EGF Pair Go Points System

Qualification of European Pairs for the World Amateur Pair Go Championship

The Objective

The objective is a system that:
1) allows EGF members to nominate their pair individually,
2) gives large EGF members WP places more often,
3) gives EGF members with strong pairs WP places more often,
4) does not too much disadvantage to countries that cannot afford to send pairs to the EP regularly due to financial or geographical reasons,
5) still works if no European Pair Go Championship takes place,
6) remains stable if Europe gets more or less than the usual 9-10 places,
7) is easy to maintain and does not require financial support,
8) the character of the European Pair Go Championship does not need to be changed,
9) support the aims and spirit of the World Amateur Pair Go championship as far as we understand them from its sponsors, the Japan Pair Go Association,
10) helps the spread of Pair Go.

Current Points

1 Candidate list

The EGF maintains a candidate list of all member countries to decide on the European participants for the World Amateur Pair Go Championship (abbreviated as "World Pairs"). Points are awarded to candidates based on rating and membership details of the previous year and on the results of the European Pair Go Championship (abbreviated as European Pairs) in the current calendar year.

Points gained by member countries according to their size

In every calendar year, the minimum of the following two numbers is called the size of a member country:

(i) The number of individual members this country paid for in EGF membership fee in the previous year. If the country paid the minimum membership fee, then the number is the number of members equivalent to the minimum. If the member country did not pay its fee by 31st December of the previous year, this number is zero.

(ii) Twice the number of players of that country in the last issue of the full European rating list valid on 7th December of the previous year with Go Rating at least 1000. The nationality of a player on the rating list is decided on by the rating list maintainer. Every player on the rating list can have only one nationality. Mistakes or gaps in the rating data can only be corrected if they are reported to the rating list maintainer by 31st December of the previous year.

Every member country of the EGF receives points for the candidate list according to its size, using the following formula:


Points gained at the European Pair Go Championship

The European Pairs should take place once a year if the EGF finds an organizer.

At the European Pairs, the member countries are ordered by the final placement of their best-placed pair. Any pair can earn points for their country if the organizer of the European Pairs accepts that pair as being from that country. All pairs other than these are ignored for the purposes of ordering the member countries. Points for the candidate list are awarded to the member countries according to this ordering and the following table:

Place 1: 60 points
Place 2: 51 points
Place 3: 43 points
Place 4: 36 points
Place 5: 30 points
Place 6: 25 points
Place 7: 21 points
Place 8: 18 points
Place 9: 15 points
Place 10: 13 points
Place 11: 11 points
Place 12: 9 points
Place 13: 7 points
Place 14: 5 points
Place 15: 3 points
Place 16: 1 point

If places are shared, then so are the points. Fractional points are truncated.

2 Nomination for the World Pairs

If the EGF is asked to nominate member countries for the participation in the World Pairs, the following rules apply to the set of available countries for the year in question:

a) Rotation Places (determined first)

One country, if existent, is chosen using the following criteria:

1. Any country requested to be nominated by the organizers of the World Pairs.
2. The country did not participate in the World Pairs during its last 7 years as an EGF member in good standing.
3. More years of being an EGF member in good standing have passed since the country's last participation in the World Pairs.
4. The country has more points in the candidate list.
5. The last participation of the country at the European Pairs was more recent.
6. The country gained more points with their last participation at the European Pairs.
7. Lottery.

b) Candidate List

The countries for all remaining places are successively chosen using the following criteria:

1. Any country requested to be nominated by the organizers of the World Pairs.
2. The country has more points in the candidate list.
3. More years of being an EGF member in good standing have passed since the country's last participation in the World Pairs.
4. The last participation of the country at the European Pairs was more recent.
5. The country gained more points with their last participation at the European Pairs.
6. Lottery.

c) Special Cases

A member country that has the right to nominate a pair may nominate any pair acceptable to the organizers of the World Pairs. If a nominated member country renounces or is unable to present a pair that meets the requirements for participation in the World Pairs, that country will be removed from the set of available countries of the year in question and the selection procedure above will be restarted.

If the EGF finds time is too short to use the rules above, the EGF can also select appropriate countries for available places.

Reduction of candidate list points

All member countries that are finally nominated for the participation in the World Pairs will have their number of points in the candidate list reduced by the qualification threshold. If their number of points gets below zero, it is set to zero.

The qualification threshold of the particular year is the number of points of the highest placed country in the candidate list that was never asked to participate at the World Pairs during the process of determining the representatives of Europe at the World Pairs via 2b.

3 Provisional regulations

The candidate list was initialized with the real data starting from 1991.

For the purpose of initialization the qualification threshold in 2d was determined as the number of points of the highest placed country in the candidate list that did not participate at the World Pairs in the year in question.

Since the European rating list dates back to 1996 only, the following assumption was made for the purpose of this initialization: For a member country, the first year yielding a positive number in 1a(ii) was determined. This number was assumed to be the same for all earlier years.

Gaps in old data of 1a (i) were treated similarly: If in a given year, a country was already an EGF member, with the number of individual members paid for being unknown to the EGF, the number of the next year with data available was taken.

This system came into effect in 2003.