Qualification System of The European Championship

There are many of you wondering how does the qualification system of the European Championship really work. What should the player do to get to the European Championship. The information below gives the clear guidelines for that.

THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP (EC)

There is no exact playng system for European Championship. There have been tournaments played in Swiss System (1994, 1995, 2002), but also, the two-stage system has been used - group tournaments and the in the end the cup system (1996, 1998, 2000). The winner of the tournament will get the title of the European Champion. Before the beginning of the tournament all the players with the rights to play in EC have to be decided first.

The seats for European Championship are decided by following:

• The top 15 places of previous EC ensure National Places in the next EC. (National Place will belong to the nation and it's federation will decide who will get the seat, usually by local qualification tournament)
• In addition to above mentioned 15 seats, every RIF member country will have two extra seats, and a non RIF member one extra seat.
• The five best from the International Qualification Tournament for EC will get the Personal Places in the EC.

THE INTERNATIONAL QUALIFICATION TOURNAMENT FOR EC (EC-QT)

The EC-QT was first used in 2002, to give more chance for strong players to reach to European Championship. For example, in case the country did not participate in previous EC, but they have many strong players who would like to play in next one, then having only 2 National Seats is not good enough, therefore the EC-QT is an unique opportunity for such players. It is also good for new countries who are just entering the world of renju and they already have more than 1 player in their country willing to participate.

Currently, there are no limitation for participation in EC-QT. Anyone can play there. The tournament system (Swiss System or Round Robin) is decided after the total number of participants is known.