Hi!

Something that's been bothering me for quite a while: It would be nice if someone could enlighten me on the status of professional female go. The only female professionals I know are Rui Naiwei, Guo Juan, Yoon Youngsun and Kobayashi Chizu, the latter three mainly because of their go-spreading activities in the west. It seems to me as if female pros only play in women-only professional tournaments.

However, are they allowed to compete in other tournaments, too?
How high is the price money in female tournaments?
Is there a seperate insei system/pro exam for women?
In HnG we see female inseis and women playing in normal tournaments, is this accurate?
What's the female/male pro ratio?
Who are the currently strongest female professionals?
How do they compare to their male counterparts?

If someone knows some answers to these and related questions I'd love to hear them! It would also be interesting to compare the situation of female players in Japan/China/Korea.

Thanks in advance!

Women can and do compete in male tournaments, but so far only Rui Naiwei has won a large male title: she won the Kuksu in 1999.

Sensei's Library has a page with lots of good links: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Women

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

The strongest female pro is without a doubt Rui Naiwei.
Here is the livejournal of Cho Hye Yeon 9p, a korean female pro and regular challenger of Rui Naiwei: http://loveku.livejournal.com/
(Although she has trouble against Rui Naiwei or her male counterparts, I admire her very much. She's very strong among females and not many pros manage to study (something else than go) while still pursuing their career in competition.)
You may find some infos there. Or you can ask your questions to her directly.
Cho Hye Yeon 9p is listed as being the 4th women to achieve 9 dan ranking and I think it says a lot.
In Korea female pros have their own insei league and pro exam (I read that on her blog). They also have their own tournaments and titles. This is to promote female go players because they have trouble competing against male top pros. I have no idea what the rate is but there are definitely more male pros than female pros.

While at one point you wouldn't have much of an argument, nowadays I don't think that case can be made so easily.

She is getting old and the young ones are coming after her. However I have yet to see any of them match her accomplishments.

My guess would be Xie Yimin. She is by far the best female player in Japan, holding all three major women's titles, and having acquired each without a loss. It is not clear how strong she really is.

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

For the three major Japanese Female tournaments that I am aware of:

KyodoTsushin: 5,800,000 yen
Keizai Shimbun: 5,100,000 yen
NTT Docomo: 5,000,000 yen

Remove 2 zeros to approximate the amount in US dollars.

(Figures from 2011)

Hey guys, thanks for the information so far!
I have to remember some ladies' names or else I won't spot them when choosing a game to review.

I looked up Xie Yimin but her recent results in open tournaments aren't very impressive. It seems we'll have to wait a while for a lady to wipe the floor with some title holders.

Or does anyone know of some young talent that could do that in the future?

Personally, I'm keeping a close eye on Joanne Missingham.

In Japan, she is dominant. Against players from other countries her results haven't been that good.

Right now, Huanglongshi cup is playing.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7919

5 players from each country(Korea, China and Japan) are playing. They are probably strongest in each country.

There are usually a bunch of women entered into every 'normal' tournament, but most go out pretty early in the prelim stages. You can check http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/news.html and all female names are highlighted in red. Amateurs are in blue I believe.



What's with the weird spelling for Korea?

Why do we even need to distinguish between male and female players? Surely go is one game where physical differences are irrelevant.

_________________
Poka King of the south east.

Just my native language leaking through. Sorry.

(although I have moved to Germany a while ago, I'm actually French)

Male and female brains are physically different. Males have more grey stuff than females; females have more white stuff than males. Some gender differences in the brains of fetuses are visible as soon as the 26th week of pregnancy.

Not surprisingly, physical differences result in cognitive differences. On the average, women tend to be better at languages, and have better fine motor skills, and recognize other's emotions more quickly; men tend to be better at math and geometry, and they are better at navigating. ( It is not clear how much of these differences is due to social conditioning. But the relevant parts of the brain appear to be different at birth before any signifcant conditioning can occur )

Go seems to be a game better suited for a male brain.

_________________
Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

This is probably true on at least some reasonable level.

But, with this kind of issue that is both biologically and socially very complex, I want to see some exact numbers. What does 'more' mean? How much more?

When it comes to going from here to making actual claims about the effect on cognitive performance, lets be even more careful. On what basis are these claims made? Are they normalised for all possible variables other than inherent brain construction? How many are there? Are they statistically significant?

From here, even if it turns out to be a biological fact go is 'better suited' to a male brain, what does that mean? How wide are the distributions? What shape are the distributions? How big is the overlap? If we aren't careful, we can lump everything from 'women can never expect more than a tiny fraction of 9ds' to 'inherent brain differences ultimately make no functional difference' under one heading.

I think I've seen this male brain/female brain thing discussed before, either in senseis or the defunct GoDiscussions.

As far as I remember, there are no numbers that indicated anything strongly.

_________________
a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

By way of comparison - there is a much better biological basis for the claim that the best male tennis player in the world should be stronger than the best female tennis player in the world, than there is for Go. (Not saying that the argument is good or bad in either case - getting into that argument would be a horrible time-sink - just that the latter claim is much more silly than the first.)

And yet somehow female professional tennis produces matches and stories that are every bit as gripping as male professional tennis. And colleges and high schools are able to support amazing tennis teams for both genders. And tennis camps are full of little boys and girls, in equal abundance. And if you want to play a casual game for fun, you can easily find another casual player of either gender around your level.

Anyone who doesn't think that the Go world would be healthier with tennis-levels of mobilization of potential female players is neglecting the fundamentals.

I don't think anyone ever argues against having more female players in Go. I don't see what your ultimate point is.

_________________
a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go