I think a good example is Cho Hunhyun during the 70's and 80's. He thoroughly dominated Korean Go but all the accolades were heaped on Cho Chikun. If you take a look at the historical ELO ratings, Cho Hunhyun doesn't even appear in the top 10 until 1988. For the next 10+ years, his ELO remained higher than Cho Chikun albeit, they were often separated by only a few points.Kirby wrote:You could be correct, Brooklyn, but I think your argument over-simplifies the situation. Obviously, all other things being equal (variance in population, etc.), it is more difficult to achieve #1 out of a higher population. But there are many important yet unquantifiable variables that play into the equation. For example, if you have someone aiming to be number 1, that drive might be able to take them there, regardless of the population.
We know more about physics than in Einstein's time, but who is to say how good of a physicist he'd be today.
Of course this is all hypothetical and we can only give our opinions.
You have admitted that an older generation player could possibly be as skilled as Ke Jie if they peaked today, but it is not probable.
The only part that I disagree with is that it is not possible to quantify this probability with any accuracy - who knows - maybe Ke Jie's presence would be enough to drive a modern day Go Seigen to the top. Or maybe not.
The population is greater today, but I don't feel it gives us much data to answer this question.
That all being said, for fun, if I had to guess, I think your conclusion about Ke Jie is correct. But that's just a hunch, which is not scientific in any way.
Point being, in hindsight, Cho Hunhyun was probably nearly the same strength as Cho Chikun throughout the nearly ten years or so that he was universally considered the strongest player in the world. Only problem is that he couldn't prove it by playing against such weak competition. No matter how much you dominate the minors, you only get so much credit.
Then Lee Changho came along and Korean Go as a whole improved dramatically and suddenly- not to mention the newly established international tournaments - and Cho Hunhyun is finally recognized as one of the best in the world. It's not that he suddenly got stronger, rather he was able to finally prove himself against proper competition.
Can you hold it against Cho Hunhyun for having to compete against such weak Korean competition for all those years? A man can only beat his opponents, right? While you can't hold it against him, you can give credit where credit is due. And credit is due to Ke Jie for facing the stiffest competition the go world has ever seen and still thoroughly dominating.
) What is deceptive is that improvements are made in certain lines of play, but the go board is vast, and even in such lines the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Some ideas seem new, such as approaching the lone 3-4 stone with the 3-6, or the mini-Chinese, but these were played over 200 years ago. The Shusaku kosumi has made a comeback, as well. If go has made such progress, why are these old moves good enough to resurrect? I can't prove anything, OC, but my guess is that top level go knowledge advances at around 1/2 stone per century. That's actually a pretty good clip. 
