I just noticed Shin Jinseo achieved the highest ranking ever by anybody: 3681. Neither Ke Jie or Park Junghwan got above 3665. Is this because he is very good, or is there some ratings inflation going on?

He seems to be only 19 years old??? He looks much older in the picture from go4go.net

Ke Jie and Park Junghwan are close to their records too.

How many international titles has Shin Jinseo won?

https://senseis.xmp.net/?ShinJinseo says that he is 19 and hasn't won any international title yet.

According to goratings.org, here is his record against other top 20 players since 2016:

Ke Jie: 1W, 6L
Park Junghwan: 4W, 7L
Gu Zihao: 2W, 2L
Mi Yuting: 1W, 2L
Lian Xiao: 1W, 0L
Jiang Weijie: 1W, 0L
Yang Dingxin: 1W, 2L
Xu Jiayang: 1W, 0L
Tuo Jiaxi: 3W, 0L
Fan Yunruo: 3W, 1L
Fan Tingyu: 2W, 1L
Xie Erhao: 3W, 0L
Lee Donghoon: 9W, 1L
Chen Yaoye: 2W, 6L
Shi Yue: 4W, 0L
Kim Jiseok: 4W, 3L
Shin Minjun: 6W, 2L
Wang Xi: 0W, 0L
Zhou Ruiyang: 1W, 2L

(Mistakes are possible, I did this manually.)

This has been mentioned before, but both Ke Jie and Park Junghwan had in fact exceed 3670 previously. The WHR algorithm will retroactively update a player's historical rating based on their subsequent performance as a self-correcting mechanism. e.g.

Ke Jie: 3680 on 09/05/2017 - https://web.archive.org/web/20170906033 ... gs.org/en/. His rating was even higher in July of that year when he had the 22-game winning streak.
Park: 3674 on 06/13/2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180614044 ... gs.org/en/.

So it looks like these top players are giving Shin Jinseo the most trouble:
Ke Jie (1:6)
Park Junghwan (4:7)
Chen Yaoye (2:6)

I will keep an eye on this. I hope he continues to improve. I don't understand how can someone so young be so good.

Shin Jinseo won 32nd Asian TV Cup few minutes ago.

Here's the game, Shin was white vs Ding Hao 6p. That's the third year in a row a Korean has won it, despite the Chinese dominating the big and slower international tournaments the last few years. Mickey mouse at least wins a consolation prize. Also here's a past thread about Shin Jinseo with pictures of him reviewing with Lizzie (which may help answer how someone so young can be so good in addition to the usual pros get strong young because they train many hours a day since age 5 in go schools): https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16074.

Is this one of the "big international tounaments"? There were only 8 players...

Also, in the pictures from the earlier thread it looks like these guys breathe go. If they did this for 12 years, that could explain how they can be so good before turning 20.

Anyway, I'm happy for Shin Jinseo. Also looks like his rating went up a little to seems like new record to me: 3684. He seems to be on a run of 13 consecutive victories.

Depends who you ask. It's on the SL page https://senseis.xmp.net/?InternationalTitleStatistics. I don't think it's generally held in the same prestige as e.g. Ing, Samsung, LG, MLily, but it's got a long history unlike the recent Chinese-sponsored ones. When Li Qincheng (known as "strongest 1p" for a while) won it a few years ago the Chinese Go Association treated it as an international title and promoted him straight to 9p which I heard some people thought wasn't right. Although it's only got 7 players, they are chosen as last year's winner plus top 2 from the domestic fast TV cup in China (CCTV), Japan (NHK) and Korea (KBS) so the pool of players who could end up in it if they do well in their domestic cup is very large.

Fair enough. It seems like it might be something like 1/2 of those really big ones. Still, it's a good step. And this page needs updating now: https://senseis.xmp.net/?ShinJinseo

Since the schedules of Asian TV Cup and Chunlan Cup are back to back in different locations (Tokyo and East China), Park Junghwan gave up his qualification as KBS Cup run-up in order to better prepare for Chunlan Cup.(KBS Cup Champion is Shin Minjun this year and Kim Jiseok qualified as last year's Asian TV Cup champion), Shin Jinseo substituted in and won the title.

Not hard to understand Park's decision to give up Asian TV Cup as the title money is much lower (only 1.5 million JPY same as 30 years ago), I thought Ke Jie complained about it when the final game is broadcasting on FoxGo. In addition, Chunlan Cup is a slow game world title.

There may be some luck factors for Shin, but still needs to congrat on his progress in the past two years. 2 years ago, I thought he said he wanted to win world champions before his 20s, and he went into finals of Bailing Cup and Tianfu Cup, semi-finals of LG Cup etc.. His goal is more than Asian TV Cup, let's see how his performance goes in world title matches later this year.

Shin Jinseo's ranking improved a little to what seems a new record to me: 3687 on 6/29
But Ke Jie had 3 wins in a row (in only 4 days!) and got closer to 3671
And Park Junghwan won Chunlan cup and is now at 3665

These top 3 seem head and shoulders above everyone else

I find it interesting Shin is above Ke Jie on the rankings when you look at their head-to-head (and even to some degree Park). I feel like Ke Jie should be above him, even if overall statistically Shin has had a better year. It's hard to put someone second to another guy who hasn't been able to beat him this year. But overall, I think Shin, Ke Jie, and Park Jungwhan are the top three right now.

Shin Jinseo reached a new record: 3688 on July 5th, 2019

Another record for Shin Jinseo: 3693 on July 13, 2019

But it is quite strange that Ke Jie (3675) and Park Junghwan (3672) seem to have reached personal records as well.

The average rating of players ranked 4-10 is 3576. I will keep an eye on this average to see if there is some kind of inflation going on.

It's not inflation if they all are really getting stronger, which seems quite plausible to me now that they all have access to much stronger teachers.

If there is really inflation going on, it should show up in the average for the top 100 players.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

"Once in a very great while his eyes light up for a moment, and he says "Whee!" very quietly."
— Lion Miller

From archive.org, the 100th player's rating was:

13 July 2019: Murakawa Daisuke (3335)
14 June 2018: Chen Xian (3326)
10 June 2017: Shibano Toramaru (3311)
13 July 2016: Ichiriki Ryo (3299)

If there is any inflation, it is very limited.

Shin Jinseo just won his 18th game in a row, against Yang Dingxin in the Chinese A League, meaning he hasn't lost a game in over 2 months. Pretty spectacular—he seems unbeatable right now.

Actually, Shin Jinseo won 21 games in a row. In Chinese league, he recorded 7 wins and 1 loss.
Kim Jiseok achieved his 800th wins.


Shin's first game agains Yang Dingxin in January 2013. He lost the game and cried.

After this last win in vs Jang Dingxin 9p (#8 - 3569), Shin Jinseo's rank is at a new record: 3699. It would be nice if Shin could get another win and break 3700.