC, with 1-2 players going into the "B group for another Elimination tournament. However, all eliminated players after this point were entered into a Combined Swiss, which included Team Matches (according to team player availability, without the mandate that ALL players from one team play ALL players from another team AT THE SAME TIME), and/or games against the pros (at appropriate handicaps). > > All results counted and prizes were awarded according to OVERALL performance for all players, besides the Top 4 in the "A" Class and Top 2 in the "B" Class. The eliminated players included the 0-2 players from the round-robins and the losers from all rounds of the "A" and "B" groups (except 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers in the "A" Class and the 2nd place finisher in the "B" Class). Once a player was relegated to the Combined Swiss, priority was given firstly, to complete the Team Match games (for those players selected by their team captains), secondly, to playing ONE (official) game against a pro and thirdy, to open games against available opponents, arranged by the Combined Swiss tournament director. In the end, it did take a while to tabulate all of the results from six separate events [Round-Robins, "A", "B", Team Match, vs PRO, and OPEN] and determine winners for each class but that was due to the fact that I was the only director (and a player) and > didn't have a chance to properly plan out this part of the event with my assistants, who were also players, or to update the results sufficiently along the way. > > The seeded players were able to play their one game with the Pros and at least one Team Match game while the preliminaries (round-robins) took place, thereby lessening their responsibility in later rounds. Also, one special provision was made to count WINS in the "A" Class (only) as TWO POINTS [for consideration in the Overall prizes, once eliminated] because the "A" Class schedule moved at a slower pace than all the others due to a longer time-control. > > One of the motivating factors in our adopting this format in the first place, was the fact that some players like to play many games and generally like to play very quickly, while others don't want to be pressured into playing so many games and, perhaps, even prefer to watch other games once eliminated. In the end, we had players that played only 4 or 5 games and many other that played 10 or more games (!). In the spirit of a Swiss System, players were assured that they could play many games and were, in essence, battling with their class rivals from start to finish. > > I could go on but I may never finish if I don't stop now! ;-) . > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > This is the basic concept that I propose for consideration in the 2001 WSC. > > General benefits include: > 1) Winner is still decided by Elimination and will be an undefeated player (in the main event). > 2) All players will be assured to play at least six games. > 3) All players will be eligible to win class prizes. > 4) All players will be able to play at least one official game against a pro at an appropriate handicap. > 5) Team Matches can be easily arranged without need for a third day of competition, as was the case in the New York event. > 6) Players in the Combined Swiss will play other players with similar overall scores, thus creating more competitive games for all players. > 7) Players that want to play quickly and get more games in can do so within the tournament format. [In fairness to slower players, a limit of 7 or 8 games may be imposed, after which games will be rated but not considered for the overall prizes]. > 8) There is a certain amount of freedom for players to take some short breaks, once eliminated, and watch the pros or other players play, if they should desire to. > > General schedule: > > Friday evening: > Check-in and registration. > Drawing for placement in round-robins. > Welcome party (optional) > > 1st Day: > > Preliminaries. > As many 4-player round-robins as necessary are held. Two or three games are required to determine "A" and "B" class qualifiers. > > ROUND 1 of "A" to bring total in A to 32 > (Player field can be 44 to 108, including 20 invitees/seeds) > > ROUND 2 of "A" to bring total in A to 16 > > Round 1 of "B" to bring total in B to 16 > (if field is greater than 84, including 20 invitees/seeds) > AND Round 2 of "B" to bring total in B to 8 > > OR Round 1 of "B" to bring total in B to 8 > (if field is 84 or less) > AND "B" Class players play ONE official game against Pro. > > Invited players will play ONE official game against Pro *and* ONE (or TWO [optional]) Team Match game (if Team member), or ONE Open game against another player NOT on a Team. > > -Combined Swiss event begins for all eliminated players. > -Team Match begins. > -Official games against the Pros begin. > > Exibition match (to be determined) in evening after dinner. > > 2nd Day: > > Round 3 of "A" to bring total in A to 8 > Round 4 of "A" (Quarterfinals) to bring total in A to 4 > Round 5 of "A" (Semifinals) to bring total in A to 2 > Round 6 of "A" (FINAL) to bring total in A to 1 > Finals to be analized by professional player on large display board. > > Round 3 of "B" to bring total in B to 4 > Round 4 of "B" (Semifinals) to bring total in B to 2 > Round 5 of "B" (FINAL) to bring total in B to 1 > > -Combined Swiss event continues for all eliminated players. > -Team Match continues until completed. > -Official games against the Pros continue until all players have played at least one game, after that time all players may play again if pro is available. > > All other games end in time to watch FINALS. > > Prize giving ceremony held 15 minutes after FINALS are completed. > Photographs are taken. > > George I. Fernandez > President > United States Shogi Federation > > 28-30 34th Street, Apt.#6-O > Long Island City, NY 11103 USA > Home Telephone: (718)956-5382 > Pager: 1(800)Sky-Page, Pin#1149515 > E-Mail: g.fernandez mindspring com