by78 wrote:Iyama probably wouldn't make it out of the preliminaries. No point in trying.
First of all, I don't think the Ing Cup has a preliminary with players from multiple countries, they assign some number of seats to various countries (used to be 1 each for Europe/North America, this time it was 2 which I approve of even though we are obviously no-hopers) and those countries (maybe with input from Ing) then choose players as they see fit, usually through a combination of nomination of top players and a preliminary tournament (see
http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/ig.html, e.g. from Korea Park Junghwan, Lee Sedol, Park Yeonghun, Kim Jiseok, Na Hyun were seeded and Kang Dongyun and Won Sungjin qualified from 8 players through the preliminary). So Iyama would obviously by nominated as the unquestionably top Japanese player, and could win through a qualifier against Japanese if he needed.
But even if they did have a combined nations preliminary, he would almost certainly qualify unless he faced a world top 10 or 20 player in which case a loss wouldn't be a huge upset, but neither is a win (but facing such players is unlikely as they are seeded, as he would be). Whilst I agree the #5 spot on goratings.org is likely too generous and inaccurate with the paucity of international games, he's probably in the world top 20. He recently beat rising Chinese player Huang Yunsong 4p (#17 on goratings, he just won his 1st round Ing Cup game) in the China-Japan Agon Cup. And a few years ago he beat both Lee Sedol and Gu Li in that 3-way exhibition match (though Lee Sedol beat him recently in the Nongshim cup).