So her level is maybe close to the European pros? That's already remarkable for a 10 year-old child.

Nakamura Sumire won against Utani Shunta(宇谷俊太) 2p in Honinbo prelim. Her record 12:5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PJpLZOYwIE

Just read the main list on goratings.org. She already outranks all of the European pros. Andy Liu and Ryan Li are the only westerners above her. After all, she has a plus score against Japanese pros, which is something the Europeans mostly haven't managed yet (Artem being one exception).

Well, Ilya Shikshin is also above her on goratings. Moreover, I don't think the comparison is fair. The opponent with the highest gorating that Sumire defeated is Hane Ayaka (rating 2878), however Ayaka only has one game in the database... which is the game against Sumire. I think that when a new player is entered into the database, his gorating is automatically set at 3000, and adjusted a posteriori after the first game. A few other opponents of Sumire don't have a reliable gorating either. So, until she has more games against opponents with a reliable gorating of about 2900, my guess is that she isn't stronger than the average European pro, but close to that level, which is already remarkable as I said.

Oops! I was just scrolling down looking for flags that weren't Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Taiwanese, i.e. not mainly red and white with maybe some blue. And guess what colours are in the Russian flag? Apologies to Ilya.

No, that's not at all how the WHR algorithm works.

This is a fair point. The rating algorithm includes error bounds, but the margin of error isn't published. The ratings for people with a small number of games (and for their opponents) will be less reliable.

Remember that when European or American pros play in the main rounds of international events they are playing top pros (like goratings top 100) so losing is very expected (so great job Ryan and Ilya!). Sumire is a new pro and female eo playing bottom pros (not even in goratings or #600-1000). I'm sure the Western pros would have better winrate Vs Asian pros of they were playing the same pool Sumire is now. Just thinking back to some friendship games European pros played in Japan a few years ago Ali Jabarin best some male middle-aged 8p quite far down goratings. And Artem best several ending in Sonoda Yuichi 9p.

Nakamura managed to beat her first 9dan, Baba Shigeru, in the Kisei prelims.

The Kisei bracket is here: https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/match/kisei/045.html. She is in West Block 5th frame. They call her Nakamura Violet if you use the automatic translation into English. Later they call her Naka Nagare. I find these nicknames highly annoying, since it's hard to tell who won.

It looks like she plays "Takatsu Masaaki 1dan" (高津　昌昭初段 in Japanese), but I don't know who that is. He doesn't seem to be listed in the list of 1dan players from here: https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/dan/.

Interestingly enough, 2 amateurs are still in the race, while Fujisawa Rina is out. Ueno Asami is still in it.

There are 4 other 1d female pros left in Kisei: Arisa Moro, Osuga Seiryo, Arai Man涌, Nishiyama Shizuka, Kato Chihiro.

I listed these other player to get an idea of Sumire's strength compared to other 1d female players. It's great that she defeated the 9d Baba Shigeru, but he's 71 and well past his prime (last year he lost in 1st round of these Kisei prelims).

Sumire needs 3 more wins in Kisei to get to the C league, which is very competitive.

Never knew amateurs were allowed there! Any other big ones they can enter in?

Does anyone know where the sgf's are? I found a diagram, but without move numbers [*] and some of those games might be interesting.

Take care.


[*] https://blog.goo.ne.jp/igoshiraishi/e/0 ... 9157bb1ce7 Warning. Last time I used a very similar page someone else got porn pop ups. They didn't pop up in mine, but... Just in case.

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一碁一会

You do know there is Kansai Ki-in as well? https://kansaikiin.jp/wp/prokisi/

Cheers,
Vesa

Nakamura Sumire won the game, but Baba Shigeru wins the coolest name award.

I didn't know there were two different web sites. But thanks, now I know it's https://kansaikiin.jp/kisi_prof/takatsumasaaki.html: 33 years old, became 1d in 2011. He spent 8 years as 1dan...

On that web site, the translation for his name was "Ji Jin Changzhao"? What's up with these guys??

Whatever machine translation software is used on that site is thinking it's a Chinese name. His name would be read Gaojin Changzhao in Chinese. I have no idea why it would think 高 is "Ji". Maybe it's a special reading I haven't heard about.

I don't know what the automaton was (wrongly) thinking, of course, but the character it was facing wasn't 高 - it was 髙

It's common for Japanese people to use old variants of characters in their names (shima is another common case). It's rather like the way English people add an -e to common-or-garden words (Cooke for Cook, Smythe for Smith, Broome for Broom, etc etc). The Japanese variants were especially common in woodblock days, no doubt because they are a bit easier to carve, and so they perhaps now have an air of catalpan elegance for their users.

Tomorrow at the Wu Qingyuan women's championship there will be what I think is a special game between Sumire and the Chinese girl pro Wu Yiming. We've seen Sumire can beat weak Japanese pros, it will be interesting to see how she fares against her less famous Chinese counterpart. English commentary on Yike at https://home.yikeweiqi.com/#/live/room/27113/1/24917797

Those two already faced each other 3 months ago - in pair go:
My translation from the report on the pair go chamiponship in the german go magazine:

„[...] At the side of the pair go world championship, the very young 1 dan professionals were invited to play a qualification match for a place in the main tournament next year. The japanese kids Nakamura Sumire 1p (10 years old) and Fukuoka Kotaro 1p (13years old) were facing the chinese kids Wu Yiming 1p (11 years old) and Hu Zihao 1p(12 years old). It was a close game, but after and endgame mistake from the japanese duo, the cinese kids and 1 dan professionals were able to secure the spot in the pair-go tournament next year“

Wu Yiming won the first game (it appears there is more than 1 arranged).

Oh yes, you're right. Still weird though, since that doesn't change the reading or meaning. It's apparently pronounced gou1 in Cantonese and go in Korean, so it's not like it randomly decided to read one character in another language either. Unless it's Vietnamese or something. What a mystery!

It is best of three. Winner gets a spot in next year's Wu Qingyuan Cup main tournament.

Looks like Wu Yiming won the second game, too... Maybe she also needs a thread?:

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be immersed