I think Wu as a starter of modern go. And so many players decorated our game since then.
Sakata, Fujisawa, Otake, Rin Kaiho, Kato, Takemiya, Kobayashi, Nei Weiping, Two Cho, Lee Changho, Lee sedol, Guli and more players to mention worth.
I cannot think these players losing to old players(especially more recent players like Lee and Guli etc).
Aside Dosaku, Shusaku who are regarded like a saint, is there any honinbo who can actually beat current players?

Fujisawa Hideyuki once mentioned that he would not have liked to fight Inoue Dôsetsu Inseki across the board.

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The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

In his Shuei books, John Fairbairn also mentions that modern players have a lot of respect for Shuei.

Shusaku's popularity seems to stem more from Hikaru no Go and the fact that he has an untarnished Castle Games record. Though John Fairbairn - again in his Shuei books - casts a shadow of doubt on this accomplishment as it seems that Shusaku only played when he was sure he could win.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Two more top notch all time greats would be
Huang Longshi 黃龍士 (1651/54 - ca. 1700) and
Yasui Senchi 安井仙知 (1764-1837) [a.k.a. Yasui Senchi Senkaku 安井仙知仙角, Sakaguchi Senchi, O-Senchi]

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Transport them from the past, give them a year or two to assimilate modern go knowledge, and I'll bet that the 9 dans of yore could take White vs. most 9 dans of today.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Why? In the past the talent pool and knowledge spreading was significantly less. I would expect the current strongest players to be stronger than the legends of the past.

Yes, but there has been significant rank inflation since WWII. Some 40 years ago Richard Dolen observed that you could throw a rock in the Nihon Kiin and hit a 9 dan.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

IMO, the question is too hypothetical. What is possible for an individual depends on their environment, along with the actions they choose to take. Given the amount of time that I've known about Go, had I selected different choices, could I be 5d by now? Maybe if I made different choices and worked harder it would have been possible.

But I didn't make those choices, and I am where I am today.

If you took some strong professional from the past, and bring him to the present, would he be strong today?

It really depends on several factors:
* His/her ambition
* The effort they'd put into being the best
* Environmental factors
* ...

Anyway, the question is too hypothetical, but it's fun to think about, I guess.



Rank inflation is different than strength, isn't it?

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be immersed

I'm not talking about 9 dan ratings but just the pure number of people playing and studying Go on a professional level is significantly higher than in the past. My expectation would be the best of today would be better than the best of previous years due to that. Not blah blah dan rankings which are meaningless for comparison.

Modern pros are better because they start younger and are more serious about it.

Rank inflation means that people of a given strength have a higher rank.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Okay. I just didn't get how rank inflation was related to oren's comment:



Anyway, my personal opinion remains that the question is too hypothetical.

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be immersed

Modern pros play fast timed games whereas the ancient go players had all the time in the world to finish their games. Hence there is more stress for a modern pro to win the game within the time allotted rather than to play the best move possible after considerable thought in a timeless manner.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

It's a possible theory, though it could be argued that the time put into training before playing the game is more important than the time you spend during the game. Give a 30k 5 hours to play a move, and it's quite possible that the result won't be as good as what a 5k sees in 10 seconds.

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be immersed

I had a similar idea that it would be unfair to simply have a match between a player of today with one of their predecessors from the past.

Just because the modern pros securely have analysed the games of their ancient opponent. But the players from the past would have been stuck to their knowledge that they had at that time.

I strongly suppose that you are right with your statement.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

Absent any other evidence, we'd expect the best of a larger group to be better than the best of a smaller group (thanks normal distribution!). I'm not sure about the numbers, but I'm guessing the past has the upper hand, because we're talking about the best players of 2015 versus the best players of millenia.

If we take the best players of an arbitrary year, say 1650, I'd bet 2015 professionals would school them, again because there are more professionals (and people) today than in the past.

Probably the fairest competition would be a slow match. Give the ghost/zombie a couple years to adjust to modern go knowledge, and a couple years for the modern professional to adjust to day long matches.

I do suspect modern players have an upper hand in training, though. It's far simpler to obtain records and problems to study, and to obtain games from strong opponents. For every meijin era master discovered in a small town, how many had the potential but never saw strong enough opposition in their small social circle to reach great strengths?

The strong pros of today have had the benefit of all the ideas of the great players of the past. Those great players had to think of things on their own, without the benefit of modern resources. I vote for the historical great players, Shuei in particular.

I think it was Bill Spight who pointed out that the historical great players were pretty much flawless in the endgame. Modern players, especially with short time limits, often make endgame mistakes. I don't know who pointed this out, some Japanese pro player, that there is more complicated fighting in short time limit games, especially TV games, because the players can't read out the fights. I suspect that the modern style of chaotic fighting would not be successful in the old days with no time limits.

There's a lot that gets in the way of comparison.

The old games were filled with genius, but the time controls were also significantly longer. I think if you took Lee Sedol or Lee ChangHo in their prime and gave them 5x time, you'd see a similar/stronger calibre.

Champions are statistical outliers, the degree of their strength is largely based on the size of the player base. (It's also a major reason why women so rarely fill the champion spot. Lack of playing population).

The player base was smaller in the past, and while it's not impossible that the top players could go toe-to-toe after modern training. I think that on equal footing, the modern pros are probably favorites.

Pick a professional who is best in review sessions, that player would probably have crushed the long time controls of the past.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Pick a stock commentator that gives the best reviews. Unfortunately it doesn't mean such a person can pick the best stock.
Likewise a good reviewer doesn't mean someone who can play the best moves while playing the game.
Such is the way of having the benefit of hindsight.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

When you say "most 9 dans of today" are you on purpose broadening the pool of modern players the OP mentioned like Lee Sedol, Lee Changho, Takemiya, Kobayashi etc to all those "weak" 9ps that no one has heard of because they never got to the top and won a big tournament (just randomly clicking through SL names) like Enda Hideki (actually I think he came to an EGC I attended so maybe I have heard of him) or Ishii Mamoru . Or Michael Redmond for that matter, though he is known for being American. Lee Sedol could take white or probably even give two stones or more against some no-name 65 year-old Japanese/Korean 9p). Yes there are 100s of 9ps now, but I understand the question to be about the top players in the world today (e.g. Lee Sedol, Park Junghwan, Shi Yue) or a few decades ago at their peak (Sakata, Kobayashi, Cho Hunhyun etc) versus top players of history (was Shusaku even called a 9d? I didn't think so...).