Representative Points System

The AGA Committee has sole responsibility for the selection of all international representatives and the committee decisions are final.

The AGA Representative points system is used by the AGA Committee to select Australian National Representatives at overseas international tournaments where the organisers request a national representative at their event. This includes the World Amateur Go Championships, the Korean Prime Minister’s Cup and any other tournament where an Australian player and AGA member represents the Australian Go Association in an overseas tournament.

Where a national representative is requested, the AGA Committee will use the following criteria to create a priority list of qualifiers based on:

the person’s qualification for the event (top priority)[1]
the person has earned Representative Points by participating in an AGA event in the last four years (second priority)[2]
the person’s total representative points (third priority) and
if two or more people are within 50 representative points the committee will consider contributions to the aims of the AGA and/or a play-off match (for tie-breaking).

The committee will offer the place to the top qualifying person. If that person refuses or does not respond to the offer within 4 days, that offer will be withdrawn and the Committee may choose to offer the place to another person.

Points are accrued in the following manner.

Participants in the Australian Open Championship are assigned Representative points according to their placing, as determined by number of won games,

Place	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13+
Points	2000	1700	1400	1200	1000	800	700	600	500	400	300	200	100

However only members of the AGA at the start of the Tournament accrue these points to their Representative Point account.

In an Accelerated Swiss tournament, the Accelerated Score of a player (Wins+initial Acceleration) shall be used in place of just Wins, to determine Representative Points earned.

2.Tie-breaking for earning of Points

All players on equal number of wins in a tournament shall receive an equal share of the available points (thus if 4 players are on equal number of wins after the top 3 placings, they share the representative points for 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th placings).

Points will be recorded as whole integers, rounding to the nearest integer (10.4 becomes 10, 10.5 becomes 11).

3.Deduction of points for representation and depreciation of points

An AGA member who is an Australian citizen holding the highest total number of points is eligible for selection as the Australian representative at the next international tournament.
Should that person refuse the offer the AGA committee will select an alternate player.
The selected representative will have points deducted from their representative points.
The reduction in points will occur where the event is:
- A face-to-face overseas tournament where accommodation and airfare are subsidies by the tournament organisers, or
- where the participant gains substantial benefit from competing (whether the event is online or face-to-face).
- The reduction in representative points varies according to the number of times the candidate has previously represented Australia at an overseas international tournament:

No times	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Deduction	5000	8000	12000	17000	23000	30000	38000	47000

Note: this is a triangular increase.

The AGA Committee may vary the rep point deduction and will notify candidates at the time of the selection process.
Immediately after the close of the Australian Open Championships, all accumulated Points for all players with a positive number of Points will be reduced by 20%; negative Points will appreciate by 20% (towards 0); the deduction of points from the Points of the selected representative, and any penalties accrued during the year will then be applied.
Representative Points deducted from a player’s Points on account of selection for an international tournament shall be deducted at the time the Committee confirms the selection. If the selected player cannot attend the tournament, the points may be restored when, and only if, a substitute player is confirmed.

4. Other tournaments

Representative points may be earned also by players in tournaments other than the Australian Open Championship, provided the tournament has been so approved in advance by the AGA Committee.

To qualify for Representative Point awards the tournament organiser must:

Advise the AGA committee of the event as least 1 month ahead of the event and request inclusion in the rep points system
Advertised the event throughout Australia with reasonable advance notice
Allow all AGA members to participate
Have reasonable playing time limits (minimum 20 minutes plus 3×30 seconds byo-yomi
Comply with the AGA tournament rules.
Any section of a tournament must have at least 6 players to qualify for representative points.

Representative points will be awarded in such tournaments according to the following formula

for each section of the tournament with more than 6 players, the number of players in the section (TN), and the total “Dan Strength” (TD), that is, the number obtained by adding the dan ranking of all players of dan rank, are determined. For sections of a McMahon tournament, these numbers are calculated by including all players paired with players in that section.
For the National Championships tournament the weightings shall be
- 100% for the top non-handicap section
- 50% for other non-handicap sections if TN ≥ 6
- 20% for other handicap sections if TN ≥ 6

For other approved tournaments the weighting shall be

(i) for non-handicap sections

30% if TD ≥ 48

20% if 32 ≤ TD ≤ 47

10% if 6 ≤ TD ≤ 31

(i) for handicap sections

10% if TN ≥ 12

5% if 6 ≤ TN ≤ 11

otherwise no points shall be awarded.

5. Penalties

A player who forfeits a tournament game in an international tournament without giving the tournament director notice and reasonable cause may have up to 5000 points deducted from their accumulated Representative Points for each forfeited game or be banned from representing Australia for a period determined by the AGA committee. The player may appeal to the AGA Committee for consideration of mitigating circumstances.

The AGA Committee reserves the right to reduce a player’s representative points or ban them from representing Australia. This is to deal with situations where a person brings the game or the AGA into disrepute.

6. Resolution of disagreements

Disputes will be referred to the AGA Committee, if the dispute is not resolved there it will be managed through section 11.1 of the AGA Constitution.

This document approved by the AGA Committee – 14^th March 2023

[1] Tournament organisers sometimes require specific requirements e.g. a tournament for students. The AGA also has qualification requirements e.g. AGA membership, no current ban.

[2] Only current active players are selected.