Someone recently changed a SL page according to this list: http://囲碁教室.jp/kgs/kgs_rank.html

If there is any truth in this comparison table I would be very worried about amateur go in Japan. While I believe the number of 10 kyus is a better indicator of a healthy player population than anything else, I would be worried to know that Nihon Ki-in 6 dan matches to 2-3 kyu KGS. Can you please assure me, that it is complete bogus? Thank you.

It is very real indeed. And it is a very natural and inevitable result as soon as money was involved --
more kyu and dan ranks means more certificates, which in turn means more income for the certificate issuer.
Sometimes this is disguised in the name of the "promotion of Go."
The same dan-rank inflation had happened in some (Japanese/Korean) martial arts,
as early as before WWII. It is _very_easy_ to find youtube videos
of 7-dan, 8-dan, 10-dan+ martial arts "masters"/"grand masters" who are in reality kyu level.
In fact, it is the norm.

Case in point, ez4u (jp 6d) seems to be a cry stronger than KGS 1d.

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I think ez4u is at least a couple of stones stronger than KGS 1d. If its true that KGS 2kyus can obtain Japanese 6dan diplomas, that makes the amateur Japanese ranking system almost worthless for comparing strength on the upper levels of play.

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The Nihon Ki-in has a system of ranks via tournament play that is very comparable to AGA and EGF ranks. Some years ago or so one of the visiting Japanese amateurs (Japanese rank amateur 7-dan) almost won the US Open at the US Go Congress, beating several AGA high dan ranked players in the process. It is known that you can "inflate" your kgs rank using multiple accounts and other techniques. I think SolCh aka Araban posted something about this a few years ago on GoDiscussions.

I am well aware that there are many strong Japanese players, but what makes a Japanese go school publish such a comparison table? Giving someone (their pupils) an inflated impression about their strength (within Japan) won't work in the long run. I mean, they will play other Japanese sooner or later and this will produce genuine feedback and likely much frustration... how is this supposed to work out?

7 dan and 8 dan are afaik not normal ranks, but awarded for winning large amateur tournaments.

Nihon Kiin rank inflation is very real:
- There are some Japanese not knowing European ranks and entering the EGC. Like a 6d losing 10 games straight and ending amidst kyu players.
- When entering the Nihon Kiin, I called myself (Japanese) 6d. After two games, the club teacher called me 8d. In another Tokyo club, I had no problem to win all my games as 6d but there club rank promotion was in fractions of a rank per won game.

Of course, there are also very strong Japanese amateurs but typically they are also called 6d or 7d.

I haven't played in a Japanese ranking tournament in a while, but I played in Kansai-kiin before. The system is such that it tells you that you are better than a particular rank, not that you are a particular rank. When I played, it was 5 games and if you won 4 of the games, they gave you a certificate designating that particular rank. If you enter as a 1d and win 4, they give you the 1d certificate. This does not make you a 1d. It only says you are at least 1d, but you could be higher. So, given that system (if that is how they still do it), the 6d does not mean you are a 6d JP, it means you are at least 6d jp. There is no requirement that you lose a game to a higher ranked player, so there is no way to know how high your rank is.
And I would think that if someone in Japan were entering a European league, they would look up rank comparisons before entering. That just seems like proper diligence to me.

The biggest problem is whether Japanese ranked players are so much worse than other players around the world. That would be a sad state... but I do not think it is true. A lot of strong players play on IGS from Japan. So, it seems like it is just a function of the system and money, perhaps, as others stated, imho.

If it is like this, why do strong players in Japan don't despair over the inflation. Having a rank with a spread of 9 stones, when handicap stones are the legitimation of ranks to begin with, is just plain ridiculous.

The way this is worded it makes it seem that many Japanese players are underranked rather than inflated, e.g. someone might actually be 4d but is ranked as "at least 2d". Rank systems differ from country to country, even in Europe. Supposedly, Finnish dan ranks are stronger than those of some other European countries, for example. I think the only way to have useful rank comparisons is to have a common rating system and have everyone participate in it. Even then ratings and ranks will not be the same from region to region. In the USA, for example, even though there is an effective AGA rating system (but no official ranks) there are differences in the strengths of players of similar ratings between the West and East coasts. This is probably due to the distance between these groups of players. If you are traveling to the Orient (CJK) and want to get a good idea of your strength there I would recommend playing one or more even games with a pro or other very strong player who could then give you advice as to what rank level you should use. Of course a good staring point for ranks would be go server ranks, but as we know, they aren't all that comparable either.

In Japan I think most people play in local go clubs (go kaisho). These clubs have their own ranking systems and since the community of players is fairly small there may be significant differences between go club rankings and national rankings.

Because it's hopeless. And yes, it's ridiculous. As mentioned earlier, the same is very true
for certain martial arts rankings: we're talking about thousands, tens of thousands,
or even hundreds of thousands of over-ranked "dan" martial arts people who are actually kyu level (thanks, youtube ).
If you're a serious martial artist, what do you do? Are you going to travel around the world and
challenge all those tens of thousands of people who are over-ranked? No.
You just focus on polishing yourself, and maybe help others do the same.
The same is true for Go players. The truly high level Go players don't go
around to confront every over-ranked person or every over-ranked certificate issuer -- that's pointless.
They just focus on polishing their own Go, and help others if possible. That's all.

This is an example that a) the rating system is flawed or b) there are too few games between the West and East coasts. If there were one world rating system, then the same problem would exist.

Its b.

I think this is right. When I first learned to play in Japan, I was playing at a friend's go club in a small town. They had all the ranks on the wall for all the members of the club. So, it didn't matter what "rank" you were, as long as you knew how strong you were relative to the people you are playing. It was like a private golf club with the handicaps posted for all the players.
With the increase in international games, keeping a consistent system around the globe seems quite tough. If someone ventures out of their home club/city/country, they are probably going to run into conversion problems, I guess. I am actually interested in playing in a McMahon style tourney, but I am in Japan... and I am not sure they exist here.

I think it is revealing that the teacher at that go school, Mr Akaki, states his strength using his KGS rank, not his local one.

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And a.

I'm a player who is one of the very few points of connection. I've jumped back and forth from east coast to west coast, but I don't think the difference is much more than half a stone.

I usually have a split record in east coast tournaments as 6d, (3-2 or 2-3) while on the west coast (at least since I've gotten back) I've scored 4-1 in my last two tournaments.

That being said, before I left the west coast the first time, I was going 3-2/2-3 in tournaments, and arrived on the east coast and was scoring the exact same records, so it's sometimes hard to say.

Re: Japanese ranks, the "real" ranks, those 6d and 7d that didn't "self-promote", seem about the same as AGA, maybe 1 stone off. And really, it's just a sign that we should be asking for people's ranks in a system that does not involve the selling of certificates.


Isn't it also true that the certificates are not received from tournament play? But rather from a game with a pro?

I heard somewhere that that was the case, if so, that may be the issue.

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I doubt this is the case. Like I mentioned, I played in a tourney at Kansai-kiin probably about 8 years ago. the deal was that if you beat 4/5 players at the level you signed up for, you got the certificate for free. If you beat 3/5 you had to pay for it. If you had 2 or less wins, you couldn't get it.

I know becoming an insei requires sponsorship by a Japanese pro, but I never heard of such a requirement to get a rank certificate from Kansai-kiin or Nihon-kiin. If you want a 6d Nihon-kiin certificate, you just need to sign up for the ranking tournament at 6d and win at least 3 games, afaik.

This page at the Nihon Ki'in website sets out the five ways to obtain an amateur dan (1-8) or kyu (25-1) certificate:
(Roughly)
1. Through a Pro's recommendation
2. Be a branch member who receives the recommendation of the Branch manager
3. Through achieving specified results in a Nihon Ki'in sponsored or supported tournaments.
4. Through achieving specified results in the Nihon Ki'in's published exercise sets.
5. Through achieving specified results in the Nihon Ki'in's correspondence course.

So there are a great variety of different methods, which undoubtedly produce a variety of results. The same page shows the prices for the different levels. Most of the methods only apply up to 6d. For example the normal rating tournaments (the last one in Tokyo was at the beginning of December) is only good up to 6d. The on-line study exercises (the top item on the page) are also only up to 6d.

But not that many people actually have a certificate. Most players just go by their ranking at their local club, which can vary considerably as well. In Japan, the claim to a high dan does convey certain bragging rights but it comes down to two cases: people who don't play go who are impressed but don't really know anything about it, and people who do play go who then will check your strength (in their club) over the board (after all that's why they asked how strong you were).

The fun part in Japan is that only the official Nihon Ki'in ranks count if you play in casual tournaments - and pretty much everyone else sandbags! The friendly tournaments usually have a top group where everything is even games so it does not matter. But below that are different levels played with handicaps, where things can get 'exciting'.

I have asked a couple of pros why the Nihon Ki'in does not institute a country-wide organization to straighten things out. The reason that individual pros are not interested is that most of them make money from the issuing of certificates to their students (method 1 above). They would be dead against the Ki'in starting to base the certificates on, for example, a stable rating on Yugen no Ma (and cutting them out of the picture).

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Exactly. It's about money. (Same reasons for rank inflation in some martial arts.)
As soon as the "teacher" starts to look at the "student" more as a wallet
than as a learner they're supposed to help improve, it's all downhill.

As soon as money (or some kind of profit/favor) is involved, rank inflation is inevitable.