Youth Go Match: Europe and North America to fight it out
This is the 2nd edition of the TransAtlantic Youth Go Match. This
event provides the opportunity for youth players on both sides to get top-level
playing experience and make new go friends. The tournament is organized as a
team match with ten players per side, with players being invited to by their
national or continental go associations.
Games were played in the Transatlantic Youth Go Tournament room on the KGS go
server on April 18, 2010. Games were played with ING rules, with time controls
of 30 minutes main time + 10 moves/5 minutes Canadian-style overtime.
There was an interesting discussion on Godiscussions since North American
representatives are mostly not native players (from Asian descent) on the other
hand almost all European players are native players.
cuetzpalin: "I wonder why North American representatives are mostly not
native players, whether they are nationalized, or maybe from asian descent (I
don't know if any of those young players were born in North America)...
shouldn't AGA and CGA encourage national talent instead of pushing only asian
players?
The past World Student Go Oza qualifiers were open to all the qualifying
players, and for some reason there were almost no players from north america,
but an asian one. To me, this is a clear sign that participation of asian
players actually discourages native north american players."
I believe it's to USA players’ advantage that they have a lot of strong Asian
players such as Jie Li who are close to professional level to compete with but
AGA should also encourage native players. Otherwise there will be no motivation
for native players to study Go seriously (even professionally) if they can’t
compete against players of asian origin and win major tournaments.