From: bogin YAHOO CO JP> Date: 30 apr 2003 Subject: Re: U.S. Championship Thanks for the update. It makes me happy that such an important shogi tournament was held in my hometown. From what I read most of the stronger shogi players tend to be located on the coasts, so it's nice that a local player came out on top. I have a few questions about these "national championship" so maybe someone can help out. I agree that 10 30 is a relatively fast time control. But, wasn't this fact known well in advance? It would have seemed more appropriate to express an dissenting opinion to the tournament organizing committee before actual play had begun. Perhaps, then someone may have been able to persuade them to change the time control or at least the organizing committee might have been able to explain the reasoning for choosing such a time control. This kind of leads me to my first question. Are the rules for these "national championships" decided by each individual national committee or are they following guidelines set up by FESA? For example, since the US Championship used a time control of 10 30 then does that mean that all of the other "national championships" use a time control of 10 30? It maybe naive and maybe even impossible. But, wouldn't it be better if these "national championships" were relatively set up and run the same way? Isn't possible for FESA to come up with some sort of general guidelines that each national federation has to follow? I'm not talking about FESA organizing and running each tournament, but certain things like time controls, number of rounds, determining whether the tournament is rated or not, determining tie breakers and what type of pairing system and so on could be standardized. Wouldn't this make running tournaments easier? Especially, running these big tournaments that determine the qualifiers to the World Championship. It seems unfair to decide to not rate a tournament after the fact, and even stranger to have hold a "national tournament" that can't be rated because of the format chosen. Another example is in the recent Austrian Championship. Even though there was a clear-cut winner, the "Austrian National Championship" seems to have been more of a "tournament to determine the participants in the playoff for the Austrian Championship". It is true that as a few people on the BBS explained, many sports have a playoff for their overall championship but usually those are called "playoffs". Most single-event tournaments that I am aware of (chess, igo, shogi, etc...) that are "national championships" almost always end up determining a single champion. I understand that people are trying to get in as many quality games of shogi as possible, but this seems to be a strange way to about doing it. But, this is the kind of stuff that can happen if every gets to decide their own format. My next question is about "nationality requirements", according to the update by Mr. Kaufman stated that only 2 Americans made it to the final 16 but were eventually eliminated and no American made it to the final 8. Let he mentioned that he was eliminated by former US Champion, Y.Suzuki. I thought that non-citizens or non-permanent residents were ineligible to become US Champion. Are non-US citizens or permanent residents now allowed to become US Champion? Is this the same for other countries with respect to their "national championship" as well? If no Americans advanced beyond round 16 then does that mean that there will now be a playoff between Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Kaufman for the title of US Champion? How will the American representative to the next world championship be determined? Finally, Mr. Kaufman mentions that maybe the faster time controls were chosen because Japanese prefer rapid shogi, whereas, Americans prefer longer shogi. Now, this is probably a silly question. But, since this tournament was called the US Championship, wouldn't it have been better for it to have been organized by the US National Shogi Association and set up with the time control preferred by Americans? This tournament was supposed to determine the US qualifier for the World Championship, right? If so, then why was it organized to make it convenient for non-citizen, non-resident alien Japanese players. I may be the only one, but I feel that this type of tournament should have been planned and organized with the best interests of American shogi players in mind. As it is, it seems to have been set up to make things only convenient for the Japanese players. How can it be called a "national championship" if it's set up to be convenient for people who don't even qualify to become US Champion because they are not US nationals. Bill Gaudry --- Larry Kaufman COMCAST NET> $B$+$i$N%a%C%;!<%8!' (B > The U.S. Championship was held near Chicago this weekend (Ap. > 26-27). Actually it was a North American Championship this time, > since the decision was made to allow three Canadian players from the > Toronto area to participate. Although it was a well-attended and > well-run event, the decision by the organizers to use a rapid time > limit (10' + 30") except for the final three games meant that almost > all of the hundreds of games played will not be rated, and in my view > as Chairman of the U.S. Shogi Federation the event should actually be > considered the North American Quickplay Championship. > The winner was Koji Nozawa of Chicago, listed as 3 Dan but > clearly deserving the 4 Dan rank, which he would surely have earned > here if the event were fully rateable. Runner-up was Former U.S. > Champion Y. Suzuki 4 Dan of San Francisco, who knocked me out of the > KO event early. Kento Matsumoto 4 Dan of Ashland Oregon took third > place. "Frosty" Yamamura 3 Dan of Los Angeles won the B group. > There was also a C group for players below 2 kyu, but I don't have > the results of that section. The team event, a round-robin of 6 > teams, was won convincingly by Los Angeles. This event was played > with no initial time, only 30" byoyomi. In general, it seems that > the Japanese prefer rapid shogi, while the Americans prefer longer, > serious games. Perhaps as a result, no American made it to the final > eight this time. The only other American besides myself in the final > 16 was USSF president George Fernandez 4 Dan, who unfortunately > overstepped the time limit in a winning position against a > lower-ranked opponent due to confusion over which clock was beeping > during byoyomi. > Pro 5 Dan "tiger" Nozuki was the attending pro, who gave > excellent lectures on both opening theory and on the final two games. > He also played a formal exhibition game against me at Bishop > handicap (with commentary in the next room for the attending > players). Due primarily to the long time limit for this game > (byoyomi was 1 minute instead of 30"), I was able to play well and I > won a model game which illustrates well the strategy I recommended in > my handicap series on Eric Cheymol's website. I plan to send him the > game with comments by Nozuki to be added to my article there. > Next year's event is set for April in San Francisco. I have > urged the organizers to come up with a schedule that permits all the > games to be played no faster than the minimum 20/30. > > Larry Kaufman, USSF Chairman > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! BB is Broadband by Yahoo! http://bb.yahoo.co.jp/