That's right, I'm just assuming Myungwan will win. At least I think he's far enough ahead that this wouldn't be an interesting poll if you can vote for him (or you can write "other").

Yeah, I know the poll is late: we'll see who can vote before Monday.

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Occupy Babel!

hardly any names you listed are even playing in the open

my next guess might be Juyong Koh, or Yongfei Ge, or even Curtis Tang or Jianing Gan

but Juyong lost to Yongfei today, and Eric defeated both Curtis and Jianing.

Can Eric defeat Yongfei?

I wrote the poll before the open started, so I had to guess about who would play. Mingjiu often plays, to take one instance.

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Occupy Babel!

Wow, Eric is doing awesome this year. He beat Yongfei Ge today.

And Eric just beat MingJiu in the Ing !!

Way to go Eric !!!

My guess is Eric Lui.

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after round 4, looks like the contenders are:
Yongfei Ge, Eric Lui, Juyong Koh, Francis Meyer, and Jie Liang

And tonight's Ing final... Eric Lui vs Huiren Yang

It's down to Francis Meyer and Jie Liang.

I believe Eric was leading in his game against Francis, but in the last byo-yomi of a marathon game, he overlooked an endgame tesuji to capture several stones that was worth 10-15 points gote.

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Occupy Babel!

It was Meyer.

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Perhaps I should apologize to Meyer for sullying his name! He might well end up being the newest 9d after this tournament.

Spectators will now have to hunt for gossip about how he compared to the other insei while in Japan...

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Occupy Babel!

Despite the Congress website and, I am told, Congress badges, the AGA does not have "9ds". 7d is the top. But there are some very strong 7d and he is certainly one.

Well, rank and rating are often, and understandably confused and used interchangeably

The AGA rating database contains ratings, so I'm sure these were used when players signed up.

But you're correct, AGA amateur ranks are capped at 7d (to match the rest of the world)

Well, my understanding is that the AGA simply has no official ranks. 9d is a convenient shortcut for "rating of 9.x".

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The AGA calls a player a 5 dan, for example, if his or her rating is between 5.0 and 5.99etc. We have tournament sections by ranks - as in the the tournament you are discussing. However, it was decided that they would not equate players with ratings over 8 or 9 with the corresponding number. I do not think Europe has amatuer 8 dans, I believe only Japan has a few. So there is a range of 7 dans.

You are correct it is "convenient" but it is just as convenient if precision is needed to say "Andy Liu 8.7"

Actually the AGA policy was not to have 7 dans, and they never recognized them directly. However, they did so implicitly when they created a "6 dan" section between the 5 dan section and the Open section in the US Open.

As players, other than pros, started reaching ratings above 8.0, people, including the ejournal starting using the convenient shorthand you suggest, but it was thought we should be more modest, particularly when our "8 dans" were losing to 6 dans in the WAGC.

Europe does now have people entering (and having their entrance accepted) as 8 dan, so I think it is fair to say now that there are European 8 dans.

Maybe ask the people if they entered as 8dan, or were entered as 8dan by the organizers. Cause i've heard
of the latter. Of course for your point it doesn't make a difference.

there was a whole discussion about this on the old GoDiscussions forum, which we no longer have access to, and that discussion may have partially influenced the AGA decision for capping amateur ranks at 7d.

I agree with the decision.

I find it inconvenient when you're generalizing or when context is lacking. I.E. "The group of 9.0s is very elite."

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I simply do not understand. It is easy to say - "The AGA has a large number of players ranked 7 dan. Those with ratings above 8.0 are very elite".