Amateur ranks were one handicap stone apart. I do not know about when Segoe wrote that, but in the late 1960s go magazines usually featured articles with some 5 dan taking 3 stones from a top pro. Amateur 6 dans had a wide range of skill, which overlapped that of pros. There were some amateur 7 dans, but my impression is that that was an honorary rank. One time at the Nihon Kiin when I was a 2 kyu I played an elderly gentleman who had me take 8 stones and dispatched me easily.

Oh, the actual quote from Segoe was a passing remark, something like, "An amateur can be satisfied to reach shodan, because then he would take 4 stones from a pro." (I know, it doesn't make a lot of sense. ) Since at the time I read that, shodans took at least 7 stones from pros, I assumed that Segoe originally wrote that before WWII.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill, I think you may have misremembered slightly. What Segoe said was:

専門棋士に4子で打てれば、ｱﾏﾁｭｱの有段者だからです。

In other words, you are a player of any dan. The "because" is a follow-on from his explanation that what is distinctive about 4-stone games, rather than 5 and upwards, is that the course is now determined by an ability to create and nurture power (力) more effectively. He also speaks of this as marking a threshold - you "graduate" from 5 stones. Presumably he's implying that the pro can no longer expect the amateur just to roll over when the tactics start, but can now fight back with some degree of success and even take the initiative in attacking quite often.

He said this in the preface to his Strategy Dictionary, written in 1973. From that date it is clear he is talking about modern amateur dan grades rather than the pre-war one where amateurs normally only were given a 1-dan diploma but were then often able to play a pro on 3 stones or less.

Of course he says "can play" against a pro rather than "can win" because the tenor of his section on handicap go is that it is a means of improvement (and an "indispensable" one at that). He adds that in his experience White can win at 2 or 3 stones by playing correctly and not unreasonably, relying mainly on the strategic concept of kurai (位).

At 4 stones and upwards, White has to try from the very beginning to avoid falling behind on overall balance, by which he means trying to do in three or four moves what Black would spend five or six moves on. He has to ally this to making things obscure. Finally he has to rely on exploiting thinness (ｳｽ味) in Black's positions.

The box is a snug fit. My technique is to lightly squeeze the top and the bottom and wiggle the box until the books partly slide out. Then I pull the books out from there.

I've had a couple of books like that over the years. My preferred technique has been to throw away the boxes. It works great!

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Thanks for tracking down the quote, John. I see that I drew the incorrect inference, long ago, that he was talking about being a shodan. That is not what he said, OC, but it is a normal inference from the fact that he said 4 stones instead of 5 or any other number. Like when somebody says that they have 2 children you infer that they do not have 4, although logically they might. In this case, as you indicate, Segoe had other reasons for specifying 4 stones.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Ooh, my heart...

I found that giving the box a single firm shake (like getting the sauce to the other end of a tomato ketchup bottle) works the best.

_________________
12k: 2015.08.11; 11k: 2015.09.13; 10k: 2015.09.27; 9k: 2015.10.10; 8k: 2015.11.08; 7k: 2016.07.10 6k: 2016.07.24 5k: 2018.05.14 4k: 2018.09.03 3k: who knows?

Dear John,

I am afraid that 有段 is NOT equivalent to "ANY Dan".

In several (mostly Tsume-Go-) series that I know, 有段 seems to be used in the meaning of "high(er) Dan", giving a clear distinction from 初段 (= shôdan) that seems to be used as a reference to the "low(er) Dan" stages.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

John is right. High(er) dan player is 高段者.

Perhaps you are seeing a partial revision as a result of rank inflation. Breakthrough to Shodan, for instance, has been renamed to Breakthrough to Three-dan. 有段者 could be unchanged, while 初段 has replaced a kyu rank or range in the original.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I assume you are trying to wind me up, which I would normally ignore, but as I'm trying to fill in a few moments before bedtime, I'll bite.

The short answer is piffle.

The longer answer might perhaps start with Kojien, a vade mecum that is familiar to most Japanese: "有段者：剣道・柔道・囲碁・将棋などで初段以上の人". (Dan holder: a person in kendo, judo, go, shogi etc who is 1-dan or higher).

That example is a reminder that the phrase is part of other recreations and of the normal language. To give examples specific to go, though:

The book 初心者から有段者への特急券 中山 典之 (Express ticket from beginner to dan, by our beloved Nakayama)

私は、今15級です。 囲碁の有段者・高段者に質問です。 囲碁の有段者になるには... (I am 15 kyu. This is a question for dans and high dans. How do I become a dan player in go?)

The next example is from the magazine "Igo" and refers to a survey that (in 2006) indicated the go population in Japan was between 4 and 5 million, of which around 500,000 had dan diplomas:
私見であるが、初段は有段者として認められたい、五段は高段者として認められたい、と言う事であろうか (It's only my opinion but I'd probably say I'd want to regard a 1-dan as a "dan" and a 5-dan as a "high dan". Gekkan Go World likewise presents problems in sections called 有段編 ([low] dan section and 高段編 (high dan section).

High dan grades are the ones often distinguished, and apart from 高段者 a common term is 県代表クラス (prefectural champion standard - in England we would say "county standard").

The Nihon Ki-in advertises a course for 級位者・有段者の集い (a kyu and dan group). It also has a "Happy Dan Club" which actually allows in players down to 3-kyu (the aspirational ones) and it lists separate entry requirements for grades from 1-dan to 6-dan.

It is not even true that tsumego books do it differently. They can of course go straight from 1~2 kyu to dan, but of they want to distinguish they do the sort of thing that Cho U did in his recent masterwork: he refers to (amateur) low dans (低段者), high dans (高段者)　and superdans (強豪 - which he defines as 6-dan and above).

For completeness I should mention an old fashioned usage from the days when amateur and pro diplomas were the same: 高段者 (high dan) was used virtually as a synonym for pro, i.e. above 4-dan. Since a low dan player in the pro ranks had to hand all his earnings over to his teacher, he was often not regarded as a pukka pro.

Dear John,

Thank you very much indeed for your very detailled reply.
It was not at all my intention to offend anybody, perhaps there was a kind of misunderstanding, due to my low level of understanding English. And the much more lower level of understanding Japanese.

You are right that 高段 ("high Dan") is also used in several Tsume-Go books.

However, the usual distinction in ranks, given in the various series (e.g. in the book's titles) that I have in mind, is

-- 初級
-- 中級
-- 上級
-- 初段
-- 有段

In my opinion, this makes sense, only in the case that "beginner Dan" is NOT included in what "owns a Dan(-rank)". This implies that the problems in the latter books cannot be designed primarily for "beginner Dan", e.g. "shodan", "nidan", but for stronger Dan.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

I've seen things like that, but what I think you'll find if you read the prefaces and so on is that shodan is to be taken as aspirational, and that your actual strength is expected to be 1 or 2 kyu. You are doing the problems in order to cross the dan threshold. Similarly for other grades. You are not meant to think like an adult buying a pair of trousers where the waist is a snug fit. You are meant to be like the mother buying a pair for her little boy who she knows will grow.

BTW shodan has a short o.

Sorry, usually contains too much prosaicness for me.


Thanks.

_________________
The really most difficult Go problem ever: https://igohatsuyoron120.de/index.htm
Igo Hatsuyōron #120 (really solved by KataGo)

I think that 30 or 40 years ago the highest amateur rank was 5-dan. Players who won national tournaments multiple times might be awarded 6-dan, but they were functionally pro strength anyhow.