Introduction
The ASR league is a uniquely concept in the Western Go world to fill a valuable niche in the amateur Go playing community. Worldwide we count more than 60 million Go players (Source: BritGo – British Go Association).
The historical roots of ASR – Advanced Study Room can be dated back to ~ 2002-2006.
The lastest statistics the ASR Team is colleting since February 2016 count 1,092 nominations in all five league divisions by now >330 registered Go players. – 512 of these nominations became actively players (= 46.89 %) with status on 15th October 2016.
The new ASR team (which overtook ASR – Advanced Study Room and the ASR league on 29th June 2016 as reported) is steadily working on developing a highly competitive system, accessible to all levels of abilities & skills (~ Go ranks), yet with something to offer and to motivate each player to enjoy his/her time competing in the ASR league… and to simplify his/her indiviually Go studies.
The ASR league is the essentially tool of the ASR – Advanced Study Room. Following short clip (3:10 min) with shooting on 17th September 2016 in Hangzhou (China) gives you quickly an orientation about the ASR – Advanced Study Room by the ASR manager Guillaume Douron (4 Dan CGF).
By its self understanding “ASR” is a global Cooperative and collaborative Learning Community for GO… by sharing knowledge and experiences – in an environment of dedication, pleasure and enjoyment.
How is this possible?
Core tenets of the league
Teaching and Learning:
With a spread of ability in the majority of the classes there will always be stronger players to play that can be learned from, and weaker players that can be taught. At the end of each game, it is highly encouraged that the stronger player will take the time to review the game for the weaker player individually. If the players are of even strength, much can be learned by reviewing the game together.
The ASR league is supported by guest lecturers and qualified Go teachers from around the globe to give live teachings (via audio/video stream). Pls visit the archive and get access freee of charge to some interesting topics here you can progress with in your Go studies easily.
Interactivity and involvement:
The ASR team encourages anything that involves any of the players more in the league. Ask for stronger players to look at your game, join other games and offer reviews if you have the time, and be friendly to those in the league.
Also, the points system strongly rewards activity – you get half as many points for losing as you do for winning, so you can easily achieve a good class position with a poor record just by playing a lot of games – the reason for this? We want people to improve as quickly as possible, and the motivation to play more games helps to achieve this.
Match rules
board rules
- Games must have a minimum of 25 mins main time and at least 5×30 byo-yomi. Japanese time settings only! They can be longer games however this is the minimum amount of time we require.
- Games must use Japanese rules with NO handicap stones and 6.5 komi.
- Only games played against members of the same class are counted in the results.
- Only the first 2 games per month will be count against the same player.
- One Player at least must write “#ASR ” in the game chat within the first 100 moves! It’s very important you do this. We have a script that checks for “#ASR ” every hour and adds league games to the results. If its not there, it won’t register as a league game!
Room:
Games must be played in the Advanced Study Room of KGS GO server (see Room list under “Lessons”). This server is free for use 24h x 7d within a Go community of more than 55,000 players around the globe.
Activity
The league is nice to play in if it’s easy to find a game. This is why we strongly encourage activity. Every match you play grant you some points.
You must play at least four games in a month to remain in the league, and can play each player in your class up to a maximum of 2 times in any given month. If you didn’t play 4 games in a month, you will be consider as inactive and get dropped from the league. You will still be able to sign-up again the next month but you will start again from Placement league.
League design
The tier/class system has a layer structure,it loosely looks like this:
Layers The league is made out of multiple layers; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and the Placement league. Classes The Alpha class consists of eight (8) players. Beta consists of 12 players. Gamma classe consists of 16 players. The Delta class does not have a player-limit and neither does the Placement league. Layer sizes might vary according to the number of entrants and inactive we have that month. Sometimes we will have a different amount of classes of one layer.
Promotion/demotion You will need to play at least 4 games to be considered active and be eligible for promotion. We are demoting 4 players in total from Alpha to Beta, which means that the top 4 players from Beta will be promoted to Alpha. From Beta, we demote 7 players in total, and promote top 6 players from Gamma. From Gamma, we demote 8 players in total. Then the top 6 of Delta will be promoted to Gamma. The first month you join the league, you will be seeded into the Placement league. In this layer, the first one will be promoted directly to Beta, the 2nd and 3rd to Gamma and all other active players into Delta.
For the sake of a better overview (as shown in the graph): league group / promotion / demotion
- Alpha: 0 / 4-
- Beta: 4+ / 7-
- Gamma: 6+ / 8-
- Delta: 6+
- Placement League: all actives +
As a rule we first kick all players that have not reached the minimum amount of games to stay in the league, then do demotions. If a player decides to quit the league but has played the minimum amount of games in that month we will count him as an active player and remove him after promotion/demotion. It can happen that we need to promote extra players from a layer to fill up the layer(s) above to the specified number. with these extra promotions we look at the activity(points) of the players.
There are months where we will slightly deviate from the system above according to circumstances, for instance more or less player joining and more or less inactive players. In that case we will make a post about the changes for that month.
Prizes
Every month the top players of each layer will be rewarded with a prize. Winners will have 2 weeks to claim their prizes by contacting an ASR admin on our room on KGS, or by sending a direct message, using our contact form on the website here.
Please take good notice that after the 15th of the month, we will consider the prize to be lost.
Any questions ?
Pleas have a look at the FAQ.
ASR - Advanced Study Room (and League) 