i know of a 6k player that i frequently beat (i'm also 6k) that claims that he traveled to japan and achieved a rank of 1 dan. at first i didn't believe him, but couple months later two 1 dan players from japan came to our club, one 8 years old the other 12, and i beat them both in an even game. they've come now several times, and i win against the 8 year old roughly 50% of the time and the 12 year old closer to 33%. based on this i'd rate the 8 year old 6k and the 12 year old maybe 4k. does go ranks differ that much in japan? anyone know?

Yes, they do differ a lot. A Japanese shodan is not the achievement it is in Europe (although those two cited examples seem quite extreme).

Your observation is correct, There is a difference of at least one rank. SL has a page on this. (http://senseis.xmp.net/?RankWorldwideComparison )

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Even in Japan, when someone says that they are shodan, you have to ask where. When I was there, often the strongest player in a country town would be called a shodan. Their strength could vary greatly, even up to 5 dan! (This at a time when 6 dan amateurs were often of pro strength.)

During the last half of the 20th century, amateur ranks inflated at about one stone every 20 years or so. The Nihon Kiin confers shodan diplomas through tournaments, and so the strength depends upon who shows up.

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Go salons (go kaisho) in Japan have their own ranking systems. Someone could well be 1 dan at his/her local salon and be stronger (or weaker) than some one who is 1 dan at a different salon.

People seem to like to disparage Japanese ranks but there have been many Japanese amateurs who visit the USA and European Go Congresses and perform well at the same dan rank as they have in Japan. And it often happens in the USA or Europe that an individual may play weaker (or stronger) than his/her formal rank against another individual. Ranks are averages and thus depend on the group being averaged and might not be very useful in predicting what the result of a game between two particular players would be.

"1 dan here" -- Where is here?

My counter-question is: Is 3 dan in the AGA really 3 dan in the AGA? I played in the 3 dan section at the US Congress, and the average post-congress rating of my opponents was 2.996 (I went WLLWWW, so I was generally keeping pace with the 3 dan band).

This gives me hope of one day getting a shodan diploma without actually playing or studying...

At the Pennsylvania go congress only a few years ago I played a 1d lady from Japan. She gave me only 4 stone handicap when I was about 9k at the time. She seemed surprised that I won fairly easily.

I think go congress is quite a bit better at this than most, but I have seen some amusing effects of this at tournaments. When in doubt, many players intentionally self-promote, because they want to play a stronger field...but the result is you have 10 1k players who self promote to 1d, end up playing each other anyway, and get on average 50-50 scores. After the tournament they themselves are frustrated because they posted a good showing in a "1 dan" section and their rating didn't move! The section ends up being won by the person who had an old rating of 1 dan, was really 3 dan, should have self promoted, but decided against it because they didn't want to seem too cocky by self promoting...

In my experience those players with the non-fitting ranks are invariably those who visited a go class but didn't have much playing practice outside.

Also, a 1 dan in AGA often isn't a 1 dan here either.