The EGC #3 issue of GOAMA begins with an article comparing three major amateur tournaments: the WAGC, EGC, and the US Open. It apparently concludes that the EGC is "clearly" the most competitive, but this is a poor conclusion to draw from the evidence presented.
1) The evidence does not show why the WAGC is not the most competitive; after all, it is still the most difficult to win. How many times has a non-Korean, Chinese, or Japanese player won the WAGC—or even placed in the top 3?
2) Comparing the EGC and the US Open through WAGC results is not useful.
a) Each country gets to send only one representative. Each country often has many candidates just as strong as the chosen representative.
b) The representative from any given country is not necessarily the strongest player from that country. One way this could happen is through the selection process. See, for example:
[
www.usgo.org]
[
www.irish-go.org]
c) The article's careful selection of results from EGC players and US Open players makes the conclusions suspicious.
3) There is insufficient direct comparison for the EGC and US Open. Cornel Burzo lost to the third, fourth, and fifth place finishers in the 2006 US Open, where he finished ninth. In the 2007 EGC he finished twelfth. In both cases, he was never in the running for winning the tournament. Cornel Burzo's results are insufficient to make any conclusion “clear.”
