One Of The Best...Ever?

[Mef]

Talent is not the only factor in the equation.

What are the other factors?

Character (=

[Mef]

... but going toe-to-toe with the best players in the world and winning about half seems to be good for anyone.

Good, yes. And the step from 'Good' to 'Best ever' is...?

I think this could be an interesting discussion, but if you don't mind I'd like to semantically reframe it from "Best ever" to "Greatest". "Best" could be described something to the effect of "makes the fewest deviations / least total deviation from perfect play" and would be hard to measure without more or less solving go. Greatest you can use a number of factors to try and judge players, and personally I think it is more relevant (for example, if you are thinking about "greatest" track and field athletes, you may consider Carl Lewis. Even though Carl Lewis was great however, his 9.86 second world record sprint would have barely cracked the top 5 at Olympic games in London. Carl Lewis is objectively slower than Tyson Gay, but I don't think anyone is going to claim that Tyson Gay is a greater Olympian). So with that out of the way, what makes a player great? I'll try to throw some out a handful of criteria a player may have, though perhaps not need all of, to be considered great:

- Dominance: A great player generally needs to show superiority over his or her peers. Ex: Shuei taking white (and often 2 stones) against all comers.
- Brilliance: A player who has an single exceptional performance that is difficult to match. Ex: Shusaku going undefeated at the castle games.
- Longevity: A great players needs to have success over an extended period of time. Ex: Sakata sustaining a long-enough, winning enough career to be first to amass 1000 wins.
- Innovation: A player who fundamentally changes how the game is played. Ex: Go Seigen and the coming of Shin Fuseki.
- Legacy: A player who has a large impact on the game for years to come. Ex: Kitani Minoru who, while strong in his own right, led a dojo that spawned generations of Japanese title winners for decades to come.

So now with all that said, where were we...

Ah right Iyama Yuta!

As many have claimed, dominance is a tough one for him with the international scene being as it is. In the event he wins all 7 titles at one time, that would be a truly brilliant achievement, so we can mark that down in the plus column. Innovation I won't claim to be strong enough to judge. Longevity and legacy I will have to wait and see before making a claim. I guess to wrap everything up with a completely unsatisfying conclusion...Maybe he will be, maybe he won't, it all depends on his career from this point on.

[lovelove]

It is quite sad that no-one about Iyama's age is competitive to him in Japan, unlike China or Korea. His challengers are all 10~20 years older than him, which looks odd.

[Uberdude]

Talent is not the only factor in the equation.

What are the other factors?

Hard work

[oren]

Hard work

Which is the most important talent.

[oren]

I was watching Go Focus from last week which had a section interviewing Iyama. He did make a point to say he is focusing on international results, but not what that means to him.

One of the events that shaped his go was winning the children's meijin and then being invited to China to play there. He only placed somewhere around 20th, and it was the first time he experienced losing to someone younger than him. That gave him a lot of drive to get stronger and realize just how much stronger other countries were.