Hi,

I am a 3 Dan KGS player. I think I am still relatively that strength despite I only play in my local go club nowadays. I am traveling to Tokyo for a week in November 2016. I am wondering what is a go place is good for stronger dan players. I looked around and people keep mentioning nihon- ki in but that place seems very very overly rank inflated. Thank you.

sai1029

I've never been to Japan, so I'm not in the know, but I suggest reading the page:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?JapanCoolPlaces

( Even better, you could add to the page after you have been to Japan, to help others.)

All Japanese ranks are ... um... let us say generous (from our viewpoint), so don't avoid the Ki-in just because of that. The Ichigaya branch is large and well-frequented and the staff there go out of their way to make sure that visitors have a constant supply of opponents and green tea.

Otherwise, my information about Japanese go clubs is now way out of date, so do look at that page on Senseis.

I recently came to hear about this as well and was extremely surprised. I met up recently with an American friend who is listed as AGA 7k and who told me that he could play as 1d during his recent visit to Japan. His AGA rating might not be completely up to date so he might actually have 4-5k strength now, or somewhere in that ballpark, but this difference to Japan still strikes me as being very extreme.

Not really surprising, given that a major source of revenue for the Nihon Kiin is issuing dan diplomas, at rather high prices.

But they also run a constant stream of grading tournaments throughout the year, with entrance fees of a few thousand yen (more revenue!). Win all your games and you get a free diploma (lose one and you can buy one half-price), so it's worth entering repeatedly to see if you can get lucky. And many people do. Including me, I have to admit. My Japanese 5-dan diploma is a very pretty piece of paper I earned from beating six other wannabe 5-dans in a row (I didn't think to add up how much I paid in entrance fees, though).

Apart from the green tea (maybe because we went during the summer months) I agree about everything Nyanjilla says. We were very nicely treated in Ichigaya - in some other club we felt more like aliens from outer space. We went to Japan last year and visited several Go clubs in Tokyo as well as a club in Himeji, the Kansai-kiin and another club as well as the Nihon-kiin branch in Osaka und the one with the most inflated ranks (by far) was the Ichigaya headquarter of the Nihon-Kiin. I'm a German 4k and had no problems to beat "2dan" there, getting promoted to 3dan even. Considering the language barrier Ichigaya was the most comfy club, in other club we sometimes had some difficulty with the language (we didn't speak enough Japanese and they didn't speak (enough) English).

However, it was my impression that ranks are so different in each clubs and that you have a different rank in every other Go club you go. The club in Himeji was probably the strongest I was, getting crushed all the time with handicaps, the one with the most "reasonable" rankings maybe Kansai-kiin in Osaka or one smallish club in Tokyo in Ueno, some 20 minutes walking from the station (unfortunately I don't remember the directions..).
In Sunshine City in Ikebukuro they opened a really fancy-looking Go club on June 27th 2015, the day we left Tokyo.. that's why I can't say anything about it, I only discovered it by accident the day before when they were fixing the last details, putting the pictures on the walls etc. However, from what I understood it is the club of a very strong amateuer. I wrote about it on our blog for last year's camp. Might be worth checking it out, the playing material looked fabulous, too!

I also have used this website:
http://gokaisho.info/search/index.php?page=1 I'm not sure how up-to-date the information actually is (although I'd say it's good info), but you could check now for some clubs in your area via Google maps maybe.

And you could use Google maps to search for 囲碁 (go) 会所 (kaisho = club) and the city you want to go. Like this for Tokyo. By the way: I don't really think it'll matter which place you pick, I think that you're likely to find strong opponents anywhere. But if your' Japanese is good, you might consider asking your opponents if they can recommend you some place.

And most of all: Have fun!

_________________

The problem with translating Western and internet ranks into Japanese amateur ranks is that Japanese ranks are not consistent. A couple of years ago a Japanese 6(?)dan almost won the US open at the US Go Congress, competing well with people with 8-dan ratings. Japanese ranks can be vastly inflated and can also be comparable to EGF rankings. The reason for this is that, as has been pointed out, there are different ways of earning ranks in Japan. Rank diplomas can be bought from pros, they can be earned in tournaments, and they are earned at go clubs. If you meet a Japanese amateur who is an all-Japan tournament winner, such as amateur Honinbo or the WAGC, that player will be competitive with EGF tournament champions. The best advice would be to go to a large playing salon, like that at the Nihon Ki-in, where the organizers will be familiar with KGS ranks and will be able to find opponents at your level.

You would be about a 5-6d in Japan. Best bet is to goto one of the 2 kiin centers mainly because they are big, it'll be hard to find someone around 5d but lots of opponents you can give 2-3 gandicap to

Not surprising that you liked the vibe of the area. The characters for the name Yurakucho (有楽町) loosely mean "having pleasure town" .

If you're in Yurakuchou, there's also Izumi Igo(http://www.izumiigo.jp/). More recently there is apparently a 24 hour place in Kabukichou, but I'm unsure of the address or name at the moment.

Shusaku go salon
http://torendo-ebacyan.com/seikatu/4261/ for the address

Is it different from this one?
http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13376

_________________
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Thanks for all the replies. I will be in the tokyo area. Would just love to find someone strong enough to destroy me. haha.

Is 5 dan the highest certificate you can get in nihon ki in? I may just grab one there may as well. Do u know how many games i need to play there? My gf is with me and i dont wanna make her wait more than 2 hrs.

I played at the Kansai-kiin and it was 5 games iirc (could have been 4 games, though, cannot remember). If you win 3 games, you can pay for the certificate, if you win 4 or more, you get it for free. Nihon-kiin could be different though. It was also a long time ago when I played there.

As Go_Japan says, it's five straight wins for a free 5-Dan diploma in a one-day grading tournament (at the Nihon Kiin too), four out of five for a half-price one and three out of five for a full-price one. Six straight wins at two games a session if you do it at the regular weekday (Wednesday?) evening sessions. You need to have acquired a 4-Dan diploma beforehand and it can't be done within a couple of hours anyway. There are other ways of getting a 5-Dan-or-higher diploma, but they are more expensive in both time and money. Sorry.

What an interesting look at GO in Japan. Who knows there may be even hope for me making Shodan, I just need to plan a vacation! Anyone else interested in making Shodan and a roadtrip?

Thanks for sharing!

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We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

That would be an interesting vacation.

It's somewhat easier for shodan: four straight wins and you don't have to have a previous diploma. There's also a larger proportion of hopefuls trying for shodan before they have actually reached that level, just on the off chance they get lucky, so you'd be more likely to have opponents who are easier to beat.

Oh, and when they call your name in the draw, they tack your prospective rank on the end as a title, which is a nice touch.