2016 Pro qualification tourney

[EdLee]

2016 Pro qualification tourney, China.

Round 1, perhaps:

image.jpg (198.94 KiB) Viewed 11232 times

[by78]

2016 Pro qualification tourney, China.

Round 1, perhaps:

image.jpg

I think China's lead over Korea and Japan will last a while longer and might get even wider.

[Fool]

wow
how many entrants are there? how does this compare to Japan or Korea?

[DrStraw]

Notice how many of them wear glasses. I read something a few weeks ago that said that as many as 80% of the younger generation wear glasses, compared to 20% two generations ago. It was attributed to lack of natural light because they don't spend as much time outsides as formerly.

[hyperpape]

There are some comments about the Japanese professional qualification tournament in this thread about Antti Tormanen: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10532&hilit=antti&start=20. I skimmed that thread, and I think it says that there's a 16 person tournament (10 A class insei, plus 6 others).

Iirc, there are also separate tournaments for the Kansai Ki-in, maybe also the Kansai branch of the Nihon Ki-in?

[bayu]

Does anybody know the format of the chinese pro exam? I can't imagine all those players doing a round robin as the 16 finalists do in Japan. Based on the numbers, it looks more like a prelim.

If you take all the prelims in Japan into account, together with the insei league, where they fight for the 10 places in the pro exam, the number isn't small either.

[oren]

There are some comments about the Japanese professional qualification tournament in this thread about Antti Tormanen: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10532&hilit=antti&start=20. I skimmed that thread, and I think it says that there's a 16 person tournament (10 A class insei, plus 6 others).

Iirc, there are also separate tournaments for the Kansai Ki-in, maybe also the Kansai branch of the Nihon Ki-in?

Kansai Kiin works a bit differently. Rather than a big tournament, it's mostly about qualifying the top insei as good enough. A year can go by with no new professionals.

The Osaka and Chubu branches of the Nihon Kiin also have pro tests separate from the Tokyo branch.

[by78]

A lot of theses kids are probably as strong as many top-50 Japanese pros, if not stronger. Quite a few of them could probably take out a top-10 Japanese pro.

Such a surfeit of talent...

[Heretix]

Notice how many of them wear glasses. I read something a few weeks ago that said that as many as 80% of the younger generation wear glasses, compared to 20% two generations ago. It was attributed to lack of natural light because they don't spend as much time outsides as formerly.

I'm from Singapore where we rank as #1, or near #1 in terms of myopia in children. I've read the same studies on lack of natural sunlight being a cause for myopia, and my own experiences in my life concur with it. I turned myopic after I spent a month during the holidays playing Nintendo and rarely stepping out of the house. I'm trying to get my son exposure to the sun every day, and so far, so good with his vision (he's 6).

Back to the original topic - there's a wonderful 5 part documentary on Go made by CCTV, and one of the segments features the Chinese pro qualification tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuFzvUF ... I#t=30m58s You can see the same hall in the picture within the documentary segment.

[Heretix]

A lot of theses kids are probably as strong as many top-50 Japanese pros, if not stronger. Quite a few of them could probably take out a top-10 Japanese pro.

Such a surfeit of talent...

Isn't it amazing what having more than a billion people in one country can do??

I think your judgement is incorrect and insulting to the Japanese professional Go scene, especially the latter statement regarding top-10 pros. This isn't the finals of a big Chinese tournament, this is a qualification tournament to become a professional *ONE* dan. When was the last time you saw a Chinese 1p defeat a top 10 Japanese professional?

[Uberdude]

A lot of theses kids are probably as strong as many top-50 Japanese pros, if not stronger. Quite a few of them could probably take out a top-10 Japanese pro.

Isn't it amazing what having more than a billion people in one country can do??

I think your judgement is incorrect and insulting to the Japanese professional Go scene, especially the latter statement regarding top-10 pros.

Calling Japanaese pros weak is kind of by78's hobby...

But:

This isn't the finals of a big Chinese tournament, this is a qualification tournament to become a professional *ONE* dan. When was the last time you saw a Chinese 1p defeat a top 10 Japanese professional?

First to mind is the recent Globis cup final (2016-04-24), in which Chinese Li Qincheng 1p (who admittedly became pro quite a few years ago but for some reason didn't get 2p until just a few months ago, his nickname was "the strongest 1p", he's in the Chinese top 20 going on 10) beat Hsu Chiayuan (Kyo Kagen) 3p who is a rising young Japanese star that goratings.org puts as the #5 Japanese.
http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/53739

[Heretix]

Calling Japanaese pros weak is kind of by78's hobby...

Ah I see. I shall not feed the troll further.

First to mind is the recent Globis cup final (2016-04-24), in which Chinese Li Qincheng 1p (who admittedly became pro quite a few years ago but for some reason didn't get 2p until just a few months ago, his nickname was "the strongest 1p", he's in the Chinese top 20 going on 10) beat Hsu Chiayuan (Kyo Kagen) 3p who is a rising young Japanese star that goratings.org puts as the #5 Japanese.
http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/53739

Wow, learn something new everyday! But I guess a 1p who has been professional for a few years, regardless of promotion, has had a chance to grow within the professional system, which is different from a newly minted pro. I wonder what's the story behind Li Qincheng's lack of promotion. He has been pro for 7 years (1 dan on 2009-07-25 according to SL). Promoted to 2 dan only in May 2016. Is this some form of sandbagging in professional Go?

[dfan]

A lot of theses kids are probably as strong as many top-50 Japanese pros, if not stronger. Quite a few of them could probably take out a top-10 Japanese pro.

Welcome back!

[Uberdude]

I wonder what's the story behind Li Qincheng's lack of promotion. He has been pro for 7 years (1 dan on 2009-07-25 according to SL). Promoted to 2 dan only in May 2016. Is this some form of sandbagging in professional Go?

I don't know, maybe some people more familiar with the Chinese promotion rules can enlighten us. I know you get straight to 9p for winning a major international title (so the youth Globis cup doesn't count, though would seem reasonable to me to have some lower dan promotion for such lower tier titles) or coming second twice (e.g. Chen Yaoye). In Japan you get 2 dan for winning 30 games as a 1 dan, so I assume the Chinese don't have any win x games as n dan to promote to n + 1 dan as Li will certainly have done that for any plausible value of x in his 7 years. I imagine he probably doesn't care much about his rank (as pros in Japan used to as it affected their game fees), but more about getting stronger and his place in the Chinese rating list (he's #11 in June: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=13425). It wouldn't surprise me if he leapfrogged to 9p in a few years by winning an international title (Ke Jie went from 4p to 9p by winning the Bailing cup, and Tang Weixing from 3p to 9p for winning the Samsung cup).

[wolfking]

wow
how many entrants are there? how does this compare to Japan or Korea?

This was last year's info but I think it is still valid.

viewtopic.php?p=191385#p191385

[Edit] some of the relevant info:

About 370 entered 2015 male pro qualification for 20 spots in 2015(I just looked up this year's number and it was 312 competing in preliminary stage plus 30 (last year's 21-50) waiting in final stage so total 342). Around 100 players participated in the female pro qualification for 5 spots last year(exactly 100 entries this year).

The link above has more details of the qualification tournament format.

Korean pro qualification is a little more complicated. But roughly there are 12 spots each year (2 out of 12 spots are for female pros. The number of female new pros will grow to 4 starting in 2016) plus unlimited pro qualification points promotions for amateurs.