Rules of the European Go Championship

Valid from 2015 on

Selection of Players

24 top European players (passport of EGF member country required) will participate in the event. They can be either amateur or professional players.

The players qualify for participation in the order of their best achieved EGF ratings within the previous twelve months (16th June of previous year to 15th June of current year), as given in the EGF rating database by 15th June, before the EGC.

Only players with a tournament result in those twelve months (16th June of previous year to 15th June of current year) documented in the EGD will be taken into account.

For 2015, the 24 players will be selected as follows:

  1. Top 4 of European Championship 2014
  2. One wildcard for the organising EGC country, minimum EGF rating 2350
  3. Two wildcards for the EGF to be decided by end of June, minimum EGF rating 2350
  4. 17 players from the EGD (top rating 16th June 2014 to 15th June 2015)

From 2016 onwards:

  1. Top 8 of previous European Championship
  2. One wildcard for the organising EGC country, minimum EGF rating 2350
  3. Two wildcards for the EGF to be decided by end of June, minimum EGF rating 2350
  4. 13 players from EGD (top rating 16th June previous year to 15th June current year, at least one tournament in the EGD within the same period)

Unused wildcards increase the number of players from the EGD.

Regardless of pre-registration for the European Championship and qualification, each player must register in person at the Congress site before the end of the registration day to confirm their presence to play the European Championship.

The players also declare their citizenship and number of years of residence in Europe / EGF countries. In case of doubt, the Congress organisers should verify this and the player's rank.

In the case where players, pre-registered by 15th June and who were qualified, do not show up, reserve players will replace them.

Tournament System

All 24 players start with the same McMahon score. This start, McMahon score, is the same as the top-bar McMahon score of the EGC main tournament.

The basic system is 4 preliminary rounds with McMahon system followed by 3 play-off rounds:

  • The 4 preliminary rounds are played from Sunday to Thursday of the first week of the European Go Congress. One round is played per day except on Wednesday. Each game starts in the morning, like all other games of the main tournament.
  • The 3 play-off rounds for the top 8 players are played after round 4, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

All games of the seven rounds are played under the same rules as in the EGC main tournament, with time limit 2.5 hours basic time + 1 minute byoyomi (3 times)

In each preliminary round, the players are ordered according to:

  1. number of wins
  2. entry EGF rating as of 15th July before the European Championship
  3. lottery

Players with two lost games in the preliminary rounds immediately leave the European Championship but may continue playing in the EGC main tournament.

In the case of five players with two losses after round 4 of the preliminaries, the top player (highest EGF rating by 15th July) with two losses still qualifies for the play-offs, while the four other players leave the European Championship.

After round 4, the top eight players continue the European Championship as a knockout tournament (with play-off game for third place). Players are paired 1-8, 2-7, 3-4, 5-6 in the quarter-finals, provided the opponents did not play each other in a previous round.

There is no need to define the order of 5th to 8th positions, hence the players losing in round 5 may play the weekend tournament if they wish to do so. Only semi-finals, the game for third place and the final, are played over the weekend.

All games, excluding the semi-finals, third place play-off and final, count for the EGC main tournament as well.

Results

There is only one European Champion title which is awarded to the player that wins the final (7th round).

The other three players that reached the semi-finals will be ranked 2nd to 4th of the European Championship.

The EGF archives the final results and the names and countries of the title holders.