This was posted by Breakfast (viewtopic.php?f=44&t=1423)under the insei league forum, but many members may not read that forum.

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Occupy Babel!

Thx for the info.
Your link was slightly wrong. The correct one is
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=1461

Ingo.

Nice! How do people estimate his chances of success? The competition seems to be very strong and he is not 12 years old... But it would be cool to have another European-born pro.
I understand that Artem Kachanovskiy is also quite young and almost European champion, would he have a chance?

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

He's clearly competitive if not stronger than most former high level yeonguseng in Europe and America, but how those individuals compare to those who actually become pro is difficult to say.

Dinerchtein once estimated his own strength when he became pro as one stone less than those who were qualifying in Korea. The problem is that I don't know 1) how Dinerchtein's strength has changed since 2002, 2) exactly how Ilya now compares to Dinerchtein these days. Maybe he has an edge, but how much (I'm not even 100% sure he has an edge)?

The only thing you can say for sure is that professional qualification in Korea has brutal competition, and it will be a tough road, even if he is one of the strongest competitors.

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Occupy Babel!

Ilja did win against Dinerstein on the EGC-2010.

Dinerstein once said on gosensations.com that Ilja is probably half a stone behind Korean new pros. That was about half a year - year ago(I am not sure)

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Good luck to Ilya.

Whether he makes it or not, he will come out of that gauntlet one whale of a strong player.

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Main Entry: zing·er Pronunciation: \ˈziŋ-ər\
1 : something causing or meant to cause interest, surprise, or shock
2 : a pointed witty remark or retort

I have 20-3 score with Ilya, according to EGD, but our first games took place long time ago.
I played him on EGC, reviewed his games and I can clearly state that he improved a lot since last year.

I am not sure about his chances in Korea, but in Japan it must be possible with his current strength

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Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

I don't want to imply anything but this game decided if Ilya would get his last chance to become European Champion (lucky for him Artem lost his game).

Nevertheless, just following his KGS games I'm very impressed by his strength in fighting and handling complicated positions - truth be told at 4k almost everything is a complicated position for me in high-Dan-games ; )

Good luck to him!

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

We will publish big interview with Ilya in next issue of Goama magazine (in few days).
You can subscribe free of charge here: http://gogame.info/subscribe.html

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Go lessons: http://breakfast.go4go.net/
Russian Go news: https://vk.com/go_secrets/

I'm happy to hear about this, for Ilya.

I asked him an unrelated question last week and he let drop the bomb he.. well, he didn't say he would be trying to become a pro, but.. I suspected it since he won the EGC.

If Ilya becomes a pro now it will give a lot of people a lot of hope.

I don't understand the insei situation in Korea or Japan but, if his goal is to become Pro, and his chances are better in Japan, why not go to Japan?

He said somwhere that then his chances for fighting for titles would bo low or smthg like that as far as I remember.

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Maybe breakfast could ask him this question on the interview? If as stated, Japan's pro enter level is lower and the prize for tournaments is higher, It's reasonable to start his career in Japan? I don't think they have any nationality issues

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求而不得
舍而不能

The interview has already been conducted and sent out. It'd be nice to see it in a follow-up interview, though.

When will Ilya go to Korea?

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Stefany, web programmer

Only just subscribed today.. Is there a way to see this interview? I couldn't find it at the GOAMA archive pages

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Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind. ~ John Fairbairn

Ilya Shikshin has been studying with a Korean pro teacher, Chun Poong Jho 8p, for some years now so it's natural he would go to Korea.