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How was the EGC?
By Marc Oliver Rieger | News | 09.09.2017 17:58| Views: 4719 | Comments: 5
To know what participants liked (and didn’t like) about this year’s European Go Congress, we conducted a little survey, on which around 90 people participated.

We now know that the congress was really well received! Nearly half (43%) of the participants who had already taken part in other European Go Congress thought that this year's was the best! Overall grade for this: 1.5 (1=very good, 2=good, 3=not so good, 4=bad).
The location also achieved a total of 2.0, despite food and drinks in the hotel (2.5) and weather (2.9). – By the way, foreign participants were less critical than the German participants in terms of food and weather…
The participants liked the Phantom Rengo (score 1.2), as well as the main tournament, Chess&Go, Crazy Go and Rengo (1.4 each). The Yose Go didn’t go down that well (2.3). At the events the board game evening was top (1.5), but also the Russian evening, karaoke and the movie “Surrounding Game” were well received, the excursions, however, unfortunately not (2,6).
Best lecturer was Hwang Inseong: 52% of the participants said that his talks were the best!
Many participants gave detailed suggestions for improvement, so we hope this feedback will be useful for future Go congresses!
How was the EGC?
Comments:
Ilya Shikshin
#1
12.09.2017 12:48
I would like to say thanks to German team for organizing this Congress. There were many good things done at this EGC.

But also I would like to mention about one problem. I'm talking about playing conditions for top players. Top players rooms were close to exit from the Congress place and to info desk. So many people gathered right behind the doors and there was quite big noise during rounds. Espesially it was bad during the semifinals and finals of the European Championship. The first round of the weekend tournament started one hour later than semifinals of EC. So all this hour there was the greatest noise and every 15 seconds someone opened the door to the semifinals room and went in or out. I must say that it was the worst playing conditions in my practice.
Same things happened when rounds of the weekend tournament were finishing but semifinals and finals were continuing.

Also I would like to say some words about new stones which were used from the 5th board. There were black and yellow stones instead of white. So these yellow stones merged with the color of gobans and it was an extra burden for eyes. I think it's better not to make expirements with equipment during official competitions.

I hope that future organizers will pay attention to these comments.
Marc
#2
13.09.2017 5:38
Dear Ilya,
thanks for your praise and for your comments! When we planed the rooms, we thought that it would be convenient to have all playing rooms next to each other, but indeed that made the top rooms quite busy. As you know we blocked the area in front of them for the public after the problem occurred, but in fact future congresses should try to put the top players at some more peripheral location to avoid the problem altogether.
Regarding the stones: the playing material was indeed special and quite expensive, but we are sorry that it didn't match your taste. Did you ask us about this? I am sure we could have changed this on the spot!
Anyway, that will also be good to know for future congresses, so thanks again for your input!
Denis Weber
#3
14.09.2017 16:53
Was there anyone giving positive feedback about those yellow stones?
Dmitry Turovsky
#4
15.09.2017 23:32
I'd like to express my opinion too.
I was playing at the huge event hall with lower kyus during all the tournament. But my higher kyu friends, who moved from event hall to smaller panorama hall during second week, were envy of me, because the event hall was huge and comfortable.
Probably during next congresses you should think more about how much space you give to the players walking around and having tea during the game.
Oxygen and space is very important in intellectual activities and it's better to have all the available space occupied than have have higher kyus and even dan players confined in a smaller hall. And I don't think there was a big problem moving more players to a bigger hall during the second week and make the high kyu hall less crowded.
David Fazekas
#5
20.09.2017 19:53
I loved everything! The kind visitors/players (I made so many friendships, I have never expected.) Especially I loved the high number of Kids! The whole well organized Event, the location, the view from the Hotel, the plentiful breakfast and dinner! But the most favourite idea I loved was the pair T-shirts for PairGo players! :-)
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