Life In 19x19

@balmung: It's not the same kyu.

this poll is a troll

"kyu" means grade/level in korean/chinese
anybody with a k next to their rank is a kyu

case solved!

the word "kyu" I believe means 'stone' in translation

if you look into how the levels and handicap is used, each kyu level up means you lose by 10 stones less etc. f.e. a 4k would need to have a 2 stone handi against a 2k. On top of that, if a 4k played against a 2k even, theoretically (often not the case, but theoretically) they'd average around a loss of 20 points. each stone counts as 10 points. and so handi is used as compensation compared to the opponents strength.

That's the way I learned it at least..

Past that, the previous question was to explain each level of kyu, not just what people refer kyus as.


30ks, how I learned it, this is a complete beginner, knowing practially nothing about the board.

up till 20k, a player learns what liberties are, how to capture, how to escape, and how to fight to an effective degree. Among special moves these people tend to learn includes snap back, connect and dies (where you atari something and lead it to it's eventual death), ladders, and more. This can vary to a strength of 15k.

up till 10k, people learn how to use their new found "special moves" even more effectively to gain more points, or get in a better position.

By this point, a player should know how to read to at least a very basic level.

the fight to 1k, then is how to read out the situations of the board, look at the whole board, and understand how the board works as well as what move is necessary to get a desired effect, and what your opponent may do. Usually by this level you are quite experienced. and the rest of the accent up to dan tends to be varied depending on the individual, how they study, and what they work on, as well as how often they play.

As I understand from a friend of mine, every player has a strength and weakness, one thing that's very strong, and other things that are less than that level that keep you down. It constantly varies and averages out to the "rank" you have. So if you're strong at reading, you may lose to someone who does not allow situations where reading is useful. If you're good at building moyo, you may lose to a strong fighter, etc.

improving what you're "weaker" at, may improve your rank, as well as becoming better at what you're already strong at. This is something each player decides for themselves.

players that are 4d level usually means you're quite serious about the game. Though in my personal opinion, if you get close to dan you're pretty serious already.


but, just to throw this point out here, just because a player might be strong, does not always mean they are an effective teacher. Becoming an effective teacher comes with time and effort, just as learning how to play does.

EeveeM wrote:the word "kyu" I believe means 'stone' in translation

The character 級, pronounced 'kyuu' (long 'uu' sound) in Japanese,
means: level/grade/class/rank/step/degree, but not stone.

EdLee wrote:

EeveeM wrote:the word "kyu" I believe means 'stone' in translation

The character 級, pronounced 'kyuu' (long 'uu' sound) in Japanese,
means: level/grade/class/rank/step/degree, but not stone.

Ah, ok, ^^ thanks Edlee. I'm glad I got corrected. I've thought that for at least 2 years.

The left-hand part of the Kanji, 糸, means thread.

The right-hand part of the Kanji, 及, means reach. It also expresses order, and, further, making contact.

The combination gives something like join threads in a set order, i.e. weave. This gave rise to the idea of relative position, and eventually rank, and grade.

Cassandra wrote:The left-hand part of the Kanji...means... The right-hand part...means...

One note of interest is the character is originally Chinese (and still is ).
(The Japanese term kanji, 漢字, literally means "Han (dynasty) characters", or "Chinese characters":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji )

As for the origins of this particular character 級 --
it may or may not be entirely "semantic".
It could be "phono-semantic," or "pictophonetic," or something else:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character

For example, if it's partly "phonetic", then one side could've been chosen
not for its meaning, but for its sound.

So a little more research is needed to find out which is which.

EeveeM wrote:I've thought that for at least 2 years.

Welcome to the forum, EeveeM.

The explanation is taken from

Kenneth G. Henshall, "A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters", Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company, 1988.

And it really says that the right-hand part of the Kanji acts phonetically (this is the sound "kyû"), but also gives part of the meaning.

Cassandra wrote:(this is the sound "kyû")

Thanks for the reference, Cassandra,
but the original Chinese sound ("thousands(?)" of years ago) was not "kyuu"; that's Japanese and is much more recent.
(Nonetheless, that's a book about how to remember Japanese characters, so maybe it's more applicable. )

I'll join the patzy party of non-native speakers elaborating on the original meaning of Chinese and Japanese characters.

级 as it is written in simplified Chinese, pronounced "ji" with a rising tone, indeed means level or grade. Other than as an equivalent to kyu in a go context, it is commonly used to refer to a student's year in high school or levels of government bureaucracy, for example.

The radical (left part) originally refer to silk or generally weaving, and the right side is phonetic but has many meanings, but two basic ones include "reach" and "be as good as."

cdybeijing wrote:pronounced "ji" with a rising tone

For Mandarin/Putonghua, yes; not for (most?) other dialects,
and (almost certainly) not when the character was first formed, eons ago.

Minor point:

I think that grade for kyu is not right for go usage. In school, first grade comes before second grade, which comes before third grade, etc. Class, however, fits the usage of kyu. First class is higher than second class, which is higher than third class, etc. Grade fits the usage of dan.

Clearly, kyu is an extreme contraction of the Japanese "kare wa yowai desu", meaning "he is weak"

(And I am a weak kyu myself, so don't take it personally.)

I think that grade for kyu is not right for go usage. In school, first grade comes before second grade, which comes before third grade, etc. Class, however, fits the usage of kyu. First class is higher than second class, which is higher than third class, etc. Grade fits the usage of dan.

No, this is all entirely arbitrary. Calling schools years grades is not British usage (in my school we went up from 1st to 6th form), and the implication that dan is somehow higher than kyu is also arbitrary, and so is the ordering. Ultimately grades go back to ancient China, but there the civil service was split into 九品　or 九級 (with 9 as the highest), not dans. Dan = grade is not really a Chinese usage (there the usual meaning of duan is fragment or segment). It is a term from Japanese martial arts that has been copied by the Chinese go world. Traditionalists prefer 品, and so the Taiwanese like this, but they reverse the numbers.

We are actually just following Japanese practice, not a general Oriental approach. But that has been arbitrary, too. The Hoensha under Shuho abolished dans and replaced them with kyu grades. Restoring dans was a condition laid down by the Honinbos for giving Shuho the title. He caved in.

So, trying to fix precise reference points in this case is like trying to pin the tail on a moving donkey.

Those interested in the history of go grades are referred to my article on the GoGoD CD ("grades history" in the index), which was also published in Go World a long time ago.