Life In 19x19

That was exaggerated, 엚오!

Interestingly, Sakai Yuki 4 dan Fukuoka Kotaru 4 dan beat a number of Korean 9 dans. I remember a time when it was hardly possible to talk about international pro competition without someone claiming that Japanese 9 dans would only be low dans in Korea; not everyone can be a conversationalist. Now the Japanese low dans are doing pretty well in Korea and it's a strong tournament, except for one 2 dan with 0-1 and a 3 dan with 2-2, Sakai Yuki with 4-7 and Fukuoka Kotaro with 6-5 are the lowest ranked players.

Except --- low rankings of young players can be deceptive. Regardless of how strong a young player might be in absolute terms, it will take time for them to win promotion.

Choi Jeong is currently ranked #7 on Goratings amongst Japanese and Taiwanese players. Her performance in the league was exactly a 50% win ratio, so an average KB league player. Literally the only Japanese and Taiwanese we can expect to have a positive record are 3 Japanese players, Iyama Yuta, Ichiriki Ryo, Shibano Toramaru, and below them 3 Taiwanese players, Yu Zenqi, Hsu Chiayuan, Xu Haohong. That's it.

Mike Novack wrote:Except --- low rankings of young players can be deceptive. Regardless of how strong a young player might be in absolute terms, it will take time for them to win promotion.

True. Sakai Yuki is Rookie of the year (Shinjin-o) and they were both mere 3 dans at the end of last year. They are Nihon Kiin players, from the Tokyo branch, but Kotaro Fukuoka's teacher (according to his Nihon Kiin profile page) is a Korean player in Kansai Kiin. Maybe the Japanese players in the Baduk league have other such connections to Korea.

These two are also doing well in their official games. Their Nihon Kiin profile indicates Sakai Yuki is 9-2 this year and Kotaro Fukuoka is 8-1. Nihon Kiin doesn't list the Baduk league games. Kotaro Fukuoka played in the NHK cup this year and last year, now Sakai Yuki is joining him. They are 17 (Kotaro Fukuoka) and 19 (Sakai Yuki), probably 18 when most of the games in the Baduk league were played.

Elom0 wrote:Choi Jeong is currently ranked #7 on Goratings amongst Japanese and Taiwanese players. Her performance in the league was exactly a 50% win ratio, so an average KB league player. Literally the only Japanese and Taiwanese we can expect to have a positive record are 3 Japanese players, Iyama Yuta, Ichiriki Ryo, Shibano Toramaru, and below them 3 Taiwanese players, Yu Zenqi, Hsu Chiayuan, Xu Haohong. That's it.

She was 8 - 11 according to 'goteveryone'. That is 42%. It's a tough league and team tournaments can also be tough. They best players from different teams are usually paired together, which means there are usually much harder matchups if you are the 1st or 2nd player in a team.

Kotaro Fukuoka's teacher (according to his Nihon Kiin profile page) is a Korean player in Kansai Kiin.

This is Hong Malk-eun Saem who was a Korean amateur 7-dan and former insei living in Japan since 2005. He was second in the World Amateur in 2002.

He transferred to Japan, having married a Japanese amateur in 2004, with a view to trying to become a Japanese pro, but gave up and opened a go school in Tokyo, Japan, before becoming a pro in Osaka. He's now a 4-dan but teaching is his main avocation, and he seems to attract some noteworthy names. Nowadays, young pros often go to multiple schools, and so quite a few will have studied with him even if they don't regard him as their main teacher.

True. Sakai Yuki is Rookie of the year (Shinjin-o)

Our US colleagues can comment on this better than me, but is that not a misnomer? Is not a rookie a player simply in his first full year? Players in the Shinjin-O (King of the New Stars) have typically been around for several years, and so most of them should be regarded as having been derookified, if that doesn't bring tears to your eyes.

King of the New Stars can perhaps be considered a misnomer, too, although when the tournament was devised the idea was to crown a future star. It will be interesting to see how the title is viewed when a female wins it. Recall that Asami was only a whisker away a couple of years ago. Shogi has introduced the term Queen 女王 but I don't recall that being used in the title of any go event. It's fairly common in ordinary journalistic persiflage, of course. I think Aoki was dubbed the First Queen of Go when she won the 1st Teikei Female Legends Cup.

I just went by the Google translate without thinking. It seems that in Japanese baseball the rookie of the year award is referred to in this way. Winning this tournament is probably a good indicator that someone will be among the top players in a few years. Maybe it's similar in that way to the rookie of the year award.

Even "new players champion" could be something of a misnomer. The rules of the tournaments in recent years are that players must be under 25 and less than 6 dan and not have won the tournament. Before 2007 there wasn't this restriction on former champions competing again. Yoda Norimoto and Yamashita Keigo, for example, won repeatedly. The winner will often be someone who was already a pro for some time, especially with 9 year-olds becoming pros these days.