¿EGP cíclico en 2010 y 2011?

Propuesta literal de Tom Schotte (en rojo) con comentarios de otros autores (en azul, traducidos, resumidos y sumados a otras propuestas):

Proposal European Grand Prix cycle 2010 and 2011.

Current situation:

* 12 European Grand Prix tournaments, spread over 12 countries in Europe.
* Average attendance of 24 players. (4 tournaments over 30 players, 3 below 15)
* 1 EGP tournament every 3-4 weeks.
* 7 players attending 6 or more tournaments.

Proposed situation

* One EGP cycle every year, consisting of 6 tournaments, equally spread over Europe.

"Un ciclo de 6 EGP cada año" es lo principal de la propuesta. Ha habido contrapropuestas:

- Italiana: 8 EGP al año, 4 EGP se quedan fuera; al año siguiente permanecen los 4 mejores EGP, entran los 4 que descansaron y salen los 4 peores EGP. Diferentes formas de valorar los EGP cada año.
- Fijos + cíclicos: hay EGP que permanecen año tras año (por ejemplo los 4 más clásicos o los más populares) y rotar los restantes.
- Mantener 12: al igual que hasta ahora o valorando más algunos EGP según la calidad de los mismos, por ejemplo dar más puntos en los EGP donde participen más jugadores de alto nivel.

* Best 4 tournaments will count.

- Contar 3 en vez de 4.

* Tournaments are randomly chosen, whereby the 12 countries are divided into 6 regions of 2 countries. The choice is based on the right of every country to organize an EGP tournament. The number of participants of previous editions will not be taken into account to decide where the tournaments will be held.

Propuestas muy variadas. La mayoría respecto a qué regiones se trata. Otras algo más diferentes:
- 4 grupos de 3 y frecuencia cada 3 años (8 EGP por año, 4 descansan cada año).

* The countries which are not chosen in 2010 will have their EGP in 2011.
* The list of countries will be drawn on the WOC2009 in Gent out of 6 bowls with each 2 countries present.
* The 6 regions are: Norway/Sweden – Poland/Czech Republic – Denmark/Germany – France/UK – Belgium/The Netherlands – Italy/Spain

Esto implica que el año que no haya EGP en España lo habrá en Italia. Lo que sí estará permitido (como es lógico) será organizar un torneo equivalente pero sin dar puntos EGP. Propuestas alternativas sobre las regiones:
- España/Francia y otros

* The system will be kept for 2 seasons (2010 and 2011) and evaluated after the last tournament in 2011. Until then the EGP system is ‘frozen’.

Targeted situation

* More players competing for the EGP title. In the past players had to play at least 6 tournaments to compete for the title. This means people had to spend a lot of money to travel around Europe. Now players who want to compete should only play 4 tournaments.
* More players attending tournaments. The average number of players attending tournaments will go up. This a point of discussion, but the average number of players attending EGP tournaments has gone down while the number of tournaments went up.
* Local players will be more motivated to play their EGP tournament, because it’s only once every two years.
* Players who want to compete will have to play less tournaments abroad, even when their own country has no tournament in that particular year.
* It will be a lot easier to schedule local tournaments taking into account the EGP schedule, also EGP tournaments will be more spread and EGP organizing countries will have more time to advertise their EGP without interfering with other organizers.
* Still 6 countries in Europe to go sightseeing every year. (a minimum of 5 if your country is organizing and EGP).
* Money issue (2): we should take into account the organisation of the WOC 2010 in Asia and the WOC 2011 in New York. Players should be able to compete both in the WOC in the EGP.

Aclaración respecto a la última votación sobre el EGP:
I should add that 12 had 6 votes too.
1) 8 tournaments (6 votes) "WINNER"
1) 12 tournaments (6 votes)
3) 9 tournaments (5 votes)
4) 6 tournaments (4 votes)
5) 10 tournaments (2 votes)
5) 7 tournaments (2 votes)
7) 11 tournaments (1 vote)

Es interesante el siguiente comentario de Henry Aspenryd que argumenta contra la idea.

Personally im not too fond of the idea. The proposal is supposed to solve the following issues:

This change could lead the European Grand Prix Cycle into a new decade and is a solution for the growing pressure on scheduling tournaments

Stockholm EGP among with several other EGP tournaments will still be held but perhaps under another name and without EGP points. As most of you probably agree on going to an EGP is for most of us a social event and not to be ontop of the EGP table. So I think (hope) that the participants will not dwindle on the tournaments just because we remove the 'EGP' part of the tournament name.

So, the scheduling problem is still the same.

En mi opinión, una gran motivación de muchos jugadores para ir a un torneo es que otros jugadores van también, por lo que aunque sean unos pocos que dejan de ir por no estar dentro del circuito, otros tampoco irán. Es fácil que un campeonato con poca tradición deje de tener participantes extranjeros si no está en el circuito. Ciertamente, los puntos no es lo más importante, pero para algo se introdujeron.

En el caso de los jugadores nacionales es distinto y ciertamente no creo que afecte demasiado a que esté dentro o fuera del circuito.

* the raised costs to enable competing for the European title

Lowering the number of tournaments that count from 6 to 4 is a good idea, and it will lower the cost for the top competition. If we reduce the number of possible tournaments to attend from 12 to 6 it will however raise the cost for most players, atleast the ones not living in central Europe, since you will have to travel to the furthest countries to have a chance to get 4 tournaments. It will also be harder for those with a tight schedule since you can only miss out on 2 tournaments as opposed to 6 tournaments today.

Como dice, habrá menos posibilidades de elección. El si le costará a un jugador más o menos es difícil de predecir.

* the average tournament attendance.

Today Stockholm EGP is Swedens biggest tournament. If worst comes to worst and the EGP status of the tournament is what makes players attend it will mean we loose our most important tournament every second year. We have several Swedish players that only attend this tournament! Our concern is that if we should loose that tournament it might be much of a killing blow to the Othello community in Sweden.

In general when it comes to 'less tournaments = more players' this is far from a valid truth. Atleast not in Sweden where travel distance can be quite long. We have been trying out different numbers of tournaments over the year and cannot see any correlation between number of tournaments in total and the attendance per tournament.

Es interesante conocer la experiencia de otros países y según afirma no está clara allí la relación entre número de torneos y participación.

So... 'Nag nag nag, dont you have anything constructive to say Mr.Aspenryd?'

Well, if the scheduling is a problem I would suggest keeping all EGP tournaments as they are (12 atm), lower the number counted to 4 (as Tom suggested), and schedule tournaments that are far apart (like Stockholm - Spain, UK - Italy) at rougly the same dates. Its probably easy to see what tournament pairs never had the same players. Having 12 tournaments and only 4 count might make it tight in the top and we might even get 2 players or even 3 with the same score. Im aware of this problem but think its a lesser problem than what might occur if we remove 50% of the tournaments every year.

Sugiere agrupar en el tiempo torneos geográficamente distantes. Por ejemplo, Suecia y España.

As for better attendance I strongly suggest more tournaments but no necessarely with stronger competition. We have seen that if we have a tournament with few players that are high ranked, the low ranked players will decline the tournament signup the week before it starts. They simple dont want to go there to play sandbag. If we have more low ranked players it gives us even more signups, first from other low ranked players 'Ok I will get a beating but atleast I will win some games!' and when they sign up the medium ranked and high ranked players that where uncertain before sign up aswell 'Hey everyone else is comming I dont want to miss out on that tournament!'.

Y termina con más reflexiones sobre la participación.

Sigh - this was supposed to be a short mail. Sorry.

/Henry