EGF Updated on 2007-12-06
As a result of my appearance on that website, I decided to take a tour on it and start analysing some of the tables it offers, centering my attention on the next one:
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| | | Dan players | Kyu players | All players |
| Country | ANT | NP ARGD | NP ARGD | NP ARGD |
----------+------+-------------+-------------+--------------
| Armenia | 7.5 | 0 0 | 2 -86 | 2 -86 |
| Austria | 14.9 | 26 -45 | 83 -16 | 109 -23 |
| Azerba. | 3.0 | 4 -129 | 2 -60 | 6 -106 |
| Bosnia | 17.8 | 5 -190 | 14 -83 | 19 -111 |
| Belgium | 12.5 | 15 -40 | 71 -30 | 86 -31 |
| Bulgaria| 2.5 | 1 -163 | 1 -49 | 2 -106 |
| Belarus | 6.7 | 2 -49 | 4 -99 | 6 -83 |
| Switzer.| 10.9 | 25 -38 | 103 -57 | 128 -53 |
| Cyprus | 5.1 | 3 -63 | 33 -20 | 36 -24 |
| Czechia | 33.9 | 39 -16 | 186 29 | 225 21 |
| Germany | 17.0 | 324 -68 | 920 -49 | 1244 -54 |
| Denmark | 18.1 | 18 -17 | 25 -41 | 43 -31 |
| Estonia | 2.5 | 0 0 | 11 -26 | 11 -26 |
| Spain | 9.3 | 19 10 | 146 0 | 165 1 |
| Finland | 14.8 | 43 -20 | 142 -32 | 185 -30 |
| France | 15.7 | 122 -51 | 423 3 | 545 -9 |
| Croatia | 28.4 | 7 -116 | 13 -16 | 20 -51 |
| Hungary | 25.2 | 18 -46 | 73 -8 | 91 -16 |
| Ireland | 11.5 | 3 -53 | 16 -70 | 19 -67 |
| Israel | 2.5 | 16 5 | 53 3 | 69 4 |
| Italy | 13.5 | 14 -17 | 145 -23 | 159 -22 |
| Lithuan.| 14.2 | 8 -62 | 66 -75 | 74 -74 |
| Luxembu.| 12.0 | 4 -63 | 4 -25 | 8 -44 |
| Moldova | 24.0 | 1 -64 | 0 0 | 1 -64 |
| Netherl.| 25.1 | 99 -50 | 226 -39 | 325 -42 |
| Norway | 11.0 | 10 -85 | 30 -37 | 40 -49 |
| Poland | 19.9 | 43 -18 | 305 -30 | 348 -29 |
| Portugal| 9.2 | 3 -64 | 12 7 | 15 -7 |
| Romania | 33.2 | 59 -71 | 33 -72 | 92 -71 |
| Serbia | 22.6 | 31 -100 | 48 -15 | 79 -49 |
| Russia | 16.6 | 102 -10 | 230 -9 | 332 -9 |
| Sweden | 11.1 | 31 -116 | 118 -41 | 149 -56 |
| Slovenia| 25.3 | 22 -72 | 25 -77 | 47 -75 |
| Slovakia| 39.7 | 10 4 | 68 -12 | 78 -10 |
| Turkey | 4.1 | 22 -66 | 159 -29 | 181 -33 |
| Ukraine | 13.3 | 36 -53 | 179 -12 | 215 -19 |
| UK | 22.1 | 108 -60 | 301 -35 | 409 -42 |
----------+------+-------------+-------------+--------------
| EURO | 17.7 | 1294 -51 | 4270 -27 | 5564 -33 |
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| ARGD | (Average of Rating - Grade Difference) | the average difference between the actual GoRating and the GoR value corresponding to the grade of players (e. g., 1 dan with GoR = 2138 means ARGD = 38). | |
| NP | (Number of Players) | the numbers of players included in the database (only players appearing in current rating ladders are counted). | |
| ANT | (Average Number of Tournaments) | the average of number of tournaments over the sample of players from a given country. | |
| Country | the countries, ordered according to their internet codes. We also included some countries which are not in Europe geographically (AM = Armenia, IL = Israel). |
On the forecoming paragraphs, whenever I talk about "go player", I refer to "EGF-rated go player", which is not exactly the same, as many low DDK won't appear here.
First of all, and the most obvious one, the European country with most Go players is Germany, with 1244 players. In fact, German representation in the European Go circles is very high as they are about a fifth of the total amount. The inmediate follower, with less than a half of players, is France, with 545.
The next range of numbers to analyse is the dan/kyu proportion of the countries with most Go players. We can see that a fourth of German players have already reached the EGF dan barrier, as well as the French ones. A little bit lower on the table we may realise that Russia holds a nice dan/kyu ratio with about a third of the players having reached the dan level. The one that strikes me the most, anyway, is the case of Romania: there are twice more dan players than kyus. I assume that kyu players must be somewhat afraid of taking part in tournaments as they would have about 64% chances of fighting against dans if it wasn't because of the pairing systems...
Talking about the dan/kyu proportion... it seems like mediterranean countries don't have a high proportion, while countries in the east and the north tend to have better ones. It might be a compensation for having a worse diet.
Another weird number is the "Average Rating-Grade Difference", which is the difference between what you said you were (10k, for example) and the rating points you ended up after the tournaments (1120, for example). As you can see, the only positive result we find there is for Spain; there are a few explanations for this phenomena: Spanish players have a nice winning streak on international tournaments, or we are more realistic about our level than the rest of Europe or we are too closed to international tournaments that the level remains somewhat stable in our country.
Any other analysis or explanation for the weird numbers?
(look at http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO/alleuro.lp )