Certainly false if this means Chinese or Korean professionals. Probably false for Japan and Taiwan too.

Several Chinese and Korean low dan professionals and amateurs have achieved ratings higher than any European. On what contrary evidence would you base a claim of parity?

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E.g., the results or games in European Championships.

You mean the ones where occasionally strong amateurs beat inactive / retired pros?

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

I mean:

1) Catalin Taranu 5p, who does not get better EGC results on average than Ilya Shikshin 7d.

2) A Taiwanese professional, who attended the EGC a few years ago, did not make it to the top.

3) Li Ting 1p, professional since 2010. The last time she played in an EGC was in 2008. I am not sure about her strength development afterwards, but, unless it has been dramatic (unlikely, since she still is 1p), her strength is not so impressive. She did not make it to the top in EGCs (only close to the top). Although her style is described as "fighting", her reading is slow: a few times as a kibitz, my reading was about twice as fast as hers as a player, but my reading (compared to typical professional reading) is slow. I think it was in 2008 when I played two friendly lighting games against her with the result 1:1.

4) Alexander Dinerstein 3p (after his EGC dominating years) and Svetlana Shikshina 3p have, AFAIK, political pro ranks instead of regularly earned ranks, so I do not trust their ranks much. Anyway, they are, by status, professionals. Nowadays, they get similarly good results as Ilya Shikshin 7d, with a tendency that Ilya is stronger.

Although information is sparse, it clearly hints at top European amateurs being like 1p to 5p and does not hint at all that the latter would be stronger than the former. If there is any indication from EGCs, it is the converse.

In the last 10 or so years, top spots at EGC were filled with strong korean ex-inseis who had tried but failed to turn pro at home. EGF even changed the format of top group due to this, so that the European Champion (i.e., best placed EGF member citizen) do not depend on how many korean opponents one had.

Even the top of the EGF rating list is two ex-youngusengs, In-seong and Cho Seok-bin. They are not invincible but still slightly stronger than the other top players.

On the other hand, I do think young guys like Ilja, Antti, Pavol, and a few others would eventually become much stronger if they were to turn pro.

1. Ilja probably belongs in his own category. He is substantially stronger than the other European amateurs at this point. He's currently 84 points ahead of Antti at this point. Here is one estimate of win rates, though it seems to be based on Chess: (http://senseis.xmp.net/?Gor)[1]. If you speak of amateurs in the plural, it is relevant how Ilja does, but doesn't suffice. So with regard to each group of professionals, we should distinguish three claims: "they are better than all European amateurs", "they are better than all European amateurs but Ilja", and "several European amateurs either have parity with them or are stronger."

2. European ratings are wonky when professional ratings come in to play, but it does seem that Taranu is not as strong as he used to be (http://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Player ... y=10586785). The same is true for Dinerchtein (http://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Player ... y=10313237

3. Almost all your positive evidence concerns non-Chinese/Korean professionals. I continue in my contention that it is quite clear that they are stronger than European amateurs. Search for the top players by Gor on the European database and look at the flood of > 2700 Korean amateurs, or consider this tournament for suggestive evidence (http://europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/Tourna ... n=16250014). I realize that this paragraph does not contain dispositive evidence, but if you seriously wish to dispute it, I could compile more.

4. So that leaves the Japanese and Taiwanese professionals. The case is more equivocal here, and there's has been a lot fewer head to head encounters, unfortunately. I'll try to come back to it (and of course this means that I haven't fully refuted you).

[1] Good question for someone who knows: are those numbers accurate for Go? Is there a good estimate out there?

Edit: changed "less competition" to "fewer head to head encounters" for clarity.

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It seems pretty clear that Korean / Chinese male low dan professionals and male (ex)inseis / other strongest amateurs are, on average, stronger than Japanese male low dan professionals. Before the second WMSG, I would have said the same for Taiwanese male top amateurs; now it is hard to be sure. For Korean / Chinese female low dan professionals and female top amateurs, I see less evidence of superiority.

So, if you want to distinguish Asian countries for comparison, it will be different than considering them all together. Dinerstein during his peak years (10 points in the EGC despite Korean 7d opposition) is yet another story of the early 2000s.

It's important to remember that occasionally beating a 1p doesn't mean you are 1p strength, beating a 1p 50% of the time does.

Dude, you are killing the Euro-delusional buzz here.

Next thing you know, you'll explain that you spent time in Asia, and saw their strength first-hand. Then somebody will post that you aren't strong enough to understand, and the delusion will continue.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders