The July insei rankings are out at the Nihon Kiin and Antti Tormänen is listed at number 9 in class A. He moved through class B in a single month. We'll have to hope that he explains himself on his blog soon, although I can understand if he feels a little busy right now!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I'm afraid that reporting and improving are communicating vessels.

edit: there is a Japanese blog post about his fast rise to class A

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/kiin5/e/f6e09fb15 ... 39cfc3aba8

Congratulations to him and best of wishes : )

When is the next pro exam in Japan? Will he be competing in it? (I assume he's allowed to?)

Woah, that's really great! =D

I'm so rooting for him!

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The next one should start in October. I'm guessing if he's still in A class, I would assume he would compete. I don't know the rules specifically enough though.

Antti did not last in A class. He dropped back to B in August. However, his results for July and August were sufficient to put him at #15. The #11 - #20 insei, together with four gairei (outsiders) began playing last Saturday in the preliminary tournament for this year's Tokyo professional qualifier. They play two games per day on weekends with 1-hour main time and 60-seconds byo-yomi. The first game starts at 9:30 and the second at 14:00. They played four games last weekend (9/6-7), will play four games on each of the next two weekends (9/13-14, 9/20-21), and one(?) game on 9/27. The description is a little vague on this point but they only need 13 games to finish the league table. Sunday 9/28 is a reserve day. The top six finishers qualify for the main promotion tournament, together with the #1-#10 insei. That starts on October 4th.

Attached is the explanation of the preliminary tournament (Japanese)

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I talked to Antti on KGS a few days ago, and he was 2-2 in the preliminaries at that point.

Every year, 6 New 1p are qualified in japan through the nihonkiin, this is exactly how it works, according to my understanding of http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/profile/saiyou/kishi.html

At the end of August, one A-Class insei is automatically promoted due to brilliant results in the insei league ( I'm not sure, but it might be best average insei rank throughout the year)
This year, it was Shibano Toramanu http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000459.htm
(Tormanen has played him twice as an A-Class insei)


Now look at http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/profile/saiyou/index.html
外来 is Japanese for foriener, but in this context it means outsider, or person who is not studying as an insei (院生) and 予選 means preliminary so 外来予選 means outsider preliminary. This takes place during August.

7 Outsiders bid to enter the "proper" preliminaries, but only 4 are allowed the privelige. http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/profile/saiy ... gairai.htm
横塚 力 came first, while 大関 稔 came second, but 清水航介, 大表拓都, and 山田真生 both tied for third place with 3 Wins and 3 Losses. One had to go. You can see the playoff on the page, above the table.

Next up, the insei league gets a few complications as all ten of the B- Class Insei join 4 外来 in a 14-player round robin called, 合同予選, "mixed preliminary" or "joint preliminary". This is where the battle starts. It's happening right now, and Tormanen is in it, because he didn't manage to rise back up to A class this month by a hairs breadth (came 5th place) so must play this preliminary. If you're not one of the 6 who qualify into the main exam, you can forget abou being a pro. Do not underestimate the outsiders, many of them are ex-insei too: last year, one outsider came 3rd out of the 4 qualifying slots in the outsider exam, 2nd in the Joint preliminary, and then managed to become one of th 2 people who passed the exam!

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/profile/saiy ... n_godo.htm

Tormanen is clearly number 4. You can see his win-loss record.

Oh, and I Believe the A and B class Insei take a break from the Insei League during the pro exam (not really a "break", but I'm sure you understand) and C class insei don't promote up during this time.

If the 合同予選 is too dog-eat-dog enough for you, I'm afraid you can't look at the 本戦, The MAIN EXAM. The 6 qualifiers are added to the 10 A-class Insei for a Final Showdown, and would you believe that there are only two spots available (in Korea it's even more vicious, I can't look). I'm sure you can clearly see that although you may think that becoming a pro in japan may not be as tortuous as in korea, and the new 1p may be weaker, but it's still an extremely difficult feat, even for an EGF 7 Dan.

After the main exam, the female-only prelims will take place in November, and then the main exam around December. Female Insei tend to go up to upper B-Class/Lower A-Class, so that's about the level of new a new female 1p (although there is only a single slot in the female exam, few females take the open exam). Two other pros are chosen in the other branches of the nihon kiin, although I'm not sure how they choose them.

I hope and I am confident that Tormanen can at least qualify, but it seems he'll need to become just a tad stronger to be able to pass the main exam so we'll see what happens next month Oct 4'th . This may seem like Hng jumping out of the page to the PC for some, seems to have been quite accurate .

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

The promotion is based on the performance for the three months April-June.


Well done! I missed that the tournament table was already on-line. As noted earlier Antti is "only" 2-2 after the first weekend. However, all of the insei lost at least two games! The four outsiders are 4-0 (players 13 and 14), 3-1 (player 10), and 2-2 (player 8). Six of the insei are 2-2, 3 are 1-3, and one is 0-4. It has indeed started as an all out fight!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

In the second weekend Antti scored 1-3, leaving him in a 3-way tie for 9th-11th place with five games to play. The four outsiders are still leading the pack, holding down the first three places (8-0,7-1, and 6-2) and tied for 4th-5th (5-3) with the top-performing insei. Note that only one insei has a positive score. There are three at 4-4 who are tied for 6th-8th, one win ahead of Antti and two others. So the race for the vital 6th qualifying place is still pretty wide open. Even the 4th-5th places are possible.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

So ○=win, and ●=loss? I would have thought it's the other way around.

Time to reread Hikaru no go

In Japan the white circle marks a win, the black a loss. Of course all true diehard Go fans already noticed this from reading Hikaru no Go!
You can see this if you check the Nihon Kiin's page on the 39th Meiji-sen. The match info at the top of the page does not use the circles, but if you scroll down the page to the league table you can match up the white and black circles with the final score on the right side.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

"Two other pros are chosen in the other branches of the nihon kiin, although I'm not sure how they choose them."

Oh, if you look on the page, you can see that a similar system is used for the other branches.

Looking at the league page brings me back to the days when as a beginner I used to make a pro-exam type league with some bots on the computer (too much HnG at that time )



The only thing is that out of the three wins he has, two are against players who don't have a great score so far. However, it still does look wide open for 4th-6th place (8-横塚 力, 13-大
表 拓都, and 14-大関 稔 seem to be almost certainly going through, especially 13 and 14, who are on a different level to the rest of the players. Then again, I shouldn't say "certainly" in a pro exam...) and if 横塚 loses her/his next game to Tormanen, number 4, 豊田 裕仁, number 5, or 山根 紹平, number 7, the playing field would be completely blown wide open, so it's certainly not as static or reliable a table as it seems at first sight.

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Sadly he didn't make it. Only one win this weekend as well.

So the qualification for the professional exam is finished. Antti didn't make it, he remained w/ 4 wins at place 11. The external (non-insei) students took place 1-4 and two inseis got a spot as well, but with quite a distance to the non-inseis. The 6th place had in fact only 6 wins out of 13 games.

Wow...

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/profile/saiy ... honsen.htm

横塚 力 is doing well, as expected, but 大表 拓都 already has 3 losses, and 大関 稔 is doing shomewhat okay with 2 losses. But these were the people who swept up the competition in the preliminaries! this honsen business is a Whole different Click to show board game

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Wow, look at the age of insei #42 (D class 10)! When are we going to haveca nine-year old EGF-4Dan?

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/insei ... 201407.htm

荒井　泰知. I'll remeber that name!

One other thing I've been wondering about is the fact that 藤原 彰子 seems to have dropped out just before Antti returned to be an insei considering she made it to and stayed in B class multiple times, she may not pass the open exams, she definately seems more than capable of passing the female-only exam at least.

Huh, it seems that Tormanen made it to A class again (yeah, perfect timing, right after the preliminary :/) and Mitic is back!

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On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Careful! You are looking at the page for last July. Try November:

http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/insei ... 201411.htm

Notice there is now an 8-year-old as well.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21