From: Larry Kaufman WIZARD NET> Date: 26 may 2000 Subject: Re: Shogi World Championship - Analysis At 02:38 PM 5/26/00 -0400, you wrote: >Reviewing the result of the tournament, It seems this system functioned >very well. Now I am at a loss unable to understand the complain to the >system. >In my opinion, there were only two players who surprised us by the early >disappearance. However T.Asada lost to K. Ohara, who was very strong >player received Pro's recognition. L. Kaufman lost to Y. Suzuki, USA >Champion. >I can not call these losses as an upset. > That is precisely the point! A strong player can be eliminated very early without getting upset, just because he is paired with another top contender. >2) Among 37 A-Class players, only 4 Invitees from Europe and 1 from USA >were illuminated by the 2nd round. The rest of the invitees from Europe >won to the top 16. >4 other participants from Europe have lost in the 1st and 2nd rounds. >However they played 2 or 3 serious games in the classification matches. >All of them who lost in 1st and 2nd round could have another serious >matches on Sunday in the Consolation-1 and Consolation-2 with prizes. > Yes but again they might get to play only one game that day. >3) The tournament arranged for all players to compete in the serious >matches on Sunday. 5 different classes were set forth on Sunday >morning, A- Championship Class, Consolation-1, Consolation-2, B-Class >and C-Class. >Now I wonder where is the base of the complains that many European >players did not have a chance of serious games on Sunday. > To give just one example, T. Christoffersen, a seeded player who is around shodan in strength, lost his first game in the main event to a 2 dan, and lost his first game in consolation to a four dan. Of course he got to play three games with the pros at bishop, but for a shodan that is far too small a handicap. So he actually got to play only one game (excluding team event on Monday) in which he had any realistic chance of winning. >Shigeki Masui > Larry Kaufman