From: DANERUD MARTIN TELIA COM> Date: 12 dec 2002 Subject: Re: Proposal Dear shogi friends, > Why not organize a quadruple > round robin of these four players, at a time and place convenient to all, > for the title of "Absolute European Champion"? > If such an event is held, I would make a commitment to travel to the > winner's home country, at my own expense if necessary, for the purpose of > playing a long match for the Pan-Atlantic Championship or some other > similar name. The winner could then defend his title every year or two > against a worthy challenger, just as is done in chess (at least until > recently). > I think such events could stir up more interest in shogi in the West, > and perhaps we could even get backing from Japan. Larry Kaufman has a lot of interesting things to say in this posting to Shogi-L. This proposal regarding an "Absolute European Champion" is not fair. I does not matter how many times you are thinking it through, it will be an almost impossible task to invite the "right" players. The proposal would, indeed, erode the value of the European Championship, if not the one 2002 won by Boris Mirnik, then definitely the one 2003 won by ??? The proposed format is also interesting. Larry Kaufman has been one of the singers in the choir praising the rating of games with very short time limits (the rating of almost any friendly game, it seems) and has drawn advanced conclusions from earlier events based on just a few rounds and sometimes strange pairing (2nd ISF is a recent example). Now, however, Larry turns to a famous chess concept: the quadruple (or at least double) round robin with only four players (12 rounds!), thus admitting that the result of one single game cannot be the evidence of whom is the strongest player. I mean, that is the obvious criticism of the short tournaments with short thinking time, historically found necessary in shogi because of the supposedly limited time and money among its Western amateurs. I indeed agree with Larry, that it would be very interesting to see the outcome of a tournament with a more chess like setting. What about, for instance, playing a nine rounds tournament (ten players single round robin or Swiss format) with one round per day and, say, three hours + 1 min byo-yomi per player? I have always maintained that such tournaments would sometimes give other winners and other champions than the present tournaments. They would also produce more interesting games, which the players would have time enough to write down, which in turn would also create a quicker development among the Western players. The counter arguments have always been things like "It does not matter. An amateur cannot produce better shogi in that way. That is what the Japanese professionals say." "We would lose too many players in our fragile little pack if we were to force them to spend so much money and time travelling to so long events." (Actually, a lot of them at least seem to have eons of time to discuss the outcome of the events afterwards...). Finally, I know that Larry has not written anything about thinking time yet, but admit that it would be a little silly for four persons to come together and play 12 quick rounds among themselves, in order to start up and finish as many games as possible in a short time and then call the winner "Absolute European Champion". Thus, Larry has some interesting thoughts, but we do not need any extra European championship. However, the idea of "real" tournaments is a necessary step in order to make shogi a better and more interesting sport in the West. Thus we would also see that there are quick play experts as well as experts of games with longer thinking time, just like in chess. I do not doubt that the majority of the tournaments will be weekend tournaments in the future as well, but this would be a first step towards another future than the one we are bound for at the moment... Best regards, Martin Danerud (opinions expressed as a private person)