Eleven-year-old Fujisawa Rina has won her second debut game by defeating a 9-dan, Kanda Ei. Kanda (48) is not the most illustrious 9-dan, of course, but 1-dans beating 9-dans is still pretty rare. This game was in the preliminaries of the Kisei on 2010-06-10. She lost her debut game.

Yes, it is still unusual for a 1-dan pro to beat a 9-dan pro in competition. Of course there are 9-dans and there are 9-dans, but Kanda is, I think, reasonably solid. But from a yound, energetic, and motivated 1-dan to an older middle of the road 9-dan is maybe more like two stones these days. It isn't all that rare for a player who should take a two stone handicap to win an even game.

I don't know whether a judgement can be made but is it the case that pro 1-dans are stronger than 1-dans used to be? More generally, has the abolition of the Oteai had an effect on the relative strength of players in Japan? Promotion now seems to depend more on success in tournaments, where the competition might be tougher than in the old Oteai.

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

Under the new system, you'll have to be quite good to reach 9dan, and for young players, reaching 6 or 7 dan will be a good indication that they're on the rise. There will still be the problem that a player who reached 9dan may decline, but my sense is that many (most?) 50 and 60 year old former title-holders are still competitive, even if they only a fraction match current 9 dans.

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According to a recent post on Tom, from 2003 to June 10, 2010, the Nihon Kiin recently published records showing 420 games played between a 1p and a 9p. In these match-ups the 9p won 302 games, 1p won 118 games (28.10%).

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