I don't know if you follow the chess world, but much the same was said of chess. The top engines didn't get there by number crunching better, they got there by having a better heuristic appreciation of a position. I don't see why the same isn't possible with Go.

Many people, perhaps including yourself, have some misunderstanding and confusion about this.
This seems off topic, but I'm happy to discuss this more in PM if you'd like.

The thing is they didn't get there by shear number crunching or heuristics. They got there by storing all winning positions in things called "End Game Table-bases", I am pretty sure these don't work for Go.

It's not terribly different from having pre-evaluated joseki, though it comes at a different stage of the game. One certainly might speak of playing to get an opponent or computer 'out of book'.

why not just discuss it here so the rest of us could benefit?
don't be afraid to go off-topic. that's what healthy discussions do.

And in chess they have both openings and table-bases. I think the difference is that by doing the preprocessing off-line, they can eliminate much of the computation that is needed to play the game, IE they can terminate the searches early in chess. However, constantly searching through the end of the game to evaluate winning moves, is quite a burden computationally.

xed_over, good question. A short answer is there are huge, nasty cans of worms in many places.

A few random samples:
Q W E R T Y U

I took the original question to mean "what is the rank equivalent between amateurs and pros". Based on my small amount of reading, it seems like the skill level of 1d-9d and 1p-9p overlap somewhat. Where is the overlap?

Here's the Sensei's page on Worldwide Rank Comparison

But it doesn't list professionals. Perhaps I mistook the question

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The tone of voice was unclear to me. I could not tell whether it was rhetorical, a joke, sarcasm, or a genuine search for information.

This varies from country to country, and even from individual to individual.
For example, in China, some amateur 6-dans are actually ex-pros -- they quit their pro status.
In China, an amateur 7-dan is usually a national champion (in China) -- they're near or at pro level.

No sarcasm or rhetoric. I really don't know. PM's or discussion or a new thread or whatever, I'd just like to know! the difference between a pro and a amateur in many things comes down to whether or not you get paid and what the umbrella organization said the rules are. Go has a bunch of orgs with different rules around the world. So, what makes a pro? There has to be money and orgs involved, but what is it skill wise? Are there "amateurs" as good or better than pros? I haven't cared about anything but learning how to play (perhaps 'well' someday >.< ) so I haven't learned much about the 'system'. Embarrassing as it is to admit it...

burrkitty, actually there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Most people (the general public)
know very little about pros. This is a very deep, interesting, and rich topic.

For starters, look at the pro exam, held annually, in China.
(I'm much less familiar with the pro exams in Korea or in Japan,
although Hikaru spent a few chapters on it. ) So the following refers to China.

Some years ago, there used to be around 200 people taking the pro exam.
Recently, it may be up to 400, or even 500. These are among the best amateurs
in the country. I think the current number is around 20 new pros per year.
Take into account the population of the country, and the Go population.
About 20 new pros per year. Think about what this means.

Basically pros are certified by a professional organization, and have the ability to play in tournaments organized by that organization (often they get a playing fee for playing official games as well). As Ed mentioned, there are many people trying to be pro, but in any given year there are only a handful who are actually certified, typically via a tournament. The end result is that there is a decent amount of luck involved in who actually gets to become a pro (that is, you have to be very strong and a bit lucky in the given qualifying tournament). To try and frame it in a more "US centric" context, imagine if professional sports only allowed 1 round in amateur draft every year. For sports fans: This means you have an NFL that never sees Brett Farve or Drew Brees, NBA that never sees Dennis Rodman or Mark Price, and MLB...well its draft is such a crapshoot let's just not go there. The point is that the highly selective nature of choosing professionals means that the skill cutoff is more or less arbitrary and there is a sizable pool of amateurs with near equal skill to that of new pros, the only difference is the certification. Now, there may be some divergence after the players have been professional for a while, simply because if you start with two equal players and throw one into an environment where they are constantly playing and studying with the strongest opponents they will improve their game faster, but that's probably enough for a whole other thread.