With KeJie's win is China officially on top?

[Subotai]

KeJie beat Lee Sedol 3-2 at the Mlily cup. With China's rising star toppling the Korean giant can we finally say that China has reached the top with this symbolic win?

[oren]

KeJie beat Lee Sedol 3-2 at the Mlily cup. With China's rising star toppling the Korean giant can we finally say that China has reached the top with this symbolic win?

I thought they had been the top for a while.

[Subotai]

I think it is easiest to view a country by their best player.

With Lee Sedol soundly beating Gu Li it was fair to say that Lee was still on top, but now with Ke Jie's victory it is fair to say that China is on top.

With China's determination to at least pretend to be the best at everything I don't see China falling anytime soon.

[EdLee]

I see go as an art, meditation, sport, and a mirror into one's self.
...
When I moved to China I decided to get back in the game and I have been on and off ever since.

( source thread. )

It's not even one week into 2016. May I suggest random acts of kindness...

With China's determination to at least pretend to be the best at everything

...and a quick review of the forum etiquette.

[Uberdude]

When Lee Sedol beat Gu Li in the jubango neither of them were top of their domestic ranking lists (those were Park Junghwan and Shi Yue iirc, though Lee and Gu were both more established top players with many international titles under their belts rather than the latest wonderkid). I've not updated my colour-coded pro table for a while (ISP problems), but you can see 2013 would be a good time to say China clearly became the top Go country:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.j.s ... Table.html

[Jhyn]

How is a final decided by half a point in the last game (and a blunder in the second) symbolic of anything else than the fact that both countries are neck to neck and have been for a while now?

On the contrary I believe that the match was less lopsided than expected (see here for example) and Ke Jie didn't look as untouchable as the rest of the year.

As for the relative levels of China and Korea, my uninformed opinion would be that the main difference is that the deeper Chinese talent pool protects them against "down years".

[skydyr]

As for the relative levels of China and Korea, my uninformed opinion would be that the main difference is that the deeper Chinese talent pool protects them against "down years".

While there will always be ups and downs, and the occasional transcendental player, it's not surprising that with similar levels of participation in go the country with over 1 billion people contains the best player over countries with closer to 100 million people.

[Calvin Clark]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.j.simons/go/ProTable.html

Thanks for reposting that. I remembered it from a while ago. I like the graphic very much. I think it's well done because it's a reminder that this is also about people, the hard work not just of those who played but those who made their growth possible by taking a chance on a young talent. It's not just about nationalities.

[gowan]

I think the color scheme is a little unclear. I notice that CHo U is a sort of greenish yellow, probably to show that he came from Taiwan but plays for the Nihon Kiin, but O Rissei is not colored the same. Also Takemiya is "purely" Japanese and should have the same color as Otake and Kobayashi. Or are these color differences due to monitor problems?

[hyperpape]

O Rissei is also a bit yellowish, but not as pronounced. If you look closely, no two players' colors are exactly the same.

[Subotai]

Despite China's large population and Korea's comparatively smaller one there seems to be a difference in culture. I was talking to my teacher about this recently and he said that even though China has a larger population more people play go in Korea per capita than in China. As one who lives in China it is hard to find people playing go outside of schools. Even then the schools are only geared to children who study it as a passing hobby their parents force them to study and after a certain period it is dropped to focus on the dreaded entrance exams. With my several years in China I think I have only seen once or twice people playing go out in public.

I have never been or lived in Korea but from what I have seen in movies and media that go is more important in Korea to people as a whole. What I think separates China and Korea and what originally happened to Japan two decades earlier was a fading hunger. The realization that the effort and time that needed to be put in without a corresponding financial reward. There is a very large base of children to choose from in China and those who want to succeed have to be very hungry and depending on how far they go down that road there might not be a feasible way back.

[hyperpape]

Yes, the go census that John Fairbairn reported on had 10 million go players in China, 9 million in Korea (http://web.archive.org/web/201105122106 ... ensus.html). There are still reasons to think that picking 10 million players out of 1 billion potential could be a better group (in terms of potential) than 9 million out of 50 million.

However it's only within the last decade that China has caught up to Korea. So obviously whatever makes China stronger today is only recently showing itself.

[Kirby]

I have never been or lived in Korea but from what I have seen in movies and media that go is more important in Korea to people as a whole.

I don't know of the case in China, but indeed, Go is important to many Koreans. I've heard it said that Go is the second most appreciated "sport" in Korea, right behind baseball (#1) and ahead of soccer (#2 - except during the World Cup - soccer is pretty popular in Korean around that time ).

So even in Korea, Ke Jie's victory over Lee Sedol is a big deal. One of the biggest search engines in Korea, Naver, displays the recent top searches (similar to Google Trends). Around the time of the finals between Ke Jie and Lee Sedol for the recent MLily Cup, terms like "Lee Sedol Ke Jie", "Lee Sedol", and "BadukTV" were listed as search phrases having significantly increased frequency:


On the popular Daum search engine, searching for "Lee Sedol" now shows "Ke Jie" as a related search (i.e. "if you're searching for 'Lee Sedol', you might be interested in also searching for 'Ke Jie'").

And even if you're not searching for something related to Go, Naver.com's main sports news page had articles about the Lee Sedol vs. Ke Jie match for both the #6 and #11 articles (incidentally, a baseball related article is #1 ): http://news.naver.com/main/ranking/popu ... e=20160105

So do people in Korea care about Go? I'd say, yes. China has a large population, so all other variables constant, there may be an advantage. But given the historical successes in Japan and Korea, I'm encouraged that, given enough passion and devotion, there can be hope of success.

Maybe someday, those of us coming from "disadvantaged" Go countries from areas like the Americas and Europe, will find enough passion and devotion to someday overcome the advantage that Asian countries have had for so many years.

[wineandgolover]

Maybe someday, those of us coming from "disadvantaged" Go countries from areas like the Americas and Europe, will find enough passion and devotion to someday overcome the advantage that Asian countries have had for so many years.

I suspect That Western AI will shock the go world long before Western players do. I would love to be wrong.

[Cynosure]

Well, I see 2 things arguable against this conclusion:

1) Lee Sedol is no longer Korea's top ranking player.

2) Ke Jie's victory wasn't really decisive. With that tiny margin, even Ke Jie reportedly talked about it in a post-game interview. Can't remember the details, only heard about it in passing while watching BadukTV.

I think the first point is bigger in the scheme of which country is "top".