From: Eric Cheymol FREE FR> Date: 9 nov 2002 Subject: Re: ISF, 5-dans, Gert Schinder and Artem Kolomiyets Le samedi, 9 nov 2002, à 04:10 Europe/Paris, bogin a écrit : > But, the conditions were the > same for everyone and so no player had an unfair advantage. Some times > the > best player doesn't win but in this case I don't think you can say > that. There are several things to point out for "the conditions" : In the team competition, the opponent of the first board player depends on the results of his teammates in the previous match(es), not only on his personal performance. Some teams played 2, 3 or 4 rounds in the team competition. At each round, the first board can not be sure to be paired with another first board player with the same number of points. This happened to Boris in round 3 : with 2 points he was paired with a 0 point player. Very bad luck for his tie-break ;-(( Boris Mirnik won his first 4 games, he could not do better than that ! In a real swiss system competition, Boris would get the better tie-break of all of the 4-1 players : because the all 3 others lost as soon as round 1 or 2. In that case, Boris would be sure of the first place as soon as the end of round 4. If you give a look at the final table, you see that number 1 and 3 (Larry) and 2 and 3 (Eric) have been paired together as soon as round 1. This would not be possible in a real swiss system : you put each player in a table according to his grade, then number 1 of the top half plays against number 1 of the second half and so on. The pairings in the individual competition included a part of random (each player picked a number among all possible numbers before each round), so with a part a good or bad luck. In a real swiss system, Boris would get the 5 Dan title. With the system used in Tokyo, Gert got it. Boris and Gert both played very well in the last 1-2 years tournaments in Europe. Having played them regularly, I can assure you that playing against them is a difficult task, I am sure to play a long and difficult game. And I sincerely think that they are about of the same level : they finish 1-2 or 2-1 when playing in the same tournaments. With a real playoff with the first 4 players (same number of points), a clear winner would have been decided, with a clear 5 Dan title for the winner and a 4 Dan title for the finalist. But be sure that Gert played a very good tournament and that he deserves his 5 Dan, but perhaps Boris as well. I am happy to have played them both in this tournament. So what about giving the 5 Dan grade to the winner of a real play off match or to all players who finish equal first ? Just to prevent the random from choosing the first place itself :-) In conclusion, you can not say this the conditions were the same for all ! My 2 cents, Eric ---------------- Get the European shogi archives at http://www.shogi.fr.st