intervju med Catalin Taranu

Diskussioner kring EM 2008 i Sverige
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henric
Posts: 1096
Joined: 11 May 2004, 08:10

intervju med Catalin Taranu

Post by henric »

En andra del av Alexandre Dinerchteins intervju med eurppamästaren Catalin Taranu har kommit ut i goama ( http://gogame.info/ ).
Det handlar en del om EM, masters, Saijo sensei och de ständiga frågorna om EM-formatet. Samt WMSG.

mvh
h.


********************

An interview with Catalin Taranu, part2
Here you will see the questions prepared personally by Alexander Dinerchtein

- Congratulations on becoming new European Champion on behalf of our readers! Did you enjoy the congress?
- I did enjoy the congress, it was pity though for the bad weather through
the second week.

- Did you notice any new talents, or maybe you know someone from Romania, who can impress us soon?
- In Romania we have a 14 year old boy who became 5 dan, he is also former
youth champion under 12, his name is Mihai Serban. Other than that we have a
few more talents but they will not impress us soon because they are very
serious with school and don't put enough energy in Go to become champions.
I believe one reason for that is the lack of motivation, there is no reward
now in Europe for becoming strong at Go.

- It was a big pleasure for us to meet your teacher - Saijo-sensei during the EGC. Do you know his future plans? Will he visit other Go congresses?

- Saijo sensei is a great person, but unfortunately he complained that he
is getting old and more and more tired, so it's becoming difficult for him.
But I think he will come next year as long the organizers from Holland take
the same initiative to raise money in order to pay his flight.

- What do you think about the current system of the European Championship? I heard that you suggested making it open only for 32 best Europeans. Do you feel that all 32 of them have real chances of becoming the champion and what do you think about reducing the number of invited players to 8-16? In case of smaller number of players, it's possible to avoid any tiebreakers at all.

- I do agree that 32 is too big a number and there will be big differences
in the strength of the players. But at the same time, we need to consider
that for a real european championship, each country should send at least one
representative. There are countries whose top player's strength can increase
only by this kind of event, so it's maybe unfair to stop them to play. I
think this would be an interesting topic to discuss.

- What do you think about having a European Championship in the morning and an all-national / open tournament in the afternoon or vice-versa (this kind of system is currently used in US Go Congresses)

- It was part of my proposal to do an european championship in the morning
and a goodwill match in the afternoon. This would solve the problem of being
hospitable towards the asian strong players who may want to challenge us.
It is also a good opportunity to ask for sponsorship from Asia.

- Can we say that Korean inseis are usually stronger than common professionals (excluding titleholders)? For example, we saw these results during the last preliminary stage of the Samsung cup: Yoo Byeongryong (ex-insei) won against Seto Taiki, 6p, Jeong Chanho (ex-insei) - against Kanazawa Hideo, 7p , Ham Youngwoo (ex-insei) against Hatanaka Hoshinobu, 2p
Also, Japanese Tengen title holder Kono Rin, 9p lost to Cho Kyungho, 1p from Korea, who was first class insei just few months ago

- I think Korean first class inseis are very strong. Certainly they all
have at least 5pro Japanese level. But I feel some of them much stronger
than that, so yes, we can safely say they are maybe stronger than many pro.
It's normal, considering the fierce competition and the very high level of
study in Korea.

- We have similar situation here in Europe. Korean ex-inseis are winning 90% of all important tournaments. I heard an opinion of not allowing them to take part in some events (for example, nowadays in Korea they have lot of amateur tournaments, closed for players under 30), or distributing prizes differently (for example, 1/3 for Asians, 2/3 for Europeans). What do you think about such ideas?

- I think that under the circumstances the tournament organizers should
think of protecting a bit the european players, thus the idea of giving
bigger money prizes to Europeans sounds good. I know that coming from me,
this statement is subjective, but I really think about the others too and
that is quite important for Europe to preserve and increase its number of
top players.

- Why do you ignore qualification tournaments, which have invitations to Asian tournaments as prizes - Toyota&Denso and European Masters?
- For Toyota&Denso, I am not allowed to play by the Japanese sponsors, who
believe I should play the qualifications in Japan. For the Masters, I
believe that the tournament in the actual form is a joke, no prizes and no
suitable conditions for the players . Also , is abusive to oblige the top
Europeans to play an extra tournament in the weekend, when they could rest
and prepare for the second week, or play the weekend tournament if they feel
like it. Moreover, a tournament with such a name should be organized in
grand style , with some spotlight on the players and media coverage. This is
important , to show to the young talents a podium that they can climb one
day and motivate them.
But when I told my opinion to the EGF and the EGCC leadership, it was met
with irony and I was told that if I don't play is never a problem, there are
always other people willing to play. One mention: at the time I was the nr.1
on the european rating list.
This is the reason why I refused to play in the Masters for the past years.
At last, I believe I can find sponsors in Romania who would agree to make
the tournament in big fashion, this will be soon another topic for
discussion.

- Will you go to WMSG in China and what you think about the chances of Westerners in taking medals (by the way, it's clear that Michael Redmond, 9p will play for United States)
- Due to the incompetence of our federation, the situation of the romanian
lot for the Olympics is so far unclear. There is a chance that I don't go
there either, even though I wouldn't like to miss this first edition.
I think Europeans can get a good result in team tournament, especially a
good team from Romania or Russia. For the individual tournaments, it will be
quite hard to get a relevant place due to the massive participation of asian
pros there.

***********************************************************************
A-lan
Posts: 130
Joined: 20 Apr 2006, 10:02

Post by A-lan »

*håller helt och hållet med, om hans kommentarer om European Masters*
henric
Posts: 1096
Joined: 11 May 2004, 08:10

Post by henric »

A-lan wrote:*håller helt och hållet med, om hans kommentarer om European Masters*
Ja, det kan man ju göra.
Det allra konstigaste med Masters var att vi som organisatörer fick höra först att det inte skulle bli någon sådan turnering, sedan att det kanske skulle bli en, men det senare först ett par veckor innan EGC. Det blev till sist inte beslutat om ett Masters förrän under EGC, ett par dar innan helgen när Masters skulle spelas.

Om det hade varit klart tidigt att det skulle bli en Mastersturnering hade vi ju kunnat planera för att ge den högre profil, skjuta till prispengar till exempel, och annonsera evenemanget ordentligt så att det fått uppmärksamhet. Som det nu blev var det väl inte många ens av EGC-deltagarna som visste något om Masters. Resultaten kom inte upp någonstans heller - det spelades snarast i smyg. Lokalen byttes när det redan börjat, först var det tänkt att spela i St Per, den mest representativa lokalen vi hade. Sedan insisterade EuroGoTV på att spela i ett klassrum på Gymnasieskolan istället, för att få tillräckligt snabb internetuppkoppling för att kunna filma. Fram till minuterna innan ronden skulle spelas var vi igång med att sopa golv, bära bord, sätta upp papperslappar med pilar och få igång internetanslutning.

Att St Per inte kunde användas med snabbt internet är ett kapitel för sig. Prästen hade sagt till oss att det var 24 Mbit/s anslutning på St Per. Roger hade också ringt och kollat och fått samma besked. Sedan visade det sig att anslutningen gick via en långsam radiolänk till prästgården. Då var det för sent att öppna ett nytt, snabbt abbonemang på St Per också (skulle ta 10 dagar att få igång det, enligt uppgift). Så man kan säga att vi blev lurade när det gäller internet på St Per. Förstaborden i huvudturneringen fick ju också flytta senare, för EuroGoTVs skull. Hoppas att några tittare uppskattade filmandet åtminstone.

mvh
Henric
A-lan
Posts: 130
Joined: 20 Apr 2006, 10:02

Post by A-lan »

henric wrote:Som det nu blev var det väl inte många ens av EGC-deltagarna som visste något om Masters. Resultaten kom inte upp någonstans heller - det spelades snarast i smyg.
Mm, det var jäkligt synd.
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