What happened to Lee Changho? Is it because of the aggressive styles he faces?

He's simply 40 years old.
He can't play at the same level he used to, and he probably doesn't try as hard anymore. Most of the top players move on at some point between 30 and 35. Gu li is going back to college for example, and he's "only" 33.
He probably have much more free time now, to enjoy his family and everything .

Several suggestions:
1) He got older and got worse
2) The level of other pros increased
3) He got married (in 2010 when he was 35. His big downward trend in rating began in 2008 (http://www.goratings.org/players/18.html). I doubt this is a coincidence: his priorities changed).

marriage

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It doesn't seem that long ago that it was considered inconceivable that anyone under 30 could win a major title, and Sakata was about 44 when he won 7 titles in one year.

How times have changed!

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

And time limits.

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are you guys joining the Micky Mouse Club?

My pro teacher says that once a player gets married it is all over.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/sergey-kar ... challenger

Sergey Karjakin, 26 years old, got married 2 years ago, and just won a fairly elite chess candidates tournament to challenge Magnus for world champion at the end of the year. Marriage doesn't necessarily mean you can't also stay at the top level ..

EDIT: Also, the winner of the last candidates is 40+, as is the current world #2 ...

Myungwan Kim 9p made a very interesting comment in one of his recent online reviews. He said he thought Lee Changho is actually stronger now than before. It's just that the current generation has moved ahead.

I think this is a minority opinion, but an interesting one.

Don't talk about Annette!

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Well that view changed in the mid-60s, which after all is rather a long-time ago, predating your own Go 'career'.

Well, I think it depends on the player. Lee Sedol has been married about a decade and it didn't stop him winning loads of titles. However he seems like a friendly outgoing sociable type, who has learned to balance family and career since he was in his early 20s. Lee Changho on the other hand I get the impression is not so sociable and pursued his Go career to the exclusion of everything else (there's the story of him not being able to tie his own shoelaces) so when family came into his life in his 30s it displaced Go. As another example Iyama Yuta got married a few years ago (to a pro shogi player I think) and kept winning, though I seem to recall some unsure translation about them getting separated recently, maybe because of his focus on winning the big 7.

Where can I read more about Gu Li?

Burnout is well known in any career which demands intense expenditure of energy over a long period of time. The shorter game time limits might increase the intensity in go. Also, in China and Korea there seem to be more tournaments so the pros have to play more frequently. Thirty or forty years ago or so in Japan, before the rise of Korea and China, playing 60 or 70 official games per year was considered a hard schedule. So it could happen that pros reached their peak later (e.g Sakata) and sustained a high level of playing longer (e.g. Fujisawa Hideyuki and others). On the other hand, playing long time limit games is also a strain. Some years ago a Japanese pro told me that pros who were over the hill for playing in big title matches were still strong in very fast games such as the TV tournaments.

Well, Lee Sedol's wife and daughter live in Canada, while Lee Sedol lives in Korea. I'd imagine that would give Lee Sedol a bit more free time

That being said, I agree with your point that some pros react to marriage differently than others. I wouldn't say that pros that win while married are better at balance, though - just a different balance.

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How long have they lived there? Did they move there a few years ago when Lee also said something like he'd retire and move to USA/Canada in a few years?

It was in 2012 ([1]).



But yeah, it wasn't too long ago - here we can see that his daughter was 6-years old before they left. I just wanted to point out that Lee Sedol's and Lee Changho's situations are different. This may be due to their personalities, too. It's possible that Lee Changho has a different personality than Lee Sedol, and would be more opposed to being a "goose father".

In any case, I agree that it's possible for a married pro to stay sharp on his game - but I also think it's related to their priorities. Some people are changed more after marriage than others.

[1] https://www.cyberoro.com/news/news_view ... &div_no=11
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gireogi_appa

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