CongressNews No. 5
Prizes and Organisation
(by Gionata Soletti)
Organisation
We have done our best to organise a nice congress, and we know we have some faults but two questions still remain to be answered: Why was the rapid tournament stopped and why has the Midnight Smoking Blitz failed? I feel as my personal position, that these two questions are the two faces of the same medal. And that medal has three words on it: Organisation, inertia and shyness.
I will explain better with an example. Of the Italians present at this congress most play amongst each other. This is awkward, they already play 365 days a year so why not make friendships and gain new experiences? Well the answer is simple: Laziness, in going to ask people they do not know; shyness, in the fear of asking a person who than says “No”; organisation, no one has told them they must.
And this is the big issue: To be told (forced) to do so. I believe that players do not need to have an ‘organised’ round during the evening to play, they have the ongoing tournament. I believe that you should not chase people and force them to write for (their) congress magazine, they should (anxiously) do so themselves. I believe you should not tell people that the midnight blitz is starting, and post lists and organise turns, people who want can do so themselves.
But now after some time I start to wonder if my beliefs are wrong. Perhaps go players want a more Club Meditérranée stile of organisation with activators and directors. For me I hate this kind of organisation, it reminds me of the time in military service, but as I say it this is a personal opinion.
So here are my reasons for suppressing the rapid and introducing the blitz: More freedom and less ‘totalizing’ organisation. Of course there were other reasons: Clash with pro’s, timing, human resources. But the main problem was a dislike for scheduled days. Well after this week I can say I failed and I have to admit I was wrong. So I am sure that the next organisers will suppress the blitz and reintroduce the rapid, and all will end well…
Prizes
Well, all (or most) of you have been at the Prizegiving and so all will have an idea about it. Since I have received some criticism about it I would like to state my reasons for:
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1. | No money prizes.
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2. | No prizes for the main tournament and 4 wins in the weekend tournament.
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The argument about money prizes is long but can be summarised in some points:
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We in Italy are against money prizes because we feel that we are amateurs and not professionals and so we should play to ‘enjoy’ the game and not to win the prize. This point could be further developed in the fact that by giving money in prizes we would encourage and support a kind of semiprofessional player who (in our eyes) has still no roots in Europe, so we would in our eyes help to create an unadapted person (for our society).
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Furthermore in this congress (as has been pointed out in the EGF meeting) we have taken some strategic decisions which have used up the budget we had. These decisions were a strong support to professionals, (we hope) nice and good free drink to all, nice (again we hope) gadgets at registration.
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Finally the reason against money is not only the fact that we are amateurs but a preventive action against people who register below their actual strength in order to win prizes.
As with the money also the reason for prizes can be summed up:
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If you win 5 or 4 games your reward will probably be a promotion, and what better prize is there for a go player?
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Before giving money to people who win many games, you must make the assumption that they are correctly rated to start with (or else we have cheating problems). And if this assumption is right why should we reward 5 and 4 wins and not 0 or 1 win. Are not the former going to get a promotion and don’t the latter risk a (possible) demotion? And if so who has a better attitude in De Coubertain’s eyes?
