I enjoy studying professional games, and decided it'd be fun to follow the matches of some particular player. I considered the obvious perennial title contenders, but then decided "The sports I follow are all male, I want to root for one of the women playing Go at an elite level!" So I turn to your collective wisdom, oh internet masses. Who are the top female professionals?

Overall in past decade or two: Rui Naiwei (Chinese pro, played in Korea and won open "men's" Kuksu title). Probably the strongest female of recent, if not all, time.

More recently Xie Yimin (from Taiwan) has been dominating the Japanese women's scene.

In Korea Park Jieun is a veteran (but younger than Rui) 9d, Cho Hye-yeon is another with a blog at http://loveku.livejournal.com/. Some successful young guns include Choi Jung and from China Wang Chenxing and Li He.

Xie Yimin is clearly strongest for Japan, Joanne Missingham seems to be the top in Taiwan, and she's still young and presumably improving. I don't know about China.

Korea has several strong players, Pak Chi-eun (aka Park Jieun), Cho Hyeyeon and probably some others too. There are probably a couple of Korean pros who are stronger than either Xie Yimin or Joanne Missingham.

Rui Naiwei was the strongest woman in the world for a very long time, as strong as all but the best male players. She is still strong, but I'm not sure whether she is still actively competing.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

You can follow some of the major female tournaments.

http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/hls.html
http://igokisen.web.fc2.com/wr/hc.html

If you enjoy reviewing professional fighting games, do give Rui Naiwei a gander, especially with black. Very direct, very powerful.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

I don’t know where exactly “top” would be, but I’ve had the lucky opportunity to meet Yun Yeong-seon (Yoon Young-sun) in Hamburg and to attend her Kyu rank lessons there, a remarkably clever lady with a fine sense of humour.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?YunYeongSeon
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoon_Young-sun (German page)
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B0%B9% ... E%E5%96%84

Apparently Yun Yeong-seon currentl works with WBaduk.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?