Rules of Play and Conduct
- If not specified otherwise the tournaments are played with the AGA rules described briefly in a separate section below. Particularly, the European championship, Main and Weekend tournaments are played with these rules.
- If you are not familiar with the AGA rules, read carefuly the provided text and remember in your games that you give your opponent a stone/captive for each pass move you make, so it is important to fill in all dame/neutral points before you finish the game with passes.
- Additionally, the EGF General Tournament Rules and Tournament Guidelines apply at all EGC tournaments.
- In tournaments with no byoyomi (sudden death time limits) the players are allowed to stop the clock and finish the game without it if only neutral/dame points are left on the board. This should prevent losses on time in situations when the game is practically finished and no points to fight for are left on the board.
- The players are expected to behave sportsmanlike and respect the other participants. In the playing rooms everybody has to be silent. Use the study rooms for discussion! During a game no third person may influence it by any means, except a referee in charge.
- Please, be on time at the start of tournament rounds. If a player does not appear at the game within 30 minutes after the beginning of tournament round, he/she loses the game by forfeit.
Registration
- For the main tournament rounds 1 and 6 and for the first round of the weekend tournament the registration will close as specified in the Time Table. Late entries miss the appropriate round.
- If not specified otherwise the registration deadline for side events is 2 hours before the start.
Forms and Checklists
Some tournaments may use the following forms. The players are responsible for filling them in properly!
- Welcome Form: When entering the congress any player in at least one tournament has to fill in and sign the welcome form personally! Otherwise he cannot enter a tournament. In particular, the player specifies his European rank and signs the tournament agreement.
- Result Form: Result forms are used to report the result of a single game. If a tournament uses a result form, then it must be signed by both players and put to the marked places. If a tournament does not use a result form, then results are entered on the pairing lists on the wall or noted on a pairing card.
- Dropping Form: With the dropping form a player indicates to miss a specified round. It must be given to the organizers until the announced deadline.
- Sealing Form: During the Main tournament a player may seal his move for lunch adjournment. Sealing sheets must be filled in properly, enclosed in an envelope showing the board number, the time of resumption, and the player names with a circle around the player to resume, and given to the organizers.
- Checklist: A checklist is a list on the wall used to check if all tournament participants are entered correctly. If a tournament uses a checklist on the wall, then the players are expected to check their personal data (specifically their ranks) and mark clearly any corrections. The organizers may decide to correct ranks only and to postpone correction of names.
Ranks and McMahon scores
- The specified rank is the player's European rank and is used during both weeks. As a guideline, a European 1d equals Japanese 3d-4d, USA 2d-3d, or Chinese 1k. Internet ratings shall only be interpreted in case of emergency and with the aid of experienced internet players.
- At many EGC tournaments professional players can participate. As the pro rank systems differ from country to country we apply a simple rule: all professional players are treated as 8 dan amateurs regardless of their real pro ranks.
- In the Main and Weekend tournaments the initial McMahon scores of the players will be determined by their EGF ratings, at the side events the professed grades of players will be used provided that they are not lower than the rating of the player implies. Examples: a player professing 1 dan with an EGF rating 2000 will start with the MM score of 1 kyu (EGF ratings from 1950 to 2049) but play in the side events as 1 dan; a player professing 1 dan with an EGF rating 2200 will start with the MM score of a 2 dan and play in the side events as 2 dan as well. This should guarantee that players are paired with appropriate opponents in the Main and Weekend tournaments, and underrated players are not at advantage in the side events.
Particular Tournament Rules
AGA rules description
Instead of providing a complete text of the AGA rules we briefly highlight the important points to players not familiar with them. The complete text of the rules can be found at the American Go Association webpage.
- Passing: When a player makes a pass move, he/she hands the opponent a stone/captive instead of playing the stone on the board. White is required to make the last move, so the game may end either with two or three consecutive passes.
- Repeated board position (Ko): It is illegal to play in such a way as to exactly recreate a previous full board position from the game, with the same player to move.
- Suicide moves are forbiden.
- Illegal moves are treated in accordance with the EGF General Tournament Rules taking precedence over the pertinent AGA rule. If a player makes an illegal move and this is noticed within three moves, then the game should be unwound to the move just before the illegal move, and continued.
- Komi and handicaps: In even games black gives a komi 7.5 points. In handicap games the komi is 0.5 points. If area counting is used to determine the game result, White receives an additional point of compensation/komi for each Black handicap stone after the first.
- Counting: The area (Chinese) and territory (Japanese) ways of determining the game result are equivalent under the AGA rules. If the players do not agree on the method of counting, the territory counting will be used.
- Seki: The intersections surrounded by living stones of the same color do count as territory (or area) for determining the game result.
- „Bent four in the corner“ (and similar): Play it out! And remember, it does not cost you anything to make defensive moves inside your own territory (e.g. to prevent opponent's ko threats) at the end of the game after all neutral/dame points are already occupied.
Ing Clocks
Procedure for setting the Ing Clock:
- Use On/Off to ensure that the displays are empty. Use On/Off to turn on the clock.
- Use Set/Run and select Set.
- Use BT/RS and select BT for basic time.
- Use Black (the big black button) to set the hours of the basic time.
- Use White (the big white button) to set the minutes of the basic time.
- Use BT/RS and select RS for second reading.
- Use Black to set the number of byoyomi periods.
- Use White to set the seconds of each byoyomi period.
- Use Set/Run and select Run.
- Use White to start the game with black's time running.
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