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If you keep track of the Full of Surprises blog, you'll have already realised the decline in Korea's Go scene.

The first post related to this topic which amused me was the one called my two teachers, where she talks about how she learnt go and some possible reasons on why children don't learn it nowadays.

Yesterday she wrote a new post: Only a matter of TIME, talking about the differences on time settings among the main go playing countries. It is a like a punch in my stomach to see how time settings are arranged to suit TV broadcasting. Amazing. Obviously, decreasing the time given for each move has dramatic consequences, but you'd better read them by yourself. I really recommend reading this post as I can't really transmit all the fustration and pity you can read between her lines.

The Barcelona Go Tournament will be held during the days 23rd and 24th of February. The tournament system is MacMahon 5 rounds, with the following time settings: 60 min main + byoyomi 5 min / 20 stones, based on EGF rating. Last year there were 99 players, ranging from 3d to 19k, with some players coming from France and Germany. Though I think that this year we'll see the 6d from Korea playing there, so we all know where the prizes will go

The inscription fee is 20€, and there are 1300 euros in cash for the top classified players, go books for the players with most or less wins (I might fit in this last category) and a small souvenir for all the participants.

I'm not used to play such long games and I might have some trouble adapting to it, even more if we consider playing 3 games in the first day, lasting for about 2 hours each... I think I might even bring my palm with me, with such time settings I might be able to record my games.

In case you want to know more about it: Barcelona 2008

If you either have a shop or a go-related business or a go-related site, I think you might be interested in this post.

During the last weeks I've been working on a system to handle banners through the Go community. It was called GoAds and it was something similar to Adsense, though it didn't have any anti-fraud system, so the announcers would be easily tricked and noone would participate after realising the trick.

After talking for a while with potential participants and buyers, it seems like we found a possible solution: create an auction system for a monthly fixed amount. This means that shop-admins will be able to buy banners on the sites they want for a fixed amount each month, while bloggers/webmasters will be earning some money.

For example, if any important website (let's say Godiscussions, as everyone knows it, receives lots of daily visits) offered his bannerspace for a few euros, lots of potential buyers would be interested in bidding for having their ads placed on the top and bottom of that site. This can also be applied to a smaller scale, like when we talk about small bloggers (like me); obviously, we wouldn't receive a big amount of money for showing their ads, as it should be proportional to the quantity of visits and the quality of the posts. However, if you happened to receive a few euros monthly, the site would be able to maintain itself.

Webmaster - What does this mean to you?
If you are tired of Google Adsense showing some strange ads, you can sell some bannerspace for a fixed monthly income and be sure you'll get some Go-related ads. Setting up an Ad is totally free, unless you want to put some special conditions like minimum amounts, highlights on the homepage for your product and such.

Announcer - What does this mean to you?
Finally you'll be showing your banners on Go-related sites. In fact, you'll be able to bid for having banners on the sites you want, not just some randomization like in Google Adsense; here you'll be sure to reach your audience. Obviously, the ones with most visits and content quality will be harder to win, and the price will rise higher, but, as the system is handled by auctions, you are the one to set the price.

The standard payment processor will be paypal. Paying through credit card will be available as soon as we conclude the tests with the SSL certificate, so that security is granted.

Here you have the link: Go Auctions

I hope to see you there

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:

 ------------------------------------------------------------
|         |      | 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 |
------------------------------------------------------------

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?