Project Description

Polish Go Association Internet Cup has been organized for the first time in 2001. It was a "test run" of an internet tournament to see potential interest in this type of tournament and gather some experience. First edition served its purpose attracting approximately 90 players and giving us a lot of material to think about.

In 2002 we set new goals and changed the tournament formula completely. The formula and popularity of the first edition enabled us to acquire a sponsor for the second edition of the tournament. The goals were as follows:

1) Instead of just providing environment for the players we tried to make this tournament an incentive to learn by playing stronger players 2) Give stronger players incentive to play weaker ones by increasing their chances to win by playing weaker players. 3) Eliminate possibility of mistakes with reported playing strength. 4) Make the system flexible so that people from all over the world can play comfortably, 5) Make the participation as easy as possible and very attractive 6) Keep the system simple

Main features of the system: - Anyone can register at any time. - All games are even, 1/10, komi 5.5 Japanese rules (regardless of server settings), to be played on Aurora, WING or KGS. - Players freely choose opponents and are awarded points only according to their opponent's strength (a win against 5 kyu is worth 10 points more than against 6 kyu and so on). - Result is reported and noted on-line on the web pages. - The winners are the people with highest score at the end of the tournament. - There will be also a prize for the most active player. - The tournament ends on Dec 31st.

Objectives

1) To create an internet tournament system that would be fair and simple. 2) To create a big really international event. 3) To provide attractive playing environment that would give opportunity to play stronger players. 4) To provide prospective sponsors maximum exposure to a well targeted group of players which in turn would enable us to offer more attractive prizes.

Realisation

1) The project is realized in every aspect. We received no complaints from the participants. There have been virtually no questions as to the way the tournament operates. 2) We have players registered from 42 countries. (Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China,Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, U.S.A, Ukraine). There have been over 2000 games played so far. There are 320 players registered up to date.This probably makes it the biggest on-line tournament except for IWAGC of which I have no data to compare to PGA IC. 3) Games between players of equal strength are scarce. Many kyu players get chance to play dan players on even terms which has either an educational value for them and is a something not usually available. 4) The sponsor gets excellent exposure with over 11, 000 hits and 7,000 visits to tournament pages.

Resources

Manpower: Tournament is run by two people. After initial set up PGA IC requires minute involvement on our part. Two tournament participants prepared German and French mirrors. Financial resources: None

Possibilities to copy this project

This project is an effective tool as it touches essence of Go : competition. It integrates players involved in the tournament by keeping the together through longer period of time. Participation in such tournament increases attractiveness of internet Go especially to people in smaller Go populations where access to tournaments is difficult. PGA IC by its very nature is open to all European players and we are striving to make it available in as many languages as possible. So far it is available in German, French, Polish and English. We hope it will continue through coming years in ever improving form.