Modern professionals. Underrated?

[Bantari]

The larger size of the pool does not necessarily translates into a higher level of top performers.

Actually, all other things being equal, I believe a larger size of pool translates into a higher level when you are talking about absolute numbers. To give a simple example of this, let's consider math ability. To be the best mathematician in my hometown might not be that hard - the population is small. But to be the best mathematician out of all of China is a different story. With so many people, there's a much greater chance that someone is better than you.

Actually, the pool size is much larger for the past players than for today players, I think. You compare one generation - today's generation - with many past generations combined. And while today's generation is larger than any single past generation, it is not larger than the combination of all past generations. And this is the cumulative pool we are talking about.

(My apologies, it just occured to me. Maybe should have added it to the previous post instead.)

[Kirby]

I hope my point is clear now.

I think you should read what I wrote before arguing against it.

I am saying, "All other things being equal" a larger pool leads to greater chance that the best players will be a part of that pool.
So for your "counterexamples":

- Albert Einstein was born in Ulm. Ulm is today bigger than when he was born. Do you think this translates that Ulm produced more and bether theoretical physicists since Einstein's birth?
> Einstein was born in 1879. All other things being equal, if Ulm has a greater population in 2015 than in 1879, there is a greater chance that "the best theoretical physicist" is born in 2015 than 1879.

- Has Vinci (in Florence, Italy) produced more and better geniuses than Leonardo DaVinci in the past few centuries since DaVinci's death? Has the whole Province of Florence? The population grew by many multiples. And so on...
> All other things being equal, there is greater chance that the smartest "genius" is born at a time when the population is the greatest.

Anyways... The pool size only translates into higher level of top performers if you assume that larger pool size affects including or not including the absolutely most talented people - because this is what we talk about, the tops of the tops.
> All other things being equal, greater population is more likely to include the "top of the top".

---

Maybe I am being pessimistic, and maybe you really did read my post when I wrote all other things being equal. Then let's simplify things and talk about something less abstract than talent.

Suppose you have 1000 marbles, each a different shade of red. You split the marbles into two piles - one has 10 marbles, and the other has 980 marbles.

You want to find the marble that has the darkest shade of red. Which pile gives you the best chance of finding the darkest marble?

All other things being equal, the pile with 980 marbles naturally has the best chance of including the darkest marble.

OK?

[Kirby]

The larger size of the pool does not necessarily translates into a higher level of top performers.

Actually, all other things being equal, I believe a larger size of pool translates into a higher level when you are talking about absolute numbers. To give a simple example of this, let's consider math ability. To be the best mathematician in my hometown might not be that hard - the population is small. But to be the best mathematician out of all of China is a different story. With so many people, there's a much greater chance that someone is better than you.

Actually, the pool size is much larger for the past players than for today players, I think. You compare one generation - today's generation - with many past generations combined. And while today's generation is larger than any single past generation, it is not larger than the combination of all past generations. And this is the cumulative pool we are talking about.

(My apologies, it just occured to me. Maybe should have added it to the previous post instead.)

Maybe so. But again, that is not what I am replying to. Please read what I write. I am responding only to the idea that a "larger size of pool does not necessarily translates into a higher level of top performers."

I have already said in this thread that I think the question has too many unknowns.

Therefore, I am not arguing for or against modern professionals.

It doesn't matter to me if you don't read what I write, but if you are trying to argue with it, please read it.

[oren]

It's a completely hypothetical situation so everyone's answers can be different. I personally would pick Park Junghwan or Ke Jie right now over Shuei in his prime. This is not a question we can ever get an answer to.

[tekesta]

If it has been proven that modern pros would be stronger than historical ones simply because they are ahead of the learning curve, then would it not be of more benefit for the current amateur to study games by the pros of our time than to study games of historical pros? Of what benefit would it be to study Dosaku, Shusaku, Yasui Chitoku, or even Shuei? Even the Chinese masters Huang Longshi, Fan Xiping, and Shi Xiangxia would be considered optional rather than mandatory for aspiring Go players.

The Go-playing population in China, Japan, or Korea is substantially larger than the current combined number of Go players in Western countries. Therefore in those East Asian countries the likelihood of finding top Go talent is greater.

[John Fairbairn]

I have never been someone interested in those bar-room conversations based on picking the best ever teams from past players in a given sport, or arguing about whether player X is better than player Y. But I do think there is great value in studying the past, and possibly even more than in studying the present.

The point about stories of pros saying they study a certain old player is that the player is someone considered worth studying, not that he is an old player. Pros say they study Dosaku, Shuei or Huang Longshi. They don't say they study Honinbo Tetsugen or Cheng Lanru. They very rarely even say they study Shusai, Shuwa (or Zhou Xiaosong, the "Chinese Shuwa"), Jowa, Shuho or Fan Xiping, even though large collections of their games exist.

The players who are deemed worth studying are those who have made a significant and discernible contribution to the theory of the game. At the time they made their discoveries, they thus stood out from their peers. This means their contributions can be more easily seen against a backdrop of weaker players. More recent players may have absorbed these contributions, but they have all absorbed them and it is now next to impossible to detect them in games between modern players.

That is why the list of studiable players is both small and fairly fixed: Dosaku, Shuei, Go Seigen, Huang Longshi, with Shusaku maybe edging a place.

There are occasional reasons to study other players. For example, when a student plays well but passively his teacher may recommend a purgative course of Jowa, say. A too-low player may be advised to study Senkaku. Or some pros like to go back to the ancients in the hope of finding new ideas.

But for the most part D, S, G and H are the main curriculum, and whether any of them could beat Gu Li or Yi Se-tol today is beside the point. As psychologically interesting as their games or as innovative as their josekis may be, Gu and Yi have seemingly made no contributions to go theory worth studying yet. As far as I can see, the only modern player whose games will be worthy of study in theory terms when the dust settles 50 years from now will be Yi Ch'ang-ho, because he seems to be the only one mentioned as a player whose games have already been studied extensively by pros in such terms.

In the meantime, D, S, G and H are pick of the crop, and of those Shuei does seem to garner most votes from pros who do study the past.

[Uberdude]

Btw, I've asked a few young Korean pros if they studied old Japanese players like Shusaka. The answer was no. They did study Go Seigen's games though.

[oren]

Btw, I've asked a few young Korean pros if they studied old Japanese players like Shusaka. The answer was no. They did study Go Seigen's games though.

From what I've read from articles, Japanese young pros have stopped studying the old famous players for the more modern games. I think the big reason is more books of modern player in the last 20 years and then follow that up with same day game records of the biggest matches going on.

One book I like is "Shikou no Ketsudan". It's a Japanese book where Komatsu Hideki finds opening positions from various famous games in the past and asks Iyama, Yamashita, and Yoda what moves they would play from that position and why. For this discussion, Yoda knew many of the games, since that is what he studied. Iyama and Yamashita did not recognize the games.

[Kirby]

As a side note, I know that some old joseki have been refuted and are no longer joseki. So one potential disadvantage of studying older games is that they might use some of these suboptimal joseki.

OTOH, it can be instructive to study the evolution of style over time, perhaps.

If 200 years ago, everyone played X, and later people started playing Y,mit gives you something to think about.

[wessanenoctupus]

this question was clearly answered when Sai came back to haunt Hikaru, and then proceeded to defeat the strongest modern player of all, Meijin Touya.

Why are we all still talking about it. Just watch that documentary Hikaru no go if you want all the details.

[ez4u]

Tonight I unexpectedly had the chance to go eating (OK, drinking and [some] eating) with Fukui Masaaki 9p, the doyen of historical Go in Japan, whom I had never met before. It took me a while to get up my nerve to ask him about this question (in this sense "a while" means that I had drunk quite a bit of Japanese sake and Fukui-sensei had imbibed an equal amount of shochu [shochu? OK, no one is perfect right?]) so the result may not have been as clear as one could wish.

In any case Fukui-sensei was adamant that Dosaku would have no chance against Iyama. Go has just progressed too much in the mean time. At the same time he railed against the modern time limits (clearly in JF's camp), which prevent modern players from realizing their full potential. On the hypothetical question about historical greats training up in modern times, it's pointless because we will never know. Interestingly he believes that proper komi is 5.5 points and that the shift to 6.5 (not to mention 7.5 in China) has shifted the burden to Black.

We also enjoyed a lively (but by then extremely confused) discussion of the Masters Cup final between Cho Chikun and Takemiya (thanks to macelee and Go4Go for the file on my iPad!). The consensus was that after Takemiya produced the very interesting Black 25, he sort of fell back on ordinary plays thereafter and deserved his fate. Needless to say, there was no consensus on what he might have done instead.

$$Bcm25 Masters Cup Final; Cho (White) vs. Takemiya; 2015-07-11
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Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm25 Masters Cup Final; Cho (White) vs. Takemiya; 2015-07-11
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Attached is a picture of Fukui-sensei and my teacher Koh Seiken.

Fukui Koh small.JPG (144.65 KiB) Viewed 9068 times

[gowan]

Nice story That Black 25 in the Cho-Takemiya game was totally pure Takemiya!

[Kirby]

Tonight I unexpectedly had the chance to go eating (OK, drinking and [some] eating) with Fukui Masaaki 9p, the doyen of historical Go in Japan, whom I had never met before.

You're lucky to get these opportunities to drink and chat with these guys! Seems like you have some great connections.

[snorri]

At some point may be possible to attempt an analysis of the strength of historical players using computers, similar to what has been done in chess.

Analyses such as the above suffer from the "outrunning the bear" problem: a player who knows his opponent---as many historical players did---does not have to play the strongest moves, just strong enough to win.

Modern players of course benefit from modern theory, but it's hard to assess the value of modern theory in absolute terms. Lee Sedol is often behind in the opening, but he sure wins a lot nonetheless. Harder perhaps than learning new openings would be getting used to shorter time limits.

I would hope that most modern players should have the common sense not to take on a historical player in the taisha...there are probably still a lot of "house secrets" that never got written down.

[Shenoute]

Sakata's take on studying older games (from Go World 52)

Then I did a funny thing. Casually, almost unconsciously, I picked up a few books from the shelves in my study and started to leaf through them. They were collections of games by Genjo, Chitoku, Jowa, Shuwa, Shusaku, etc. - all of the great players of the past. I began to play the games out on the board. As I have said before this was unusual for me; I rarely studied books. (...)
I was not trying to find new moves to play, since the level of technique had advanced greatly between the past and modern times. But ignoring the questionable moves in the opening, the games from the old days featured some truly grand battles. I realized something else: the players of the past fought much more intensely than those of today. The fortunes of the hereditary houses to which they belonged depended upon the wins of those masters for their survival. There is a world of difference between that kind of responsibility and that of today's players, who are fighting only for money and personal pride. As I played out the games I experienced a palpable sensation of the stately dignity with which their moves were made.