These regulations are intended for the organization of the FUJITSU Grand-Prix d'Europe organized by the European Go Federation. It is the intention of both FUJITSU and the EGF to make the Grand-Prix a prestigious tournament cycle.

These regulations are to be followed closely, since they regulate the obligations towards the sponsor, which includes speedy reporting, showing the sponsor's name at appropriate moments, and a general good level of organization of the individual tournaments.

Included in these regulations is the system of scoring for the EGF-FUJITSU Grand-Prix d'Europe and the system for selection of participants in the European Finals for selection of the European representative in the FUJITSU World Open Go Championship.

Attached are Guidelines for running FUJITSU tournaments. They should be considered binding, unless an individual tournament organizer wants to replace one or more of these Guidelines. Such a change is only allowed after prior consent of the EGF rules and ratings commission. Applications should be filed by the responsible member association at least three months in advance.

The European Go Federation appoints a commission, consisting of at least three members for the organization of the Fujitsu Grand-Prix. This commission should consist of at least one EGF Officer and one independent member. The commission is responsible for the financial organization of the Grand-Prix. They must add their financial report to the Annual Report of the EGF Treasurer for examination by the Auditors of the EGF.

The European Go Federation will propose a list of Grand' Prix tournaments up to the next European Go Congress at its Annual General Meeting. The Meeting decides on the list.

Every member association may propose one tournament for the Grand-Prix. In addition, the European Go Congress will be a Grand-Prix tournament. Tournaments may be disqualified for the following reasons:

a. a clash with another Grand-Prix tournament: tournaments held more often as Grand-Prix tournaments in a certain period have preference for the date (with ties decided at random); a proposal for another date may be made by the EGF;

b. congestion of the agenda, necessitating rotation of various tournaments on the Grand-Prix calendar over a longer period;

c. impossibility to participate for large groups of European top players because of travel restrictions by the host country;

d. repeated or gross neglicence or incompetence on the part of the organizers.

The European Go Federation appoints a team responsible for publishing a press release as soon as possible after a couple of tournaments. Hereafter these people will be called the Newsletter team.

The Newsletter team has the following tasks:

a. making advance preparations with individual tournament organizations concerning the fast collection of the final results for release;

b. editing, printing, and publishing as soon as possible a Newsletter, containing a report of the latest tournament results, and the current FUJITSU rankings.

c. producing an EGF rating in both electronic and printed form, to be used for the determination of the top group (see the Guidelines).

Every member Association may enter one tournament as a candidate for inclusion in the Grand-Prix calendar. The proposal should include:

• a date and (for the newer tournaments) an alternate date;
• the name of the chief organizer, together with:
• address,
• telephone number,
• (if possible) fax number.

This information should be sent to the Secretary of the EGF at least six weeks in advance of the Annual General Meeting.

The tournament selected for inclusion in the Grand-Prix should be one of the more outstanding tournaments in the member country, both in quality of organization and in quality of participation.

Minimum requirements are:

a. time allowance 60 min with 20 seconds byoyomi or 75 minutes without byoyomi [90 min with 30 seconds preferred]; if overtime is used instead of byoyomi a time limit of 5 minutes for 10 or 15 moves is recommended [the confusion caused by variable time limits in over- time is considered to outweigh its advantages] -- note that time left over after one overtime period is lost: a new overtime period begins with the same time allowance;

b. no handicap games in the top of the tournament, and a komi of around 5.5 points [which is the standard value -- NB. variable (or auction) komi needs more experience before it can be used in Grand-Prix tournaments];

c. 5 rounds [6 or more preferred for larger tournaments --- see also the Guidelines];

d. a good playing area and decent playing material for the players in the top group [and all others].

Players competing in a tournament for the Grand-Prix have a responsibility towards the quality of the Grand-Prix cycle. They are expected to compete seriously during the whole tournament.

Players can be excluded from one or more Grand-Prix tournaments for violation of their responsibility, in particular for leaving a tournament early without a valid reason.

The member associations are required to implement this exlusion.

The tournament organizers should take care for the smooth running of their tournament. This implies the points mentioned in C.2, besides:

a. running the tournament on schedule;

b. silence during play;

c. the appointment of a referee;

d. the appointment of an appeals' committee of mixed nationalities from the participants during the first round at the latest [NB it is very important to install the appeals' committee before any problems have occured, to avoid confusing the issue];

e. preferably a set of tournament rules (the Guidelines below can be taken as a guide or in case of dispute).

The tournament organizers are required to implement the agreement with FUJITSU as the sponsor of the Grand-Prix.

These requirements include:

a. mentioning of being part of the FUJITSU EGF Grand-Prix d'Europe de Go on at least the flyer and preferably the poster for the tournament (FUJITSU logos are available from the Newsletter team, but a mentioning of "part of the FUJITSU EGF Grand-Prix" is sufficient);

b. collaboration in the speedy collection of the results and an annotated game from the tournament by the Newsletter team (an advance agreement about the means of delivery should be made with them) -- the full results must be made available in electronic form suitable to be processed by the EGF rating software.

The agreement with FUJITSU does allow individual organizations to find sponsors for their own tournament. As a rule FUJITSU will not individually sponsor tournaments. However, the local FUJITSU branches in various European countries are informed about the FUJITSU Grand-Prix and they may individually sponsor tournaments. Any contacts should be made through Mr. Jan van Frankenhuysen.

Each year, ending with the European Go Championship, two rankings will be made over all Grand-Prix tournaments. The "FUJITSU Grand-Prix d'Europe" ranking is open to all players, the "FUJITSU World Open European Qualification" ranking is open to European go players only.

In each Grand-Prix tournament the first 10 places score points for the rankings. The scores are as follows:

When two or more players share places after the application of the tie-breaking systems mentioned in the Guidelines the Grand-Prix points are shared (e.g., two players are equal 7th and 8th in a normal tournament: both get 3.5 points). Note that the prize giving for the tourna- ment may use other criteria.

At the end of the European Go Championship the scores of all players over their best seven tournaments are added together per player, with the European championship counting as a single tournament. The top players in this ranking receive prizes. If two or more players share a place in this ranking the prizes are shared and divided equally.

This ranking is only open to European players, i.e. players with a European passport.

For this ranking only the three best tournaments in terms of points scored are counted. The European Championship counts as a single tournament (so a 4th place in the European championship is better than a normal 1st place).

The following players qualify for a place in the European final in the autumn or winter following the European Championship:

• the two finalists of last year;
• 7 first placed in London, Prague, Petrozavodsk, Paris, Budapest, Amsterdam, and Hamburg;
• 2 first placed in the European Championship;
• 3 first placed in the qualification ranking;
• 2 to be selected by the EGF.

Qualification is in the order above. If an ineligible player or a player already qualified takes one of the top places mentioned above the next eligible player in the same ranking qualifies. Ties for these places are settled first by current Fujitsu points (3 tournaments maximum), then a game if possible, and a toss otherwise.

In case of disputes or other problems a decision will be made by the EGF rules and ratings commission. Appeals to this decision should be filed with the Commission for the Grand-Prix of the European Go Federation.

NEWSLETTER:

Rob Kok
Schokland 14
1181 HV Amstelveen, The Netherlands Tel: +31 20 684 08 18
Tel: +31 20 645 55 55 work
Fax: +31 20 647 32 09


FUJITSU CONTACTS:

Jan van Frankenhuysen
Joh. Verhulststraat 125
1071 NA Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 673 92 32


EUROPEAN RULES AND RATING COMMISSION:

Niek van Diepen
Bongerd 56
6581 TH Malden, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 24 358 25 08
Tel: +31 24 365 26 34 work


EUROPEAN GO FEDERATION:

Oleg Gavrilov
ul. Kuznetsovska 15-46
196128 St.Petersburg, Russia
Tel: +7 812 296 14 73
Fax: +7 812 218 13 35
e-mail: olgavr@ilph.spb.su