If the number of teams is odd, we’ll need to register a second team France B consisting of U12 weak players.
Even strong players may refuse to be recorded in a video. I don’t think they are so concerned about cheating opponents, we only had 1 suspicious case a few years ago, and the expert (Antti) didn’t find evidence of cheating after careful examination of the game.
As was stated much earlier in this thread, video recording only avoids naieve cheating. We could already come up with ways to circumvent that measure after thinking about it only briefly.
So to me this whole video recording measure seems to be largely symbolic, showing they are at least “doing something” to combat cheating, while accepting the collateral damage of losing some more casual players/teams who would participate mostly for fun.
Casual or not, I think they’ll lose a lot of participants.
I dropped out of the 2020 French championship because I didn’t have the required video camera equipment to participate. Now they are asking for children to have that equipment, and for parents to be okay with the whole setup.
In 2020 and 2021 I’ve been teaching classes via zoom for university, and I couldn’t ask my 20-year-old students to turn their camera on during the classes, because some of the students lived in small apartments with their whole family, so that would have been way too intrusive. I could hear other family members every time a student turned their microphone on to answer a question I asked. Now the EGF wants to force children to have not one, but two cameras turned on. This works for children who live in a big house with a dedicated computer room where you can film everything without filming the whole family. It rules out anyone who lives in a small apartment.
I also note this fun sentence:
The software necessary is the free version of Skype and a working Skype account (for minors, the account of a parent is necessary).
Why is the account of a parent necessary? Oh, right, because Skype is more careful than the EGF and doesn’t allow minors to have accounts. I wonder what would happen if a parent decided to send a letter of complaint to Skype with a link to this fair-play guide?
Wouldn’t it have been better to first ask all the participants themselves what they felt would be reasonable to introduce? I could well imagine that some might feel the rules to be a little bit over the top.
Update from the organizers:
The anti-cheating measures are optional for this edition 2023/24. If for some reason you think you and your team’s players are not ready for it then you don’t have to set up a camera or start a video call.
Nevertheless, we do recommend that the players make a skype call during the game so that they can see each other and this is not just done so the players have a better connection to each other but also to make cheating more difficult. In future editions of the EYGTC (like next year) this might become mandatory and the setup might become more complicated (with a camera which shows the players’ keyboard). We will inform you how this will look like, after the tournament is over, latest at the next general assembly of the EGF in Toulouse July 2024.
Last Friday I heard that the EGF would accept just a front facing camera (like a built-in laptop camera) for the EYGTC and apparently they decided on a further relaxation during the weekend.
I’m glad the EGF relaxed the camera measures (for this year at least), so I did send invitations to Dutch youth players after all.
Maybe next year we’ll get a DNA swab
Asking myself what this integrated camera can see. Keyboard maybe? I guess already not what you are looking at. They could maybe ask for a mirror reflecting the screen.
I suppose that next year the EGF will still require an external camera setup to record the player from the side/rear, so that their screen and keyboard are in view of the camera. It remains to be seen from which age/level they will require such a setup, and if the organisers will comply with those requirements, or perhaps give up the claim of being a European Championship instead.
All changed with AI arrival. Even in a classic face to face. I wonder how it will evolve and how we may keep some liberties and friendly atmosphere. New world.
Seems to me that there will be soon a financial problem with access to the technology. You may be good at go but bad on other sides in life. Tournaments organization provide tables, chairs, goban, stones and clocks, and many times sleep and food (and drinks). Will they seriously consider anticheating materials? 100 side cameras for 200 players? Will they have some computers or laptops?
Those go organization should keep an eye to keep entry fees as low as possible and still provide all the necessary as they used to.
Still there is something weird in my mind. Covid is away now. I see no debate on the change of format itself. Why stay playing home each on computers? Why not playing again on board and stones? There is more as just an anti cheating problem, there is a whole how we consider a tournament to be. Yes ofc driving to some far away place has its cost but playing on real board in face to face has its own virtue afterall. A tournament hall may still require some anticheating means but may differ from an online tournament (and become much cheaper)
Did EGF collect information about the wishes of the expected participants? Did some debates take place on this with different actors (national organizations, competition coaches or comitees…)? I dunno, all seems obvious for everyone that nothing will change but just reinforcing anticheating measures. (And that seems to be already elected for next year)
I said weird because i do remember when online tournaments appeared during the time of Covid and people were considering the anticheating ways, many were just waiting for the vanishing of the illness and hoping for some quick return to the original face to face games.
The EYGTC existed before COVID. Real-life international youth competitions also exist (EYGC, Seygo Tour) but participants are not the same, as traveling abroad requires time and money.
In real life competitions in Europe, such as the EGC, anti-cheating measures are more limited than in online competition. The reason is that you are already in plain view of your opponent (and other players), so cameras wouldn’t change much.
In real life there are some rules about how to use devices to record your game, like having its screen in plain sight of your opponent at all times. Otherwise I think you need to keep it in your pocket and not use it for anything during the game.
I suppose the measures will stay like this as long as there are no cases of people getting caught or seriously suspected of cheating in real life games. But it’s probably just a matter of time until there is such a case and then they’ll probably add more rules (depending on the way the cheating supposedly happened), such as not being allowed to carry any device on you when you leave the board for a (toilet) break or to get drinks. I wouldn’t mind about that. I can still live without my phone.
I think it depends on the tournament also.
The Prague go tournament I remember being told forbids electronic devices entirely,
So you haven’t heard of Chao Zhang getting caught with his game on his phone in an AI program under the table at some central European tournament. 12th Korean Ambassador Cup | Tournament card | E.G.D. - European Go Database I think.
I think these are related - though I don’t remember the player involved, just recall hearing a story like this.
He was still allowed to play in European competitions after that??
Evidently.
I can’t say I was surprised, I have had several unpleasant interactions and referee disputes with him, so much so that when drawn against him (Maidenhead 2019, before this incident in Prague) I considered refusing to play him (that was the deciding game of the tournament, I lost after he spent much of the game on the phone muttering about how we was going to be late to wherever he was going next because I was playing slowly).
So that is what happened.
Me and the captain of the Finnish youth team are managing team FIND, consisting of 11 youth players from Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark. The 1st round is scheduled on 11 November.
https://eygtc.org/2023/teams.html
Croatia didn’t send a team. Maybe they wanted strict anti-cheating measures
