RGF vs the World Summary

General Go Discussion
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Korea Prime Minister Cup is going on right about now. Though there’s almost no info on their site at the moment.

Chernykh from Russia was invited by organizers but two days before the plane Koreans withdrew the invitation. The relevant part of the letter was published.

Korea Baduk Federation is requested to exclude Russia and Belarus from the 17th KPMC according to the EGF’s strong insistence … The KBF would try to hold a fair tournament for every participant, but the EGF insists that KBF should do that as a prerequisite to keep the EGF as a co-organizer.

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So what about the neutral banner? That couldn’t be used?
I 'd like to learn more on all this cases not just in a corner of this forum. Did EGF have some communication on this?

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This world is infested with petty little tyrants who just want to cause harm wherever they can, just to feel superior.

It’s funny how every time I say my usual “when you’ve suffered, you either want everyone else to suffer or no one else to suffer” almost nobody understands what I mean, because they’re so wrapped up in their “but I was hurt at some point, who will pay?”.

EGF are spineless, tyranic assholes who, if they put half the effort they put against Russian players and only Russian players, and nobody else other than specifically Russian players, into actually promoting Go, maybe they could actually see results for a change.

And Koreans working with the Chinese since forever, but yeah, now they decided to find the argument “but they attacked another country” a convincing one.

This is what it looks like to bring politics in Go, the way it shouldn’t be done.

Seriously, I don’t believe one bit that EGF is doing it for Ukraine at this point. You can’t convince me their actual thought process is to let Russian players back in if somehow the war magically ends tomorrow. No, that sweet, sweet feeling of being a petty tyrant, excluding a whole country for racist reasons and hiding behind “but war” in plain sight feels too good.

Power corrupts, even if it’s just over a block of wood and a handful of stones.

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I’m not 100% sure, but you might be overestimating the power of the EGF chairman and the EGF board here. The EGF is mostly a democratic organisation IME.

I was not a participant in the EGF meetings that lead to these decisions, but from past experience, I would expect that some of the larger EGF members (such as the British, French and German go associations) had a significant influence on the EGF policy towards the RGF and Russian participants in EGF events.
In turn, those EGF members were probably influenced by the policies of other organisations in their own countries towards their Russian counterparts, (mind) sports in particular.

In my recollection, the EGF board was leaning towards freezing the RGF membership in the EGF, but letting Russian players play under a neutral flag, but some EGF member countries were pushing for a general boycott of the RGF and Russian players in EGF events, and this was supported by a majority of votes in a general EGF meeting that was held about 6 months ago.

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It’s not unheard of to quit in protest when such outrageous demands are made, but either they don’t really find them outrageous or they don’t have the spine to quit in protest.

These are not kindergarteners, they are seasoned career people who’ve sat on some heavy chairs. They know full well what they are doing.

My comments go to all the Go Association heads who support decisions like that; don’t worry, I consider them spineless tyrant assholes as well. Especially that BGF asshole that dehumanized Russian children.

Bullies are by definition weak people who hide behind pretext to prey on the weaker, and all that bunch fits the definition to the letter. They’re just bullies, hiding behind daddy EU’s sanctions. I have no respect for them and I hope they face within their lifetime the humiliation that their actions deserve.

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IIf that’s come from a kicking out the russian players, as @Gennan pointed as a new decision i wasn’t aware about it then it’s shame on a organization promoting go in europe.

I imagine myself being a top player being denied to participate in a world amateur championship, denied to compete with all of them in that crucial event in my life denied for friendship and exchange. Because i’m the unlucky guy living in a country managed by a despot

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I’m sorry, but it seems that my memory failed me. Rereading the voting results posted here on 4 March, the RGF was suspended until further notice and Russian go players were allowed to participate in European tournaments, but only under a neutral flag.

I’m still not sure though about the current situation. There were some objections later on, but did that lead to policy amendments either way?

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I think we slept through another EGF decision, didn’t we EGF executives new decisions re. the war in Ukraine • Life In 19x19

The decisions are:

  • No participation for Russian/Belarus’ players in EGF related tournaments
  • No Russian/Belarus’ teams/pairs in EGF related team/pair tournaments
  • No money-transfers to Russia/Belarus
  • No invitations to Russian/Belarus’ players for EGF events
  • No nominations of Russian/Belarus’ players whenever EGF has to nominate
    its representative(s) for international competitions
  • Natalia Kovaleva no longer member of the EGF executive-board

Affected events are:

  • European single championships
  • the European Go Congress
  • Grand Prix (Bonus Points-) tournaments
  • European Team Championships (PGETC, Youth-Teams, Student-teams, future European Team Championships)
  • European Pair-Go championship
  • European qualification-tournaments for European and/or international tournaments (for example the base for nominations by the EGF)
  • any future EGF-supported tournaments.
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Banning Paralympic athletes after able athletes were allowed was terrible.

Instead, they should have said they will ban Russia in 2024 and 2026 so it’s fair.

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This must be new, I remember Ilya Shikshin being one of the commentators for the European championship during the summer.

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Yeah and I tend to enjoy Ilya’s commentary. He also did commentary for the IGA’s Confucius cup games in September.

I’m not particularly happy about that development. I feel like it’s starting to look more targeted at Ilya now rather than at Russia. There’s probably only a handful of players that have commented “on the official EGF social media (including Twitch)” so one can hardly argue that this ban is really targeting a whole lot of people…

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Over on Facebook Alexander Dinerstein posts lots of pictures of Russians happily playing go in Russia. I look forward to seeing similar pictures of Ukrainians, or indeed many nationalities at the EGC in Ukraine, but I’m not holding my breath.

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If we’re talking about the European Go Federation Facebook page, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that in at least the last year or so.

It’s almost always been news updates from tournaments or the European go journal or something.

Is there some other social media for the EGF where they want to ban Dinerchtein from?

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Of course it’s targeted, and it should feel targeted. That’s the point of sanctioning players in any game or sport.

Why would anyone worry about not being able to see their favorite Russian commentator talk about a board game while their country makes it rain white phosphorous in a war of aggression? I really don’t understand.

Any Go player in Europe that wouldn’t make a full-throated stance against Russians making money via EGF blows my mind. We all play a game spread out over the entire world. Yes, despite western Go player’s overly inflated opinions of themselves and the game they play, there ARE “bigger moves on the board.” Yes we have a small impact in the grand scheme, but the little things add up!

I’m sure the Russian commentators will be replaced with equally good ones for the time being. You can all go about your day now without it being ruined with immeasurable disappointment.

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I think we can put this in more context.

What did Ilya do specifically other than being born a Russian?

If it turns out he’s staunchly pro-war or something I will completely withdraw my feeling.

No one is particularly worried I don’t think, and no one said Ilya was their favourite commentator or their favourite Russian commentator.

Let’s correct that to

Any Go player in Europe that wouldn’t make a full-throated stance against Ilya making money via EGF blows my mind.

unless there’s an example that it’s actually targeting more than one individual, and is really a stance against Russians or Belarusians.

You can be angry about it if you want, and you have every right to be, but it was stated when the EGF originally took a vote and put up their statement Announcement 6.3.2022

Not affected are:
– Any teaching activities (EGF-academy, workshops for youth at EYGC, twitch-comments on the EGF-channel)
– Working in EGF tasks, supporting publications, Go-news, EGF web page etc

and I’m wondering what made them change their mind since April. The war is still ongoing, so maybe they feel that they need to do more to sanction Russian and Belarussian players, but is there much more they can do except maybe remove Ilya’s 3p title?

Would you call for that too?

Nobody, I imagine, is worried about this, and I believe it’s besides the point. EGF has plenty of good commentators, the other pros that regularly do the twitch commentaries and teachers like Inseong Hwang etc.

I think people are still allowed to ask questions, question decisions and the motivation for those decisions.

I don’t think having an attitude that every Russian and anything Russian is bad, because the war is horrible and still ongoing, is a healthy attitude.

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I imagine you are equally outraged about China performing de facto genocides (see Uyghurs). And call for all Chinese players to be ousted from Go. No?

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In other sports like tennis, Russians are allowed to compete under a neutral banner and possibly make a lot of money.

EGF commentators don’t make so much money. Unless they make pro-war, pro-Russia or anti-Ukraine propaganda, I don’t see any reason why they should be banned.

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/Not entirely sure what’s the basis there.

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:woman_facepalming:

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The commercial and other sanctions don’t seem to have results and don’t seem to be very diligently implemented, either. In reality, the financial ties with Russia are not severed, but served in roundabout ways from third-parties. Read the scattered articles about commerce and stuff.

The only case we use full force banning against Russia is in cultural and educational matters. A future historian may find it quite weird.

The EGF maintains a very strict position since the beginning, but it could be excused, because the countries implemented in the war are close to home and the stakes are a bit high. However, it seems that EGF doesn’t care about avoiding festering wounds and doesn’t care what happens when this particular war ends. Education and health should be off-limits when talking about sanctions. That’s my personal opinion.

Is the decision targeted? I’d say yes. Is it targeted because of Russia? Plausible, but we can’t exclude turf wars.

However, since the decision to put pressure on Russia was taken early this year and most international bodies follow it, I don’t see why we should make a fuss about EGF, which seems to be quite a weak entity anyway.

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